The Smiley Smile Message Board

I heard an interesting topic on the radio this morning....

What groups or artists did you like when you were younger that you're somewhat ashamed of now?

For me, I got into a band called Godsmack in 2000-2001, even paid to see them live.  Now, when I hear their music, it makes me cringe that I ever liked it. 

I'm not willing to admit it.

Oh, I have a few bad ones... I'll wait to see what other people post :P

On most of them - Abba, Wham!, The Beach Boys, Alice in Chains, Camper van Beethoven, 10000 Maniacs, The Beastie Boys, The Spice Girls, The Carpenters, Michael Jackson, The Monkees, even The Sex Pistols and a song by Andy Gibb... - I've gone full circle and come around to appreciate again what I loved about them, or in some cases to appreciate something different about them, after a period of falling victim to peer-influenced or self-imposed shame.
One nice thing I noticed around when I hit 40 - embarrassment is a thing of the past - I'm over it.
Oh! And Crystal Gayle  :)

I think I'm different from most people in that I'm unashamed of anybody I was ever a big fan of.  If I was into their music, you can bet your ass I'm still into their music.  The closest I can think of would be Garth Brooks, I don't really like Garth anymore but much of his music was really good and I'm not ashamed of it. 

I'm still a fan of Michael Jackson, the Fat boys, The Bangles, The Cranberries, Oasis, Nirvana, etc. any band I ever really enjoyed.  I'm a loyal fan :)

Definitely!  I think the older you get the more you realize if it makes you happy.... it can't be that bad.  (nod to Sheryl Crow, another guilty pleasure)

None. Whatsoever.

I'm not ashamed of nuthin'. But sometimes you're more likely to like an artist or a song when you're young, before you know all the music that preceded it that influenced it , while when you're older you may be more inclined to go back to the source and cut out the middleman.

For example, when I was a kid, my favourite album was But Seriously by Phil Collins and my favourite song on it was "I Wish It Would Rain Down". Nowadays I think that song is just a ripoff of "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd.

Foreigner
Kansas
Winger
Poison

:-[

The question would almost make more sense in reverse, as it seems we're more worried what others think in our younger days. I was more worried what people thought of my taste when I was 14 than I am now, that's for sure.

I'm not ashamed of anything I liked, whether or not still like it. not that I try to be contrarian: I'd rather that everyone else saw what I like and join in. But if not, whatever.

Love all four of these bands.  Probably more now than then.

God squad bat sh*t crazy sh*t:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jey8tLfokbs

bat sh*t crazy sh*t:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RbMTDLFOjA

If you had to recommend just one Kansas album, Gertie, which one would it be?

It's an interesting question because some of us (myself, Judd, undercover-m) are probably in the age range the question is asking about. I can't imagine I'll be ashamed in the future of anything I'm listening to in the present, but I guess that's the point. None of us really know, and that's what makes the question entertaining. I'll come back in twenty years and let you all know. As for stuff I actually listened to when I was younger, I remember watching a particular Backstreet Boys VHS tape constantly. I'm definitely not ashamed of it, though I think that's the sort of thing the question would normally be looking for. There is one band, though, that is particularly heinous and that I've never told anyone about.

I'm still not ready to talk about it.

Yeah, there's not enough boy bands on this thread for me to post my list... apparently your guys' guilty pleasure music isn't all that guilty :P.

I mean, for starters, I guess Lady Gaga (because most people here are older than I am and probably have a different view of her) and Coldplay (because apparently they're actually hated by music "connoisseurs" which really bothers me because I've seen them live and Chris Martin is so awesome) belong on this list. So in MY opinion, those aren't bad. I have some boy bands and stuff I'm not ready to post about, either...

Hey, I listed Wham! which was boy band equivalent during my preteens!

Emily, M, and I in the boy band club.



Yeah, I have a strong dislike for Coldplay.

My original question doesn't really apply to stuff that you like that's not unpopular or disliked by music fans. 

For example, I'm not ashamed at all at my love of old Bon Jovi, Poison, Winger, Journey, Styx, or Dokken. 

What I was asking about was if there's anything you used to listen to when you were younger, that you go back and listen to now, and ask "What in the world was I thinking?" 

Ah - sorry, I interpreted that wrong. Though my answer would still be similar. There's stuff on my list (Carpenters) that I really liked when I was a little kid; then for a long time I thought they were awful; now I like them again for a different reason - I still think they're awful, but I have a fondness for the awful things I used to like, I guess out of old-people sentimentality.

:(... although, maybe I'm no different when it comes to other recent music... as far as I know, people don't like Coldplay because their sound is generic and/or apparently they steal all of their music from U2. But I personally don't care for bands like Imagine Dragons, mostly because....... their sound is generic.

But with KDS's clarification, I can better answer the question... I used to go to a Christian, private school and much of the music my peers listened to was like, you know, contemporary Christian music. Actually, bands like Switchfoot have some good albums, and they seem very open-minded and they don't like being labeled Christian. But I also had a few Skillet songs on my iPod nano (remember those?) and while my friend and I thought it was cool at the time, looking back, those songs were terrrrrible. I mean more recently they put out a song speaking out against same-sex marriage, and that's just a huge no for me. So most of my middle school music is just totally incompatible with the person I am today.

I think the reason I'm ashamed of most of the stuff I listened to in middle school was because it reminds me of 1) the awful people I went to school with, 2) my crazy religious phase that I totally disagree with now, and 3) my overall underexposure to good music. I think I'm just ashamed of middle school ME, but who isn't?

Anyway, that was a lot more long-winded and personal than it needed to be.

