Thanks for nothing, Evanescence.

As I was driving to work the other morning, iPod Touch hooked up to the cassette deck and wee baby asleep in the back, I found myself enjoying a nice mix of light tunes with which to lull Nora and keep her soundly sleeping. Suddenly, a track by Evanescence blared on (no, it does NOT matter which one, they are all loud)at about 800 decibels higher than the previous songs. What’s with your modulation, Amy Lee?

Yes, this IS a sign that I’m getting old: ire towards goth-lite bands.

And then it hit me, I was more concerned about the volume of an embarrassing song than the actual playing of an embarrassing song. Maybe being dangerously close to the end of my late twenties (ahem- four more months) is freeing me up to admit that I love bad songs!

Don’t get me wrong, I have a great, obsessive love for many exceptional artists and bands (Etta James, Lyle Lovett, B.B. King, et. al): I collect them on vinyl, see them in overpriced arenas and dissect their lyrics with reverence. But for every James Taylor there is a Kip Winger. For every “She’s no lady/ she’s my wife” there’s a “(Baby)/ Don’t forget my number.”

And I love them all. All of them.

I will now come out of the soundproof closet and admit that I love Michael Bolton. Love might be too flimsy a term for the feelings I have whenever Michael Bolton hits a key change. His song Said I Loved You (But I lied)- amazing. (‘Cause this is more than love I feel inside.) I KNOW!

I’ve spent too many years turning the volume down in paper-thin studio apartments every time Savage Garden or Rob Zombie pops up on iTunes. No longer! Is it MY fault that bad music (read- terminally unhip) is clearly the most singalongable? Okay, maybe not so much Rob Zombie, but he IS fun to clean to.

And to clarify- by “bad” music, I mean music that was once hugely popular by a demographic with which you yourself would never in a million years identify. And that was a million years ago. Rendering it…prehistorically “bad.”

But if it’s so “bad,” why does Warrant still make me cry? Why does Def Leppard’s “Gods Of War” make me wanna wave a flag? And why won’t P.J. sing either part of the Aaron Neville/Linda Ronstandt duets with me? (Okay, that last one doesn’t really help my case, but still. Why?)

It’s not such a stance to play the newest Lady Gaga track at full blast. But it does take a certain type of person to proclaim your preference for Van Hagar over Van Halen. Or, in the case of the Guthries, Arlo over Woody.

Yes, I said it. I prefer Arlo Guthrie.

And, for the first time in my life, I feel no shame.

(Well, maybe a little. But it gets easier, I promise you.)

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