5 Rock and Metal Guilty Pleasures

Every now and again, we catch ourselves humming along to something that makes us look back over our shoulder to make sure nobody heard it. For most rockers and metalheads, this might be the latest earworm from the Top 40 (shudder), but what happens when those guilty pleasure tracks are found inside the walls of our sacred space? An enemy from within? Well, you get a great article with a list of five of those guilty pleasure tracks, for a start!

1. Andrew W.K – Party Hard

Love him or hate him, it’s very hard to not see that Andrew W.K. is a man who knows exactly what he’s doing. Well, unless you buy into the conspiracy that he’s not a real person, but that’s a matter for you and Google (for now!).

What the man knows how to do, is release track after track of pure, unadulterated fun that really seems to rub “pure” metalheads up the wrong way. Party Hard is the epitome of his work – a no holds barred dance number that rocks as hard as you could ever want it to.

So, for everyone who’s been on the wrong end of an upturned nose when you windmill to this in your rock club of choice, don’t worry – I stand in solidarity with you!

2. Limp Bizkit – Nookie

Say what you want about the rap-metal… outbreak? Escape from a secure facility? Some sort of place where it was supposed to be to where it got to in the hey-day of the nu-metal era – but boy, was it popular, and no group more so than Limp Bizkit.

Their beat-infused and often surprisingly heavy combo certainly wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but there’s no denying that they knew how to put a song together that would make people explode in a mosh pit, where everyone is too busy punching each other to admit to actually liking the music.

One track I often find myself drifting back to, whether I want to or not, is Nookie, from their 1999 album Significant Other. It’s just the right mix of bumping beat and crushing guitar to make you almost forget the genuinely awful lyrics. And that’s all that matters for this list!

3. Children of Bodom – Oops! I Did It Again

Cover songs almost feel like cheating in the guilty pleasure stakes, especially when it comes to covers of well known pop songs. However, of the hundred million pop covers that have come out of the metal sphere over time, none tickle me just right like Children of Bodom’s take on Oops! I Did It Again.

Replete with lashings of slap bass, a chorus that is far hookier than it has any right to be and more than a usual amount of coughing for some reason, this is the perfect example of taking something and applying enough style to make it their own, but not taking so much away that it loses the guilty pleasure factor altogether.

Whatever force took Alexi Laiho away from us really did us dirty, didn’t they.

4. Kiss – Love Gun

You might be thinking, hang on, wasn’t this one of Kiss’ most popular songs? How does that make it a guilty pleasure? Well, for one good reason.

Ostensibly, this is a song about Paul Stanley’s penis. It’s not even an original song about someone’s penis – this was a song about Albert King’s penis before Paul Stanley nicked all the lyrics from it. Every catchy chorus about the Love Gun? Paul Stanley’s penis. Not being able to run or hide from the Love Gun? A terrifying, dystopian vision of a future ruled by Paul Stanley’s penis. Pulling the trigger on the Love Gun? I’m not even going to go as far as to explain that analogy, out of fear my overuse of the word penis in this paragraph is already too excessive.

So yes, it’s a classic song – but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sing along to it on the bus and that’s what makes it such a guilty pleasure.

5. DragonForce – Highway to Oblivion

While being a gimmick unto themselves, albeit a very technically accomplished gimmick, that’s lasted nearly two decades, is it time to start taking DragonForce seriously? Not really, but damned if we all don’t enjoy a good portion of their songs when you’re in the mood for something fun.

Case in point – Highway To Oblivion, possibly the most DragonForce that DragonForce have ever been. It’s got all the hallmarks – lightning quick guitar and drums, the cheesiest chorus outside of The Wensleydale Singers and lyrics that would make fourteen years olds race around their bedrooms in glee if they weren’t so busy being mopey teenagers. It’s a thick slice of absolute cake and I think metal is better for it.

Just try to ignore the fact the opening line matches the opening line from I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day by Wizzard pretty much exactly. Sorry if I’ve ruined it for you now.

Article photo by Malvestida on Unsplash