The Booty of My Soul Wants It Some Pop

I don't really care about music. Let me put that out there right from the start. I'm a book person. A movie person. I don't own an iPod (my 587kb shuffle I got as a gift hardly counts), I don't have an iTunes account, I own about 50 CDs and almost all of them are from college or before. I listen to NPR a lot. I skip the music section in my Entertainment Weekly.

But something weird has happened to me in the last 8 months. I have found a reborn delight in pop music. Top 40 music. Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, some dude called Tiao Cruz, Rhianna, even Brittney. I seem to like it all. When I don't have NPR on in the car, I have on Kiss108 and when Ryan does the AT40 on Sunday morning, I'm actually interested in which song is number 1. It's like it is 1985 again and I'm 12 and we're begging Mom and Dad to let us stay in the car until the announce the number 1 before we go into 12 o'clock mass. Or we're rushing out from quarter of 11 mass so we can hear the last 5 or so. Back then, though, of course, it was Casey Kasem making the big announcement.

It all began last February, during the planning for the international symposium that my institute at Tufts does each year. I was still new in my job and was learning trial by fire. My days were 8-10 hours of pure hell, sometimes with both my landline and cell each on an ear and emailing at the same time. There were seemingly hundreds of students in and out of my office all at once. So I turned to Gaga. I created a station on my Pandora called "Poker Face" and rocked to pop to calm my soul. Prior to that, my Pandora stations ranged from Jack Johnson to Ben Harper to Michael Franti to Tori Amos. Not really pop stuff.

And now I'm lost in it. I love it. I know a lot of the songs by heart. (This is partly because Kiss108 tends to play the same songs over and over and over ad nauseum.) I actually enjoy them. I got all excited when I saw the video for Willow Smith's single "Whip My Hair." I sometimes feel like going clubbing.

I'll admit. I don't know all the artists' names. And I don't know from whence they came. I don't really care, actually. I just dig the beat and dig the songs. My Katy Perry Pandora station keeps me going all day long. Flo Rida makes me smile, even if I have to look up what applebottom jeans are. Jason DeRulo makes me want to keep riding solo and be proud of it. Kelly Clarkson is the bomb. Gaga - oh, Gaga how I love thee. Katy - you go girl. Marry Russell Brand in India with your crazy blue hair self. Bruno Mars, yeah, you stole the title "Just the Way You Are" from Billy Joel, but your version is also kick ass, so you're forgiven. And all the cool pairings! Rhianna and Eminem, Katy Perry featuring Snoop, Elton John and the Gaga. So great.

So, there you go. I have no idea what's happened to me. And my taste. But the booty of my soul wants it some pop. So I'm going to go with it. And maybe actually go clubbing one of these weekends.