Guilty Pleasures - Awesomely Crappy Songs

Were you to swipe my Ipod and scroll through my music downloads (clearly to steal, you rat bastard) you will find: a lot of cool songs, some killer rarities (Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, anyone?), plenty of disco, and a handful of absolute head-scratchers. ("Climax Blues Band? Really?")

The many goofy, cheesy, almost-all-of-the-'70s songs sandwiched between Wolfmother and Hawaiian love songs are not there because I am a fashionably-ironic hipster. No, no. The only thing I have in common with those useless wastes of carbon is species.

I truly, whole-heartedly love these songs. They evoke, for example, innocent afternoons of listening to AM radio and working on a rocket pop. They transport me, through time and space, to summers spent playing Charlie's Angels and writing love letters to Starsky. Farrah was married to the $6 Million Man and all was right with the world. The soundtrack to that time celebrates wholesomeness, as in Debbie Boone and the Carpenters, and raunchiness I only pretended to understand, from P-Funk and Foxy. We had Muskrat Love and we had Love to Love You, Baby.

But there's nothing better than a cheesy '70's ballad, as sung by some skinny, long-haired, sweet-mustached guy in shiny pants and a puffy shirt. I am telling you.

Of these songs -- many of which were criminally left off VH1's "Softsational Soft Rock Whatever" -- the greatest, most awesomely crappy song that holds a special place of honor in my Ipod is a little number by Jay Ferguson called "Thunder Island".

Sha-la-la-la-la-la, m'lady indeed!

Thunder Island (LP Version) by Jay Ferguson