Shame and pride.

I just read John's post, which is fantastic, and I'm moved to update this thing. I especially appreciate John's inclusion of "Music of the Night," because there was a time when I was balancing NWA's Efil4zaggin with Phantom of the Opera (and a girl named Diana, who was no doubt confused by it all). I would come home, eat Bagel Bites, listen to "Real N***az," then play the first act of Phantom. What?

Anyway, I wanted to write about secret shames in music. I figure there's a formula of sorts here. One has to have loved it with a deep and transporting love; one also has to feel embarrassment over the intensity and subject of that love. It's not enough for the song to be tolerable and lame; Britney Spears' "Stronger," for instance, isn't good enough or embarrassing enough, even if it's made a half-dozen mix CDs for me in its time. I think it's a concatenation (what?) of the personal embarrassment one feels and any additional embarrassment relative context might give the song. I might listen to songs from 16-bit Japanese RPGs by myself, but Justin does, too, and Justin is awesome; also, that's a kind of niche cool. And I'm not embarrassed by it.

Not everything fits. While I feel a small measure of embarrassment at loving everything about this Poison song, it's very small. And seeing the video again reminds me what they were working with in the 80s. All viewers were just slapped with pathos. And how is the father's delivery of every line at the beginning? Watch his reaction to where his daughter wants to move and how soon; also, I think the mother is dead inside. Pathos? I wasn't going to embed every video, but man:



Actually, holy God, what just happened in that video. Did we all just lose? Was that in slow motion? The spitting? Oh, man. I saw Poison in concert when I was 10. That was when it peaked for me. One more thing on this video: the body language of the casting director (?) at 1:00. How's that lean across the table? She had no idea walking in the door what would happen.

Similarly, Alice Cooper's "Poison" is awesome, not embarrassing. True, it's cheesy; but only if "cheesy" means "awesome and filled with half-naked women around chains with no explanation and also snakes." And the thing is that I'm not talking about the video. That's the visual you get from the guitar alone.

Sometimes the embarrassment is contextual. For instance, I will never feel ashamed of how much I loved (love) S.E.S., and "Dreams Come True" is easily the happiest I've ever been. (Notice that I didn't say "listening to;" somehow I just mean that the song is the happiest I've ever been. Plus, late 90s South Korean CGI, everybody. I guess they're in space, and there are flowers and fairies, but also at the 36 second mark, a giant demon monster.)



I loved S.E.S. passionately up until their breakup, which followed treasures like "Just a Feeling," which is what I embedded above this. (Oh, Bada. I have a sticker of you in my wallet still.) Most people would call my love of this kind of music embarrassing, but I feel great about it. Once upon a time, I even hosted a radio show (for two years?) where I played S.E.S. and other Asian pop, rock and hip-hop (Drunken Tiger, L'arc-en-Ciel, Yoko Kanno).

Bonus S.E.S.: I own their first concert (called appropriately "First Concert: Sweet Kiss from the World of Dream"), during which your mind is blown. Each of them performs a "special," which is whatever they wanted it to be, I guess: Sea plays the piano and cries; Eugene dances to TLC's "Creep;" and Shoo does this:



There is an epic post of its own about that concert, which has the best camera work and singing and dancing. If it had been a middle school talent competition and not a sold-out concert in Seoul Arena for the most popular band in the entire country.

Bonus Korean girl group: M.I.L.K., which stands for Made in Lovely Kin (because of course), with "Crystal."



I have a deep and unflinching love for this song in every way, and the video. More CGI! Also, "my style and the crystal." That lyric rhymes and is in English. I think one day I will openly admit what I know in my heart, which is that M.I.L.K. made a better song than Dreams Come True. It just came into my life at the wrong time: a little too late for total commitment. Still: they are so good.

Double bonus pseudo-shame: move's "Around the World." I memorized every lyric to this syllabically, because I have no idea what it's saying. My dream is to perform it with Charlotte and Justin. Live. Justin would be the rapper, and I would play both drums (?) and keyboards; Charlotte would come in to sing the chorus.



