What’s a guilty pleasure song?

I am absolutely without shame about my love for catchy pop songs, but I generally like to think of myself as someone who likes my pop music to be “intelligent”. I want a lyric that subverts expectations or production elements that push against whatever is trending in the current world of cookie-cutter tiktok fodder. Think Billie and Finneas over Sabrina Carpenter… Dijon over Doja Cat… you get the picture. I realize this probably makes me both an elitist snob and a hypocrite who wants to have my cake and eat it too. I’ve made my peace with it.

Occasionally, though, a song that is in no way intelligent, exciting, edgy, or subversive makes it’s way past my defenses; it’s just pure pop—the musical equivalent of sugar water—designed to get stuck in your head and addict you, maximizing attention and profits. More often than not over the past 15 years, the songs that do this to me have been written (or co-written) by one man in particular: Mr. Terius Nash, a.k.a. The-Dream. This is just one example of dozens I could have sighted, but it gets the nod mostly because of the number of times I have, alone in my car or while washing dishes, sung along to this one at the top of my lungs…complete with poor attempts at mimicking Beyoncé’s melisma. I’m sure it would be horrific to witness, but it feels great.