"Guilty pleasure" albums?

[Stone]

Are there albums that you own that you are embarrassed to have in your collection? Albums that have no indie cred? Albums that you've outgrown from a musical perspective...yet still can't fathom selling off? Albums that will elicit an eye-rolling reaction from your musically inclined friends, but you still find them fascinating?

Here are my skeletons in the closet:

Guns 'N' Roses: Appetite For Destruction
Yeah, it's basically 80's cock-rock. But unlike most of their peers, this has balls, grit, and a middle-finger-in-the-air trashy subversiveness that weren't seen since the New York Dolls. I still can't live without my monthly fix of "It's So Easy."

Green Day: Dookie
It's poppy, commercialized, and heavily derivative of The Jam, Husker Du, The Buzzcocks, and a bunch of other punk acts the average person has never heard of. I still dig it, though. At least it's better than the Blink-182 and Sum41 sh-t that followed.

Beastie Boys: Licensed To Ill
All the fratboys and whiggers love this rap/rock fusion to death. And I do too. Best track: "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" (BEST RIFF EVER in a rap song)

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Let's Face It
Yes, I bought this back in '98 for "The Impression That I Get." And third-wave ska is deader than JFK. Do I still listen to it? Absolutely.

Dream Theater: Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory
I'm sure I'm gonna get punched in my cyber mouth by the resident proggers for saying this, but this album definitely reeks of prog cheese. Lots of solos, a generally cliche concept storyline, a male vocalist that sounds female, and a keyboardist that reminds me so much of Rick Wakeman I'm surprised he doesn't wear a cape. Still, if I have an urge to hear 128 notes a minute played with robotlike precision, this is where I go.

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
Basically a slick, poppy AOR album. But there is no denying the talents of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. "The Chain" might be the best song they ever wrote.

I used to own Sublime's self-titled, Offsrping's Americana, and Bush's Sixteen Stone, but I came to my senses and traded them in for Queens Of The Stone Age's Songs For The Deaf. Fair trade? I'm sorry to say that I also used to own Kid Rock's Devil Without A Cause but I curbstomped that POS a long time ago along with a bunch of R&B and lite rock sh-t I used to devour when I was musically retarded.

Wow, man, you should broaden your horizons if these are your "guilty pleasures." I have and like all of those albums, except for the Dream Theater which I haven't heard, and don't consider any of them "guilty pleasures." I don't really like that phrase, because I like what I like, but here are a few that might fall into that category that I purchased specifically to have*:

-Any of 12 Erasure CDs and 12"s
-Natalie Imbruglia - White Lilies Island
-Madonna - The Immaculate Collection
-Mudvayne - L.D.50
-Any of a few Reel Big Fish CDs
-Save Ferris - It Means Everything
-Van Halen - s/t

And I suppose I have a lot of other stuff people might consider guilty pleasures, but I really don't associate music that way and I'm not embarrassed to say I really like something like the Romantics or Sigue Sigue Sputnik, or that I have 14 Screeching Weasel CDs.

Oh, and yeah, you should go back and rebuy that Sublime album.

Stone

*As opposed to having them because they were part of a collection I bought.