Rock 'n' Roll never forgets

If you would've told me 10 years ago that I'd be having a great time watching a Bob Seger cover band, I'd have thought you were nuts. But there I was at the Hemlock on Saturday, rocking out to Total BS, a tribute outfit comprised of hipsters from Harold Ray: Live In Concert, Comets on Fire, and Drunk Horse.

"Rock 'n' Roll Never Forgets," "Hollywood Hills," "Night Moves," "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man." I loved them all.


It's freaking weird how the times -- and people -- change. When I was growing up, all I knew was classic rock and Top 40, save for what little jazz and weird noise came in fuzzily from a nearby college station. I listened to all that '70s stuff like Boston and Styx and Bob Seger, along with the hippie shit my dad turned me onto. But somewhere around 1984, I started discovering stranger artists like the Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, and Kate Bush. They felt like home to me, like I was some foster child visiting my birth parents' house for the first time. In my small town, I always felt like an outsider, like everyone thought I was an idiot for reading books or watching Casablanca or eating whole wheat bread. But these songs were like a beacon, like some message from aliens telling me that the mothership would eventually find me. (I'm sure it's easier today, where some miserable kid in Iowa can tune into the Internet and discover there's plenty of freaks just like him.)

Anyway, after I discovered indie-rock, I started equating classic rock with the small-mindedness of my hometown and therefore hating on it. Only recently did I come to re-appreciate some of the songs of my childhood, although I still felt guilty about liking them.

Late last year, upon Chris' suggestion, a bunch of us made CDs of our 10 favorite guilty pleasure songs. It got me thinking a lot about what made something sound good now. Why, for instance, did Bon Jovi still sound awful to me, while Bob Seger did not? Why was Billy Joel more embarrassing than Steve Miller? Was Kenny Loggins a genius or a hack? And was there anything remotely forgivable about the Spin Doctors? (Answer to that last one: Still no, but wait a few years.)

Well, here's what I came up with for the GP disc, expanded to 15 songs. I've tried to say why I like them and why I'm embarrassed by them.

1. Bob Seger - "Night Moves." Yeah, I just said how great he is, but he's also kind of silly, here, talking about being a teenager and working on his night moves. The track's like a commercial approximation of Van Morrison's Celtic soul and Bruce Springsteen's adolescent poetry, but it's so epic I just don't care.

2. Billy Joel - "Only the Good Die Young." A bizarre appropriation of doo wop, more adolescent angst (a pattern forming?), euphoric in its snotty white boy soul.

3. John Cougar (before he was Mellencamp) - "Hurt So Good." God, what a hook, the kind made for air guitar marathons. Decadent and romantic and stoopid, with tons of handclaps.

4. .38 Special - "Hold On Loosely." I have very little tolerance for southern rock. The good liberal in me can't forgive them for that whole slavery thing, the continuing waving of the Confederate flag, their desertion of the Democratic Party. But for some reason, I'm a sucker for this hook.

5. Kenny Loggins - "Footloose." Ugh, those synthesized drums, that organ, that voice. Sooo bad it hurts. But so happy too. I mean, he's rebelling against a preacher who won't allow dancing. How can you not get behind that?

6. Olivia Newton John - "Physical." I was going to go with "Xanadu" because when I was in seventh grade the music class teacher asked us to introduce ourselves by saying what our favorite song was, and I chose that synth-pop soundtrack hit and was completely shocked by the rest of the class' hooting reaction. How could they not love Olivia the way I did? But I listened to the song again and it didn't hold up, not the way "Physical" did. Still gets me hottt.

7. Ready for the World - "Oh Sheila." More bad '80s drums, a fake British accent, and pseudo-Prince grunts. Way over the top, way catchy.

8. Mr. Big - "To Be With You." Okay, this is the most embarrassing one. A trashy acoustic ballad by an '80s hair metal band. I can't explain it, I really can't.

9. Bobby McFerrin - "Don't Worry Be Happy." Yes, we're going chronological. And yes if I have any hipster cred left, it's gone now. Come on, imagine if that guy from the Police Academy movies was a singer -- this is what he'd sound like.

10. Easy-E - "Gimme Dat Nut." I played this seriously misogynist rap tune at a TKS party. I don't know what I was thinking, except that it's soooo catchy.

11. Montell Jordan - "This Is How We Do It." Quite possibly the whitest black rapper ever. When he says "shorties" and "faded," he sounds like Sam on that episode of Cheers when he rapped the sports news. Hell of a groove though.

12. Sheryl Crow - "All I Wanna Do." I am a sucker for Rickie Lee Jones knock offs -- you know, the kind of sexy female singer who seems like she'd be fun to drink a bottle of whiskey with.

13. Lil' Kim - "Tongue Song." I am also a sucker for raunchy female rappers. Honestly, if I ever find a woman who loves this kind of stuff as much as she loves Belle & Sebastian, I will marry her.

14. The Killers - "Mr. Brightside." I've skipped most of the '90s, but here's a modern rock fave from the '00s. Big dumb emoriffic fun. Whiny and unstoppable.

15. T-Pain - "I’m N Luv Wit a Stripper." Bad spelling, minimalist hook, and a moronic lyrics ("she pop and she roll and she rollin'/ she climbin' that pole,'n"). One of the most bizarre ballads to hit the Top 10 in years. So wrong on so many levels, but after you've seen a bunch of 15 year olds singing it, it's hard not to love.