Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Let me hear it..... I was looking at my CDs and thinking about what constitutes embarrassing music.  And I started to look more closely, imagining what CD I have would cause the most people to snicker, or recoil in horror. In order to determine the most embarrassing CD one owns, it is necessary to exclude anything that was a gift, to start with, particularly a gag gift.  And it is necessary to exclude anything that was purchased years and years ago--IF it hasn't been listened to for years and years. In my mind, somewhat regular listening is extremely important.  Everyone with at least a nominally large collection of music has at least ten CDs that they haven't listened to in years, and, in fact, that they will never listen to again.  For me, those CDs are things like L7, a couple of Bob Dylan's really bad albums, the Gin Blossoms, The Presidents of the United States of America, the soundtrack to the movie "The Doors."  Crap like that.  For a CD to be truly embarrassing, it has to be one that you listen to--even if only occasionally.  You put it in when no one's around, and maybe sing along, but carefully put it back in the rack  before anyone sees or hears you.  There are a number of runners-up for me:  Abba Gold, Duran Duran's Greatest, Styx Classics, Journey Greatest Hits, Gordon Lightfoot--Gord's Gold (this one being embarrassing because it does not have Gord's only truly excellent song, which is "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald", but I still put it in to hear "Sundown").  But the winner:  John Denver's Greatest Hits.  There are worse musicians than John Denver, who's basically harmless.  But he's pure pabulum, sappy, and without any weight at all musically.  Still, sometimes one craves a Rocky Mountain High. What's your most embarrassing CD?  2:20:39 PM    Let's hear it. []