The Guilty Pleasures/So-Bad-They're-Good Albums Thread (retitled)

keenly said:

I just finished making a DVD A of their quad mixes. Have you heard them?

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I have not had the pleasure....sounds interesting though.

First of all, KC and the Sunshine Band's work might have been overbaked at times (okay, most of the time) but they could play, and you could dance to it, and there were a lot of disco acts out there who were truly awful (Bob McGilpin, anyone? The trash of Alec R. Constandinos? Anything Cerrone?) I mean, not everyone could be Donna Summer, but KC, for what they were, I didn't think were bad at all (predictable, yes; bad? Nah).

One bad album from the disco album I do cherish for its badness if Viola Wills' IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND from 1980. I remembered Wills from the '60s, as I have at least one 45 of hers. She didn't have much success back then, but apparently stuck it out, and the title track was a big hit in some clubs. But some material just isn't suited--and made no sense--being discofied, and Gordon Lightfoot's best ballad track in disco form is not only painful and laughable, but loses the mystery and romance of the original. When you can't add anything to a cover but beats per minute and shrill vocals, then you really haven't done anything good, regardless of the fact that you could dance to it. The whole album is a mess, with "Up On the Roof," among others, being finely trashed (to be fair, the cover of "Always Something There to Remind Me" looked ahead to the '80s UK pop sound--a little).

My idea for the thread, though, is to find albums you dig hearing even though you know you shouldn't be enjoying them--and you're liking them precisely because you know the dubious intent behind some of them (and some had no point except to exist--hey, everyone's gotta have a roof over their head and a little cash in their pocket). So the intent here is not to be mean, just honest.

ED

I don't know if it qualifies here, but my guilty pleasure is from my childhood, Sesame Street Fever, and also Bob McGrath SIngs. He had a good voice, but you can tell he didn't really want to make that album.

Circular Vibes said:

I don't know if it qualifies here, but my guilty pleasure is from my childhood, Sesame Street Fever, and also Bob McGrath SIngs. He had a good voice, but you can tell he didn't really want to make that album.

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I have that one too, and you're right, his heart really wasn't in it, heh (Susan's album was more fun to hear, IMO). The SESAME STREET BOOK & RECORD from 1970 is a cute guilty pleasure but, as it was aimed at the kiddies (well, their parents, actually), that kinda thing--even if the songs sucked, and most of 'em don't--is really beyond criticism; I mean, you'd have to be a real dope to knock a children's album, however silly it was. I have a few Mr. Rogers albums he put out on his own label (or his company's), and not only are these cute, but in stereo, too (for you collectors interested in such things).

ED

Guilty pleasure is still AL hirt, great lounge music now, but I took trumpet in the early 70's. He had an lp for every musical styling.

My guilty pleasure is Abba. I've seen Mamma Mia on stage twice, it's one of my favorite plays.

I think "Hocus Pocus" is one of the best crossover hits ever to hit the airwaves. Just so original and zany. It's wonderful.

Doug

Odys said:

My guilty pleasure is Abba. I've seen Mamma Mia on stage twice, it's one of my favorite plays.

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Abba is Koo tooooooooo :banana:

I'd kill for some Abba in 5.1 hi-rez....I really would.

OK, I have one. I absolutely always LOVED this song. Why? Well, it brings back a very vivid memory of a time back in junior high school when I had a crush on an older girl...who happened to have a car and picked me up and took me to school.

Yeah - this song is cheesy....and I'm pretty sure the band went no where after this?? Though not sure.

STARLAND VOCAL BAND - Afternoon Delight. (yeah, a big time guilty pleasure)

[video=youtube;2NUkhMq_iRo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NUkhMq_iRo[/video]

OK, I may be going too far....but seriously....

I remember buying a box of Raisin Bran because they had the little 45's cardboard records you could cut out from the back of the cereal box. Bobby Sherman was one of those 45's......I used to play the heck out of the cereal box 45!

Easy Come Easy Go....guilty pleasure....horrible artist.....cheesy song....I love it!

[video=youtube;QJOuTr0BXb4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJOuTr0BXb4[/video]

NWH - Fear of a Black Hat soundtrack. This of course was the rap equivalent of This is Spinal Tap. (drops the mic and leaves the stage)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL...XuK&params=OAFIAVgE&v=v7zzWLKgd_0&mode=NORMAL

GOS said:

I'd kill for some Abba in 5.1 hi-rez....I really would.

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Actually, there's a little fix out there for you (us)... Dana Winner - Unforgettable Too SACD has a pretty decent ABBA medley on it: 9 mins plus including Mama Mia, Knowing Me Knowing You, Take A Chance On Me... and the 5.1 mix is real good!

The "bad' records I like are usually stiff renditions of popular rock songs. Sometimes there is actual "good" music scattered on albums like that. To me, there is approximately one good Percy Faith album (and it is very good).
People making small-press independent releases can also be so bad they are good. And then there's Muzak....
Although this link is to a "Jet Set" radio show, the show often celebrates "so bad it is good" music:
http://www.kfai.org/jet-set-planet

Speaking of Bobby Sherman...he spent a good part of the '60s trying to making it. I have 45's on Cameo and Decca, and he did land a guest part on the Monkees TV show. Then he got a supporting role in a short-lived (1969-70) TV series, HERE COME THE BRIDES I think it was called, and signing with the new Metromedia label, landed his first real hit with "Little Woman" (imagine hearing that one now on the radio--not likely!). Among many dubious hits, the worst for me was "Julie Do Ya Love Me," and it points up the real problem of would-be teen idols: no personal musical direction. His producers and handlers rarely let him do anything 'rock,' rather wanted him to look cute but sound like a Vegas lounge singer, and on the main, succeeded. "Easy Come, Easy Go," "Cried Like a Baby"...the teen gals bought them for a time, but like most others working that turf, within two years he was pretty much well on his way off the charts (he later became an EMT). Say what you want about the Monkees, they not only had some great production/writing teams to work with, they had minds of their own, and did wind up at least partially controlling their destiny.

