Ah, the beloved world of guilty pleasures... I'm probably one of the guiltiest people on the face of the planet, and I'm quite heavily aware of this guilt. From '80s kid movies to cookie cutter teen angst novels by L.J. Smith to comps put out by Cleopatra (cover comps and trash goth, mostly) to the occasional flirtation with power pop/pop punk. I'm well aware that I should despise all these, but god, they're so fun! Fun like watching Evil Dead, and Mr. Head Wound, Bruce Campbell, himself beef it up on screen.

So I spent a long time last night deliberating, trying to decide which was the best guilty pleasure to 'fess up to. I don't want to lose too much respect here, do I?

I eventually came up with this. The soundtrack to Josie & the Pussycats. Because I rented the movie last week with my best friend, and we were both able to sing along to the entire thing, even though I usually do keep this soundtrack well hidden in my vast collection.

Maybe I should now mention that my best friend, who I have often cited as having terrible taste in music, brings out the worst in me. We'll be loud and obnoxious in public, singing songs that the pop lovers hate and the hardcores think are too weak at the top of our lungs. I usually wouldn't enjoy these at all without her influence, since I am amazingly stuck up about music most of the time. Most often, anything that both of us own and listen to consists of utterly mainstream rock or punk variants (with one example of psuedo-industrial, with Stabbing Westward).

So, of course, this soundtrack falls into that category.

I had never intended to buy it, I swear, but then my entire social group that survived from high school went on a small adventure including a missed bus stop, a few attempts to cross rivers and highways, and the eventual walking down train tracks just to reach the theatre to see the movie when it came out. Suddenly, there was a sentimental attachment to something so silly and poppy.

Before I tell you what I like about it, I'll tell you why I should hate it. Because there are some things that are unforgivable. Beyond unforgivable. Mocking the very system of making music itself.

You see, some of these songs are written by one or two or three people. Alright. But, see, Come On took ten people to write. Ten. TEN!

I can't even comprehend. I just can't wrap my mind around that. Ten people? How could you even write a song like that? How did it remain cohesive?

Ten people??

And then You Don't See Me took nine, which isn't quite as breathtaking as ten, but still beyond any level of possible forgiveness.

My best friend tells me I think too much when I get critical like this. That it's not about who wrote it, it's about the song, but on the inside I loathe myself for listening to this, knowing the insane numbers of people it took to write songs that anyone, and I do mean anyone could spit out in there spare time.

But, but, but...

It's all so very addictive.

Even if just even the pop-punk cred of this album is destroyed by having Babyface produce for it... Don't get me wrong, he is a talent, but he shouldn't be in this kind of arena. For those who don't know, he's usually sticking around with R&B, owns a record label, does a lot of production, has a solo career, and I first knew he existed when he helped Madonna out on the painfully sexy Forbidden Love off Bedtime Stories.

I never expected him to be on a project done with the lead vocalist of Letters to Cleo (Kay Hanley) and with Bif Naked doing backing vocals. It seems like it's exposing itself as a fraud, just including his name.

But I knew, entering into it, that this was a fraud, a way to make money (that didn't really work all that well), and that it wasn't art music, it was ear candy.

As ear candy, it rocks. As ear candy, I won't think of the too-long string of names attached to it. I will not. Really. The music is fast, punky in the new slaughtered version of the word, energetic, and Kay's doing the singing!

Favourite songs?

Pretend to be Nice, You Don't See Me (ignoring the number... ignoring the number...), and Shapeshifter.

Pretend to be Nice is a song I can viably love, because it only took one person to write. See, that's not so hard, is it? This one person is Adam Schlesinger. The lyrics are quirky and have a real personality. "Well, he looks at me with those innocent eyes and says 'it looks like you're wearing some sort of disguise, because your hair sticks up, your shoes are untied. I hope that you bought that shirt at half price'." It's cute, and almost too easy to sing along to, in that same speak-singing way that Kay does. The instruments are bare basics, though produced maybe a bit too well, and that guitar solo is just too cute...

You Don't See Me is the essential sad acoustic song. And in my own little happy world, 9 people didn't write it. Really. Nope.

The guitar work really is haunting, and Kay's voice is heartbreaking. The lyrics are perfect--the kind of perfection I suppose a committee of 9 people are obligated to make. There's something put out in the entire representation, this sad and lonely nothingness. "I dream of fire when you're touching my hand, but it twists into smoke when I turn on the lights."

The song hits me so hard, actually, because of how topical it is to my relationship to one of the guys I went to the movie with. "'Cause you don't see me, and you don't need me, and you don't love me the way I wish you would. The way I know you could." So the song, unfortunately, always brings back that awkward friendship in my mind, even if it's years past disintegrated, but I'm the kind who takes a perverse pleasure out of being depressed.

If you ask my friends, it's that whole "goth" thing, even if I'm not goth.

Shapeshifter is the song with the most real-music cred. Because? Written by Kay Hanley and Michael Einstein. The instruments come in distorted, but clear up (and are heavily lead by bass) when the vocals kick in. The guitar feels raw, the drums are crisp, and the song's got real attitude. "If you think that's cool, whatever, dude."

Another plus of this is, of course, Bif Naked's backing vocals. I always cheer on the Canadian Tattoo Queen, whatever she may be doing.

There is one more problem with the album, though.

You know how the movie has quintessential boy band DuJour? Yeah. Well. Their two songs make it onto the soundtrack. I just...can't ever even listen for two seconds before my gag reflex kicks in.

Why did they include those tracks? Augh.

Anyway. Guilty pleasure to the max. But I love it. So even if ten people wrote one song... Just the sheer pure guilty pleasure ear candy aspect of it all...

I have to give it four stars.

I have to.

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Hanging With Friends