Playlist: 5 Addictive Music Guilty Pleasures

We are probably all familiar with what a guilty pleasure is. You know, when you like something that you probably shouldn't? It could be because it goes against your personal principles, or perhaps it is something that society just wouldn't expect you to like so you hide it away. Take me for example, at the moment I am currently in a battle with my ears and my brain as to whether or not I like the rapper Yung Lean. You see it kind of goes against my principles to like song writing and auto-tuned vocals of such dubious quality, but damn those beats go hard (alright, I'll quit with the rap lingo... dawg), but yeah... I'm not planning on revealing that to society any time soon. Oh wait, I just did. Anyhow, here's some music that is super addictive but I should probably not be caught listening to.

Carly Rae Jepsen

Carly Rae Jepsen's music is, well, amazing. If you, like me, understand this, then you will have already traversed her whole discography on the down low. Funnily enough, when I first heard her hit track Call Me Maybe, I actually really hated its bubblegum coated popiness but, like most things I eventually love, I learnt the error of my ways. After years of being an angsty teenager wallowing in first world problems to the tones of blink-182's song 'Anthem Part II' ("if we're fucked up, you're to blame", right dudes?) it is just nice to slap on Carly's Kiss album and be happy. I played that album over the sound system when I used to work at HMV and all my colleagues questioned whether or not I was being ironic or not. Look people, happy is good and Bobby McFerrin told me that himself and let's face it, Carly's songs are too darn catchy!!! Also, her new album E•MO•TION is top notch, and she even pushed the album's release back a year because she wanted to make sure it was of quality and that is really awesome.

 
Luke Bryan (and most modern country music)

As a super-British kid who spends 55% of his time listening to Hip-Hop music, you would think I was straying far from the beaten track when I started loading up my iPod with Kasey Musgraves and Florida Georgia Line... my Mum was worried anyway. You see it's all the doing of my girlfriend, she taught me that modern country is kind of like pop or rock music with a fiddle and a slightly different lyrical subject matter. They like to sing about country things: mainly romance, beer and trucks/tractors. Brad Paisley has a song about his family suing Chick-Fil-A for 10,000 dollars and free chicken for a life-time because his Mum slipped on a patch of ice outside one of their restaurants... oh, it's a joke song? Sorry, well how about Luke Bryan singing a love song about how he is going to shut his tractor down after a day of work because he really wants to see his woman? Yeah, I ain't kidding with this one. In fact it's kind of sweet... now where's my tractor at?

"Cotton Eye Joe" by Rednex

This song is trash. Cheesy 90s trash. Amazing, glorious, catchy trash. Did you ever see that bit in the TV show New Girl where Nick can't stop fist bumping to the song? Yeah, that's me whenever this song comes on. In my heart I know that I should probably divorce it, and leave it in the 90's with other crap commercial chart rubbish like Britney Spears and all those god awful label-constructed pop groups. I mean Rednex look like they were cast to be in one of those Sega Mega-CD FMV games but ended up making a song instead.

DJ Khaled

This dude makes us all cringe, but damn does he put out good songs. Yeah I know he doesn't do anything musically on these records and all he does is shout 'DJ KHALED' and 'WE THE BEST' whenever a rapper pauses to take a breath, but he is the reason tracks like 'All I Do Is Win', 'Welcome To My Hood' and 'Go Hard' exist, as well as the reason why artists like Ace Hood gift us with such great music on the regular. That's pretty cool, thank you DJ Khaled. He has become even more well known in recent years for acting like a total cornball. Perhaps he's just acting like a buffoon who thinks he's hot shit, or maybe he is actually an ironic genius. Just watch the video for the surprisingly great R&B jam 'Hold You Down' below to see some of DJ Khaled's best antics.

Trinidad James

I know that this guy is responsible for that awful yet immensely humorous track 'All Gold Everything' which was plagued with terrible lyricism, an inability to construct any form of rhyme, and is the song from which Bruno and Mark borrowed the hook line for their global hit 'Uptown Funk' from. But let's leave that in the past. I don't know what happened, but Trinidad James suddenly became good. Really good in fact. His lyrics became thoughtful, poetic, and he even rhymes words now. Maybe getting dropped from his major label was a good thing after all, because all of his new material is quality, just give his mixtape 'No One Is SaFe' a try if you don't believe me. The only reason why he is listed as a guilty pleasure is because the dude gets a bad rep for 'All Gold Everything'. But there's always time for a second chance right? The track below is just an example of Trinidad James' fantastic leap in quality.

This article comes with a moral though. A moral that is that you should never feel guilt about any music that you love. The fact that I was willing to share these songs with you might actually mean that I am in fact pretty un-guilty about loving these songs. Wait, doesn't that make this article slightly ironic? Anyway, what are some of your music guilty pleasures? Make your voice heard in the comments section below, or on our Twitter or Facebook pages - let us know!