My Inner Pop Princess

I have a confession to make.

Deep down I'm a fan of pop music. Me and Avril are tight. Nelly Furtado makes me shake my booty. Shakira makes me want to speak Spanish.

I guess it all started back in 2002 when a girl I was dating wanted to go see Michelle Branch. I reluctantly agreed and figured if I had to sit through the damn concert I might as well listen to some of her stuff. So I popped on Napster (or whatever I was using in 2002) and downloaded The Spirit Room. Much to my surprise... it was kinda catchy. And when I saw her in concert she blew all my expectations away. She could sing and she could play the guitar and well... she rocked.

As the next few years went bye, The Spirit Room was my guilty pleasure. Whenever I was feeling mellow I'd pop it in the CD player and just cruise. Around this time I also started spending more time in the gym, and they were always playing some Top 40 station. Avril Lavigne's Complicated had just hit it big and I can't tell you how many miles I put in on a treadmill listening to that song. It grew on me.

So there I am, secretly rocking out to Michelle Branch and Avril when I'm all alone. Then one fateful day a year or two ago my wife was watching a movie on ABC family or the Life Channel or something like that. Anyways, a Michelle Branch tune is on the soundtrack and I start singing it. Of course this isn't one of her big hits like Everywhere or All you Wanted. This was the song between them on the CD, You Get Me. And I am singing every damn word. I have no excuses and my wife immediately called me a Pop Princess.

So I've been outed. I love Kelly Clarkson's Since U Been Gone, Christina Aguilera's version of Candyman, and Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl.

My 16 year old self just died.

In his memory I should play some Metallica or some Pearl Jam. Instead, I'll play my newest guilty pleasure Pull Shapes by the Pipettes, a band I first learned about from a funny book