In a similar contextual vein, my wife's reaction to learning that I love Enigma and especially the song "Sadeness" was, "Really? Seriously?" She is mean, though. And she doesn't know about me blasting Enigma once while a repairman was visiting our house in Virginia Beach, to the point where he stopped my mom and said, "What is that chanting stuff up stairs? It's pretty good." See that? "It's pretty good," this possibly apocryphal repairman said. Anyway, I am not ashamed of Enigma. Half of the lyrics are in French, which is classy. Look:



(Also, what is the guy in the video writing with his quill pen? Is it the lyrics? A love letter? He's very sad around the 30 second mark. Or he died.)

Wait, hold on! I thought of an even better Korean example of shameful excellence. It's called "Summer Dance" (your first sign), features every SM Town star (your second sign), and goes a little bit like this:



Wooooooow. I don't have the time to walk you through that one, but I guess I feel slightly embarrassed by how awesome I still find it, even now. If you need some help, just watch the serious faces the "tough" stars make. Also, think about the rapping. Have they listened to any late 80s rap? And listened poorly?

In the end, I have almost no musical shame. I love Rent and Chess (oops, a little ashamed of that one -- except that this is exactly what I imagine Bangkok was like for Justin in every way); I also love NWA and Bushwick Bill.



(Note: You lost to Bushwick Bill.)

I love Backstreet Boys and Korn on the same mix. (My wife also mocked me for Korn, but she's mean.) I love this song from A Goofy Movie, because it is the best song you have heard today:



The point isn't that any of that is bad. (All of it is the best.) It's simply that there are reasons for me to be ashamed of all of it, and I'm not, really, except maybe for Chess.

My real musical shames, then, are specific. I'm going with what John wrote, which I'll paraphrase by saying that when the song comes on, I am transported away and need to be alone with it. It doesn't matter if my wife is incredulous at my joy (she is). You might also identify these by asking: If any of my students ever knew that I loved the song, would I no longer be able to teach, having lost any and all respect I had once gained in the classroom? Also, would I be fired?

To a lesser extent, I don't know what to do about my love for pop country music. Shania Twain is probably too Mutt Lange to count. He makes everything good, unless you're my wife, who doesn't seem to realize how awesome this song is:



Are you kidding?

"Gunpowder and Lead," however, by Miranda Lambert, has no Mutt Lange to be seen. Cat and I discovered that recently while driving through the South, and what do you know about country music? It is so good. (I can't find a real video for the song, but you just need to hear it to appreciate it.) I love the lyrics to this song.



But I don't love that song enough to be ashamed of it. I never played it every hour or so while on my honeymoon, for instance, or put it on four consecutive mix CDs made in the same day, just in case I couldn't wait long enough to change CDs to hear it.

I did all of that for this song (which doesn't exist in embeddable form):

Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats"

I can't explain this one, so it's kind of embarrassing. I just really, really like it. Not as much as my TRUE secret shame, but a lot. (And "Gunpowder and Lead" is growing on me. Do I just love country/pop songs about visiting horrible violence on philandering/abusive men? What does that reveal about me? Probably something less embarrassing than what might be revealed by the next song...)

Okay, then! What's the only thing I love so deeply that it qualifies for all-time secret shame? What is so embarrassing on every level that it also makes me kind of proud, because, seriously, what happened? What am I doing?

Hoku - "Another Dumb Blonde"

(Sorry, it's also impossible to find an embeddable copy of that one. Maybe somebody else recognizes the latent hit potential of it!)

A couple of things here:

1) I was 20 when this song came out.
2) I love this song.
3) I don't know that I want to love this song, but I can't help it.
4) I sing this song when it's on.

My sister once took video of the ground just so she could record the audio of me singing this in an adjacent room. In the video, you can hear me missing the high notes but going for it anyway. And the camera is shaking with suppressed laughter as Charlotte tries not to give away her position, knowing that I would be embarrassed enough to stop.

I don't think I had seen the video for this Hoku song since it came out (on Disney?), which means that I must have heard it, known it was a lifetime love, and committed to breaking it out on mix CDs every few months.

Palate cleanser:



Now my only shame is what I'm doing to the planet that Michael Jackson loves. PS: If he hadn't waited until 2:37 to give you those drums and that bass (!), you would have no chance of making it through all seven minutes of this song. Do you see him collapsing in the video? Your mind/ears couldn't take it.