Can a guilty pleasure be a new good song?

Sometimes a new song may be good, but you're not sure you are comfortable saying so aloud. Example: "Want U Back" by Cher Lloyd.

If is a song would otherwise be good, but you are embarrassed to like it, is it necessarily not good? One might wonder if such a song possesses an inherently un-good quality -- some sort of "guilty pleasure" factor -- that stems from it being juvenile, corny, too simplistic or in some way tacky.

I would say that this is indeed the case. If someone today likes anything by Justin Bieber (i.e., is under the age of 14 or is over the age of 14 but has poor taste), he or she would probably preface his or her favorable opinion by qualifying the fandom with the phrase "guilty pleasure." However, there's a reason some pleasures are guilty -- the songs aren't genuinely good.

But it isn't always clear whether something is a guilty pleasure. Some people assume that all music by or for teens is a guilty pleasure, but this surely isn't the case.  "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, I would argue, is not a guilty pleasure, and nor is "Love You Like A Love Song" by Selena Gomez & The Scene. These are just new good songs. If you think they are guilty pleasures, you're just a snob. Guilty pleasures are things like Milli Vanilli's output, which is terrible.

But some artists' output straddles the line, like Celine Dion. Is she a guilty pleasure? This is hard to answer. As I've said several times, I am song loyal, not artist loyal. So, in my opinion, "The Power Of Love" is a guilty pleasure because it's terrible, while "A New Day Has Come" is not, because it's good. "Love Can Move Mountains" is a guilty pleasure, but "My Heart Will Go On" is not.

I think if you are embarrassed by your tastes, you don't genuinely hold those tastes. There's some quality in the song that gives you pause. You may like it, but you know it's not good. There's a difference between something being good and something being liked; that's why some No. 1 songs (e.g., "Macarena,") are horrible.

In the end, I at first thought "Want U Back" by Cheryl Lloyd was a guilty pleasure, but I have decided it's not. It's a new good song.