Astro Lounge - Smash Mouth (1999)

I don’t believe in the concept of “guilty pleasure” music.

Look, I’m not saying there’s no such thing as taste. I’m not some moral relativist that believes there’s no absolute truth. Well…. I believe the absolute truth is unattainable and ultimately not of our same plane of existence, so our truth-seeking is a constantly evolving process of discrimination and dialectic that may make it seem like the truth has changed when in fact it’s just our understanding of it that’s changed. That’s a different sort of truth than the encountering of creativity.

In matters of artistic taste, where we come face to face with the sublime act of creation just for the sake of creation, there is basically nothing but your personal encounter. With or without all the social scaffolding and previous life experience and vestigial lenses that may have modified that, your experience is your own: primal, unedited, outside of judgement. Someone else telling you something is great art might be a true statement, but that person can’t make it mean anything to you. If you experience joy when the opening growl of All Star pops into your ears, that’s an actual occasion that you’re experiencing outside of a framework of values. You don’t have to ask if it’s okay for that to be joyful. It already is, and you’re just overthinking it by wondering if you’re “supposed” to feel joy.

The concept of a “guilty pleasure” is a product of a society where we have bulldozed all the wonder out of our concept of the universe, but now seek to legislate it back into existence in a vain attempt at preserving authority that the authority itself has relentlessly campaigned to annihilate. Rules replace reason. Conventions replace insights. Tastes replace experiences.

A guilty pleasure is just you asking someone else’s permission to enjoy something.

I’m saying: give Smash Mouth a feckin’ break.

Also, Satellite is another addition to my “greatest songs nobody knows” playlist.