The Click Who?

In many ways, I am a huge snob. I make fun of the New York Post for being tabloid trash, and I read The Financial Times because on top of having the word 'Financial' in it, it is British which means it is instantly more highbrow than the Post or the Daily News. The Economist also satisfies this property quite nicely. I mock people that watch shows like "7th Heaven" because it spouts boring wholesome platitudes, is crushingly derivative, and is on the WB. I prefer comedies that are satirical and avant-garde (according to The New Republic) like "Arrested Development." I also cut down girls who read "Cosmopolitan" and "The Devil Wears Prada" for reasons should be obvious by now. By all accounts, I turn into an enormous tool when I see your coffee table and whatever is on it. Strangely, one area where I am shockingly tolerant of the mainstream is music, evinced particularly well by the fact that the song "Just The Girl" by The Click Five is on my iPod.

To preserve some dignity, I should say that I don't like all music, either. I hate emo music like Dashboard Confessional and other guys who cry for 30 minutes and call it a song, and Linkin Park sounds like a domestic disturbance incident on a CD. So you would think that for the same reasons I dismiss "Bridget Jones' Diary" I would attack The Click Five with an amount of rancor usually seen only by Mets fans, but I am nothing if not inconsistent. They both target the same audience; stupid 16 year old mallrat girls from the suburbs who have no exposure to anything that doesn't include extra cheese or a DVD tie-in. So why do I like this song?

It's kind of hard to say. I heard it once when I was watching "My Super Sweet 16" on MTV (a show I enjoy immensely in a Ignatius Reilly-like way that defines a lot of my taste.) The line that got me was, "she can't keep a secret for more than an hour." For whatever reason, this kind of behavior is endearing and kind of cute. The lyrics are atrocious, but the pop beat gets me. There is something so deliciously manufactured, so perfectly contrived about the beat. It's like cotton candy; you know it's wholly unnatural and pretty crappy, but you like it anyway. And just like cotton candy, it costs almost nothing and provides fleeting satisfaction. Despite myself, I find my fingers clicking it on my iPod.

I have to listen to a lot of Vivaldi to cleanse the palette, but for now, I'm going to loop it.