Guilty Pleasures of Irish Music
You’ll have to buy the current issue of Q Magazine to see the full list of over 100 songs, but no Irish performers feature in the Top Ten Guilty Pleasures of all time. But it’s a list, so one Irish act is mentioned - but which one? It’s not Gilbert O’Sullivan but I’ll put money on him being in there.
A Guilty Pleasure is described as liking a pop record even though you know it’s just a bit wrong - so you hide those singles towards the back of your vinyl stack when the lads come around for tea.
An Irish list would have Brendan Shine, Foster & Allen, The Corrs, Bryan McFadden, The Furey Brothers, Stockton’s Wing, and anybody that represented Ireland in the Eurovision.
It is of course founded in nostalgia, and timely given the final Top of the Pops at the weekend, but it’s also true to acknowledge that with the advent of Punk in Britain in 1976, followed swiftly by New Wave, there is an entire canon of pop music that was immediately abandoned.
Abandoned publicly that is. Privately you were still loving David Essex, and singing Andrew Gold’s Never Let Her Slip Away, as soon as anybody’s back was turned.
There’s a podcast, which is worth listening to for the sheer enthusiasm of Sean Rowley, the expert in Guilty Pleasures, and we do learn that Ireland’s Ronan Keating, former Boyzone Boy, is among the hallowed gems with Life is a Roller Coaster, although Rowley gives all of the credit to the songwriter, Grammy-winning Gregg Alexander of the New Radicals and You Get What You Give fame.
Left out of the discussion is the fact it’s really a male thing, because it’s only men who lie about what music they really like - even to themselves. Women never see anything wrong with liking Marshall Hain, Sad Cafe, or Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb.
Top 10 Guilty Pleasures
1. ELO - Livin’ Thing
2. Boston - More Than A Feeling
3. S Club 7 - Don’t Stop Movin’
4. 10cc - I’m Not In Love
5. Gary Glitter - Rock’n'Roll Part 2
6. Foreigner - Cold As Ice
7. Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
8. Status Quo - Whatever You Want
9. Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
10. Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive
Source: Q Magazine
See Also:
• If 9 Things Irish Singers Wished For Came True
• Lordi Lordi Me
• 50 Albums that Changed Pop Music
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
I LOVE ELO and I will never feel guilty or apologize for it. Rock on “Evil Woman”.
Where did “Kansas” rank?
Ah now, don\’t bring me down.
The list is very much singles focused, and from a British perspective - which means only American songs which made an impact on the British charts or British radio tend to feature. So Boston, Asia, Chicago, Journey, Foreigner all made a bigger impact in that regard.I won\’t see the publication itself for a couple of weeks, but I suspect Carry On Wayward Son is more likely than Dust in the Wind to make it on to the list.