Well, to be fair, I dislike U2 even more than I dislike Coldplay.
So they have that going for them, at least.



Yes, I can relate to this sentiment. It's a dark time in people's lives.

That was when you went by "bubba Waves" ;)

Sorry, KDS, my mistake. I took it to mean ashamed to admit to others.

My answer doesn't really change--no--though the angle does somewhat. Instead of just spitting my distaste for others' opinions, now I'll have to say it more like this: there is plenty of music I liked in my younger days that I either dislike now or at least don't listen to now. But it doesn't bother me to have moved away from it. (I prefer not to say "moved beyond" or something, as if I'm so fucking mature now!) That's just normal, so what's the difference or harm? There was plenty of sh*t in 10-to-15-year-old Luther's cassette collection (my media dates me), but I'm not ashamed of it. He was just a kid.

The closest I can come to it was--and maybe here I sneak into undercover-m territory--with Stryper. Around age 11, I read about this Christian metal band in some magazine or other, and soon after saw the video for their hit power ballad, "Honestly." I guess I was still interested in trying to please or gain approval from my (very, very) religious parents or something, so I bought a couple of their albums. Jesus, they were terrible. But hey, I was young and dumb.

Stryper, "Honestly"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Np-FUsYcME

Woah Captain. ;D

Oh, man. I literally said "Oh, no" out loud when I heard those opening piano notes/chords.
This sounds like a theme song to a taligate wedding.

Still not ashamed. Not proud, mind you! But not ashamed. (But seriously, To Hell With the Devil and In God We Trust are utter dogshit. Slippery dogshit.)

Why would you be ashamed of this beautiful masterpiece of a song?

But yeah, that intro sounds like the background music of any PBS documentary from the '90s. lol..

I still remember when I was a kid, watching Nickelodeon every day, and one day on one of the shows they had New Kids on the Block on, I thought they were really cool at the time, and I'm not gay. 

This may be the actual performance, not sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_BY6ZN0_0E


Still not ashamed, but it doesn't really count because I was never a big fan.  It's amazing how they were so untalented live, though good god...

I've always heard the jokes but never heard their music, after listening to that clip I might have to go buy their album, "To Hell with the Devil" LOL  Sounds great in every imaginable way. ..

oh my god, I just remembered.

There was a time and a place where undercover-m used to enjoy Owl City, for similar reasons as stated before...

I was like, a 13-year-old girl at the time, but still... I think I won the thread.

Ugh... John Mayer. I had a friend who really liked him, so I for some reason fell for it too. I even bought tickets and drove 5 hours to see him.

Waste of money.

He's from near here, a small city less than an hour from Minneapolis. I'm sure we could introduce you. 😉

Yeah it's exactly what you'd think...and all in yellow & black. Christian metal bumblebees?

One thing I'll say about Stryper is that they're very good musicians. 

I think their singer was (and might still be) the lead singer for Boston after Brad Delp passed. 

For the 2012 M3 Festival (an annual festival of bands from the hair band era), most of the musicians from Stryper were joined by Vinny and Carmine Appice to do a tribute to Ronnie James Dio, and it was amazing. 

But yeah, their 80s material is pretty bad. 

I, too, was a Backstreet Boys fanatic when I was a wee lad. That and Hanson. :(

Look how I've grown, ma. It's funny looking back on all the boy-bands and sh*t from the 90's and realizing how they were a synthetic-cheese knockoff of vocal groups like The Beach Boys. And then thinking of how The Beach Boys' mid-late 80's output quite possibly invented said synthetic-cheese for future generations. (don't crucify me)

I went through 3 Doors Down and Linkin Park phases when I was in high school.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52684612/2309ea7d34c56a576f.jpg)

I'm deeply ashamed that I like an album with this cover as much as I do.

Love Me Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPrqO-C5vbA

Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down came out when I was 19.  The climate of hard rock was very very poor back then, so I really got into the song.  It got overplayed to the point where I couldn't stand it by the end of the summer of 2000, and 3DD only got more mediocre from there. 

So, I almost got into them.  Luckily, the overplaying of the song saved me from having their debut in my collection.

I like a few Queen songs. Does that count?

My best friend way back when had this album; that cover embodied all that he thought was cool in music and life. All I can do is laugh when I see that now.

Gino's cool.  Didn't Robert Palmer do the same kind of record covers?  It was of it's times.  I lost interest in his music after the big hit "Black Cars" in 1985, but from 1973 through 1978 he made a string of great albums with his brother Joe on keys and synths.  I still listen to them some times.  Storm at Sunup was his best album, regardless of what the cover was trying to say.  His target audience was women.  I was living in Baton Rouge when it came out, very popular in the clubs there, and New Orleans.

I saw this thread yesterday, and still can't think of anything I'm ashamed to say I liked.

No.

Agreed.

 :-D

Well, I'm just going to throw this out there now, also I don't know where else to put this, plus hopefully none of you will make fun of me...

I went through a hardcore Jonas Brothers obsession in like 6th grade. I still have all of their songs on my iPod. I can tell you that their lyrics are more diverse than One Direction's. #noshame

Were you a fan of the Naked Brothers Band, too?
Or am I the only person that remembers they were a thing?

^ I remember them, but I never really listened to them or anything. But they were definitely a thing for a while.

I think JB was the only boy band phase I really went through...

Haha jesus you two are making me feel old..

I wouldn't necessarily say I'm "ashamed", but I liked the Cutting Crew album Broadcast in '86 and Play Deep by The Outfield in '85.    :)
Oh, and also really liked the Naked Eyes album from '83 - synth pop guilty pleasure.   :-D

I love the Play Deep Album!