I can't think of one Sherman album that stands out, unless a compilation would serve the turn.

One album I know would clear a room in no time flat, however, was AMON DUUL's 1970 album on Prophesy. A lot of cacophony, tribal-styled drum-beating...pretty wild stuff. I can't call it bad in any way, but it sure is different and more than a little deranged. It has its own kind of perverse brilliance, if only because you know everyone involved must have had a good time recording it (or one hopes), and it's the kind of challenging work even more progressive FM stations of the time might have balked at sampling. Regardless, when I'm in a cage-rattling mood, that one does it for me, even more than the noisier Velvets.

ED

Would "Bert Kaempfert's Greatest Hits" on Decca qualify? It's gotta be my favorite elevator music album.

Going the other way, I enjoy quite a bit of Yoko Ono's output. I discovered her via the reasonably accessible "Season of Glass" and worked my way back. The really early stuff prior to "Plastic Ono Band" I find boring, but the stuff where she's more or less doing actual songs (however bizarre) I like.

Whatever else it was, the easy listening music of guys like Kaempfert, Faith, Conniff, Kostelanetz, and Mantovani was not 'Muzak' in any strict sense, though the Muzak company did commission anonymous orchestras to play such music. Their concept, though, was to design what we came to know as 'elevator' music for clients for specific purposes. On an elevator, for soothing effect; in the workplace, that and to increase productivity (in theory); and in department stores or other retail establishments, to subliminally relax or excite shoppers, inducing them to buy more (this is still being done today, with custom playlists of actual hits streamlined for demographics by a company like them; these 'mix' satellite feeds can be found everywhere, and in the course of a shopping day you can run across identical feeds (if you get unlucky).

I've never considered the Kaempfert style of mood music bad, but if you said boring, yeah, it pretty much is. But back in the late '50s and through the '60s, this material had a sizeable and older audience, and since the latter has passed, so has their vinyl to thrift shops around the land (virtually none of it has any collector value whatsoever).

ED

I have loved Bert Kaempfert's music ever since my dad bought the 45 of "Wonderland By Night" when I was just a kid. He played it on our old Emerson monaural console and there was no 45 adapter so he put one of those metal cross adapters in it. I can still see the Decca label spinning with the rainbow stripe on it.

My favorite Kaempfert album is "Three O'Clock In The Morning" (my dad bought that too) and my favorite song is "You You You". Man, they really swing on that one, particularly during the trumpet solos.

Oh, and the recording quality is excellent, too.

Doug

It's also true that a guilty pleasure depends on what you usually listen to. When I was a kid, well, you know: Invasion, soul, garage, the basics. But because Top 40 radio was so open back then--and stations so competitive--that you could always hear all manner of music on the AM dial, from that kind of thing to easy listening, classical (WQXR, anyone?), and where I lived, you could pick up a handful of Canadian stations that, although they tended to play mostly US hits (because they were also
hits there, too), you'd sometimes here a native act and wonder, 'Who was that?' (which is how I first heard Joni Mitchell and "Night in the City").

There are those who think of the old true MOR--and Kaempfert was certainly among the best at that--and think of it negatively, but I'm sure there are those who would think Herb Alpert & the TJB, or Al Hirt, were similar, though I'd argue the former was creative and passionate enough to, at their best, simply make quality ear candy. Hirt was a New Orleans cat who went to Nashville and broadened his musical palate, and had a fair run of distinctive hits, first with "Java" and then "Cotton Candy" and others lesser known (his take on "Theme from the Monkees" is interesting listening, if nothing else).

Other enjoyable guilty pleasures: the early '50s siren Yma Sumac, whose exotic and strange music had a brief vogue; Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman, two guys who loved the Islands (well, anything Pacific, I guess) and recorded albums to fit that concept. Then there are all the big band guys still recording through the '60s though to an older and much smaller audience than at their '30s & 40s primes: Woody Herman, Xavier Cugat, Sammy Kaye, Wayne King, Guy Lombardo, Freddy Martin, Harry James, Les Brown, etc. Some actually adjusted a little to the 'new music,' while others just gave their aging audience what they wanted (as Mantovani did very successfully).

I was fortunate enough to be young and hearing some of that kind of music in my house growing up, while enjoying the music all us kids were buying. I appreciate some of it more now than I did then (like Sinatra), but my father was a big Alpert fan, and that stuff grabbed me, too.

ED

While I have owned many Bert Kaempfert LP's, this was my favourite. I want that chair so I can mod it to quad! Where were all you guys when I was in high school? I grew up being teased for my musical tastes by anyone who wasn't family or employed to mentor me. Most of my musical tastes came from hand me down records, not that I didn't hear current stuff, just as time went on, my tastes went backwards, not forwards. When vinyl died around 1987 and the headlines were "Phil Collins first to issue new album only on CD", I started to tune out. Besides, one could only take so much G&R and Don Henley stuff. I think that is when I realised that I had become my parents and growed up. I read through all these lists of "bad" records and I either don't know them, or have thoroughly enjoyed them in private. And Ed, if I could, I'd be coming to hear your collection!