Yesterday I awoke to a pleasant surprise. During the middle of the night, or at least on Pacific Standard Time, Weezer released an album of straight up covers of mostly 80’s music and in a word (actually two), it rocks. 

I won’t bother with a track by track breakdown but suffice to say, some were obvious and others were “huh!?”.  Again. All awesome. 

Funny how the world works. My friend and I were talking music (we do this in the kitchen daily) and the notion of  what people like and the  idea of “guilty pleasures” came up. And of course I went to my favorite quote on the subject by Chuck Klosterman. More on this in a moment. 

As my almost kum-bay-a-like post on Nickelback demonstrated, I’m getting soft in my old age (TWSS). While getting older does yield a bit more empathy for the poor decisions of others. It also brings with it a lot of “I don’t have the energy to care about this anymore.”  If this is how it’s going to be, I’m going to need to buy more sweatpants with pockets for my 50’s and just give up completely. 

But back to Weezer, Chuck and guilty pleasures. In a 2004 Klosterman wrote a lengthy article destroying the notion that “people should feel bad for liking things they sincerely enjoy”.  I love Van Halen Panama and Hot for Teacher, but don’t know any VH deep cuts from Van Halen Women and Children First. Does this make me a VH fan or just a poseur?  

Klosterman goes on to write, and I paraphrase, “liking Duran Duran isn’t a guilty pleasure, doing coke off a strippers stomach is.”  And, “It never matters what you like; what matters is why you like it.”

Nostalgia is one of the most powerful good (and bad) feelings out there. I love it when a song stands the test of time and my kids now sing it,(Everybody Wants to Rule the World) and laugh at it when a movie I rewatch is terrible (Weird Science).  Both take me somewhere warm and fuzzy and the world needs more of that. 

So like what you like and know I still may judge you over it. But there’s good news, I love the new Weezer album, and if you think that’s lame. Judge away. 

#hugsandhi5s