17 March 2012 - Hanson - MMMBop

You cannot possibly listen to this song and NOT smile.

This song was so easy to make fun of, but I don't think I've met a single person who doesn't love this song.  It's always the same line, too. "I know it isn't cool to like Hanson, but that was just a fun song."   Because it was.  And still is.  And the band was so easy to make fun of - a lot of people weren't sure if Taylor Hanson was a boy or a girl! - but they were three earnest brothers making fun music and doing it well.    I admire that.

16 March 2012 - Whitesnake - Still of the Night

I like Hair Metal Fridays. I get to watch videos that I haven't seen since they were originally released. And while I always dug today's song, I DO NOT remember it being so freaking long. AND THIS WAS AN EDITED VERSION!!!! Y'all may want to grab a snack, you know, just in case you get hungry in the middle of it.

15 March 2012 - CSS - Music Is My Hot Hot Sex

It's a little strange for me to be featuring English-language songs on International Thursday, but I did it again.

Cansei de Ser Sexy - literally translated as "tired of being sexy" - is a Brazilian 6-piece made up of club DJs who happen to know how to play instruments. The lead vocalist goes by the name Lovefoxx, so they can't be all that tired of being sexy.

They have had some moderate success in this country, largely on the strength of a song that has a salacious title that no one knows but, thanks to Apple, everyone has heard.  Thanks to Apple and this fantastically entertaining band, this song ranks among my top 10 favorites of all time.

Yes, there is some Portuguese at the end of the song.  So, international.

This song would have been relegated to club hit if not for a man named Nick Haley, who entered a contest to make an iPod Touch commercial.  And used this song.  He won the contest, and Apple used the commercial.

To be fair, Nick Haley probably heard the song in this Zune commercial, which came a year earlier.

14 March 2012 - Robyn - Cobrastyle

Never being one to toot my own horn, but for the past 3 years I've been riding my bike 15 to 20 miles a day. Sadly, from late October to early March I'm stuck doing so inside which is incredibly boring (even if I do get to watch TV or DVDs). Well today was a big happy, as I got in my first outdoor ride of the year (I have a strict 70 degree or higher rule and it was pushing 80 today here in Maryland). So what the hell does this have to do with musical guilty pleasures? Plenty.

Like many who ride outdoors, I do so with headphones on. Instead of the usual pump up music most guys look to for workouts (metal/punk/rock), I prefer to ride with a contemporary country and pop soundtrack. And yes, you guessed it there is plenty of Robyn on my playlist (see, I tied it all together...eventually). While none of her songs played on today's 18-mile ride (TOOT, TOOT), her high energy tunes get my crazy legs pedaling a little bit faster every time. Here's one such song.

13 March 2012 - Walter Murphy - A Fifth of Beethoven / Robin Thicke - When I Get You Alone

I was a kid in the late 70's.  So, everywhere I turned, there was disco.  Saturday Night Fever was exploding, and even I, in my young years, knew it.  And my favorite song of all, the young music geek that I was, was Walter Murphy's take on Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  So, so, so cool!

This video is from the TV show Midnight Special.  On the recording, for the movie Saturday Night Fever, Walter Murphy played all the instruments himself, but he could not do that live.

Of course, this song, a timeless classic, did not need lyrics.  At least, I didn't think it did.  Fast forward about thirty years.  Alan Thicke's kid proves to the world that he has a really solid, soulful voice by adding lyrics to a sampled version of this disco classic.  And it worked - it really did.  It was just a different song.  I promised you that we would bring Robin Thicke back on this blog, so, without further ado......

I always knew that Alan Thicke's last name was good for something....

12 March 2012 - Britney Spears - ...Baby One More Time

Everyone, please join me in wishing my Wicked Guilty Pleasures co-conspirator a very Happy Birthday! My present to you Tony old friend (and by old I'm referring to how long we've been friends, and well, you're also old) is of course a video featuring a SMOKING HOT 18 year old Britney Spears dancing in a schoolgirl outfit. Totally appropriate!

11 March 2012 - Jonathan Coulton - Curl / Code Monkey

So, two weeks ago, we posted the Non-Guilty Pleasure to celebrate the end of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian women's national curling championships.

Today, the Tim Hortons Brier, the Canadian men's national curling championship, comes to an exciting conclusion.  Glenn Howard, from Ontario, the curler with the most Brier matches of all time (his brother Russ is 2nd), takes on Kevin Koe, the 2010 Brier and world champion, from Alberta.  If you care, I predict a Howard victory, as I have all season.

But we're not a curling blog (I do have one of those), but a music blog.  And so, today, I highlight the 2nd greatest song ever written about curling.  Mr. Coulton - an American, by the way - has four times embarked on Thing-A-Week projects, where he writes and records a different song every week.  You probably know his song "Code Monkey", which has been a viral hit and was part of Thing-A-Week Three.

Thing-A-Week Two was released in November 2006.  Track 7 was this gem:



Yes, I know, this is a fan-made video.  It's still pretty fantastic.  Not only do you get the 2nd best song ever written about curling, you get Colbert curling!

And, since I teased you earlier, here is the video for his biggest hit as well.  I am not a code monkey, but this is a pretty fun song for all of us in IT.