Guilty Pleasures.

Always better the fashion show, than no show at all. Palumbo 1:54.

I know what guilty pleasures are, but unless you're Harold Shipman, I just can't relate to you. I realise that the whole idea is that it's a love for a film, song, or hobby that you normally wouldn't like. I understand that it might purely be because you're acting out some deep-seeded connoted urge, but I don't know what there is to be embarrassed about.

Quite often you'll hear musicians or DJs talk about the first CD they owned, and it's never , ever anything that hasn't stood the test of time. It's always Michael Jackson or Stevie fucking Wonder. Where are Babylon Zoo and The Outthere Brothers!? I know they're all crying in the shower, but I meant in people's first song purchases? You're all liars man! Obese, lying liars! Shut up! Kids don't like Joy Division you total knob!

I don't like X-Factor at all, but it was on at my Dad's when they had the guilty pleasures episode on. The songs that were chosen made less sense than a glass hammer. The Pretenders!? Arctic Monkeys!? Led Zepplin!? CHAKA CHAKA CH-CH-CH.............CH-CHAKA KHAN!?!?!?! 'Here Dermot mate, my guilty pleasure is audio.' I was expecting Belinda Carlisle, Jefferson Starship and Gary's Glitter, but got stuff that I thought people would be proud to love.

Undoubtedly trend-following in music is in no way consigned to pop music, no matter what anyone says, and I’m totally guilty too. I remember when I went through a bit of a Hardcore Punk phase, and noticed that there seemed to be, scientifically speaking, proper' loads of people within that scene (ugh) that loved...wait for it...Bjork…….’EH!?’ I thought and said. I asked people to explain it, but everyone just explained why Bjork is awesome, without ever explaining how they suddenly made the shift from brutal vociferous noise to nebulous, ethereal beauty. So I listened to Bjork more through confusion than curiousity and ended up really getting into her. It's not particularly important, but that link still makes no sense to me. Good story.

Interestingly, the people I know who have relatively alternative tastes and would wax lyrical about how they love Led Zepplin and The Arctic Monkeys, would admit to liking Lady Gaga, or Ace of Base or something, and then go on about how The X-Factor is just a popularity contest. It is, it's painful to watch someone who's really enjoying it, get confused and outraged to the power of Mark Wahlberg over Wagner (quite a fitting name for the music Nazis) getting through each round. The point is that they're opting in to that very same contest by giving one solitary shit over whether anyone else cares if they love Erasure or not! Embrace it!

Incidentally. I once told my dad I thought Erasure were massively under-rated and then had to neck on with a braud and then smack her about a bit, just to wipe the concerned look off his face.

I love it when I meet people who have a genuine passion for anything, I instantly get on board with them, and buy into their unabashed enthusiasm. It usually results in me fickely spending too much money on something that ends up as a fleeting interest. I have no real interest in medievil churches, illustration, photography, antiquities or even mortgages, but if I see the joy in your eyes when you're telling me about it, my ears are yours. The point I'm laboriously getting to, is that these people don't give one fig what anyone thinks of their passion, because that doesn't even come into the equation.

Perhaps it’s incredibly arrogant to think that I know better, but because the love of my life, after Newcastle United's Fabricio Coloccini, is music, whenever someone tells me that a song, album, or artist is their guilty pleasure, this presumptuous little alarm goes off in my head, telling me that their heart's not really in it, or at least not for the right reasons.

It’s a bit of a touchy point, because the bottom line is, without being these people, I clearly haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about. Most people I know have extremely eclectic tastes in just about everything, but a lot will almost admit that they like something that they think is frowned upon. I don’t know why they care, relative to my own musical taste, my own music taste is the best there has been and ever will be, and each to their own. People say 'each to their own', but I don't think it's ever said positively. I think it should be. Repeat to fade, goodnight.