[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

John Mayer has been persecuted for years. Way back in 2003, the Village Voice mocked his music in an article called "Phallus In Wonderland." The piece called single "Bigger Than My Body" a "ham-handed, palm-chafing, kitten-killing, unsaturated wank with plenty of licks."

Things only got worse with Mayer's infamous Playboy Interview (he called his penis a white supremacist). Oh, and it's a fair assumption that his Urban Dictionary page is pretty harsh.

All of which is why I tend to keep my John Mayer fanaticism to myself. But the haters need to realize that there's more to him than kitschy sentimentalism and dick jokes. Dude can write a song.

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[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

Formerly known as "Tity Boy," Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz is best known as a member of Ludacris' Disturbing tha Peace crewand one half of Playaz Circle, who has the hit "Duffle Bag Boy." "Tit" left his R-rated moniker behind after it dawned on him that it could not be uttered on television or radio. His blend of unabashed materialism and brazen sex talk has landed him features with A-Listers like Nicki Minaj and, somehow, Justin Bieber.

2 Chainz' debut album arrived this month, and while Based on a T.R.U. Story is a chart-topping success, critical response has been tepid. Slate says the album is "an undeniable dud." The Needle Drop calls 2 Chainz' verses "dumber than rocks." Hip Hop DX describes him as "a character from Chris Rock's gangsta rap parody CB4 but without the knowing humor." Hey everybody: Back off!

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[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

On South Park, Enya is portrayed as a horrible joy-sucking presence in pop-culture. Her music actually forces Stan to comprehend the horrors of being old, immobile, and faced with the encroaching certainty of death. Ostensibly, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are inferring that music this flagrantly Caucasian can make even an 8-year old boy have an existential crisis.

This is a pretty common opinion. For most people, Enya represents the absolute worst of willowy, adult-contemporary trash. She's less hip than Nickelback, Maroon 5 or even Seal. Everyone's mom loves Enya. And let's be honest, it's pretty easy to make fun of anyone who has four Grammys for Best New Age Album.

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[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

Critics do their best to ignore Blink-182. After all, it's not easy to get scrunched up with deep opinions about lip-ringed, occasionally naked SoCal troublemakers hawking pre-YouTube music-video softcore on early-morning MTV rotation. Pitchfork didn't even bother publishing a flogging (a la 21st Century Breakdown) of Blink's 2011 comeback album Neighborhoods, much less a review.

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Mac Miller

[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

In March, Mac Miller put out a mixtape. It is called Macadelic. It features "Ignorant," a collaboration between Miller and Cam'ron. Think about this for a moment. Mac Miller made a song with Cam'ron. Mac Miller. Made a song. With Cam. 'Ron. For someone who unilaterally fucks with everything Killa Cam does, the existence of "Ignorant" was a bomb. As was the existence of "Dig That," Mac Miller's other collaboration with Cam'ron.

If you look around, you'll realize the little egg-faced brat is everywhere. He's on French Montana's Coke Boyz 3, which to a very specific type of hip-hop fan (read: me) might be the best tape of the year. Then his surprised-looking ass popped up on Meek Mill's Dreamchasers 2, which to another very specific type of hip-hop fan (read: not me) might also be the best mixtape of the year. And oh, who was the last independent artist to have a number-one record? Mac Fucking Goddamn Miller. Truth is: I don't hate Mac Miller at all. In fact, I kind of love him.

Most people don't, however. Here's why:

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[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

For a true country aficionado, mentioning Tim McGraw in the same breath as Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard or any country great is the holiest of sins. It's like mixing your moonshine with Sprite.

Fans of country before 1992, which was McGraw's introductory year, reserve every right to harbor ill will toward a man from the bowels of Louisiana who's now better known for being the title of a Taylor Swift song. Along with Shania Twain and Garth Brooks, McGraw bears much of the responsibility for melding country and pop , contributing to the former genre's dark and confusing period in the early '90s and resulting bastardization. (In the eyes of some, anyway.)

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[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

Nicki Minaj is a polarizing figure; one could say folks love her or hate her, but many in the hip-hop world love to hate her. With the recent release of her new album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, Minaj-bashing is once again in season.

PopMatters gave the album a 1 out of 10, calling even the superior half of the disc "very poorly thought out rap music masquerading as pop." There have been plenty of other negative reviews; you don't have to look far, and many of them focus on single "Stupid Hoe," which has been called everything from vulgar (which is true) to a-rhythmic (which isn't).

The truth?

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Travis Morrison: the kindest troll of all.

[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

In 2004, Dismemberment Plan frontman Travis Morrison released his somewhat-anticipated solo debut, Travistan to a few polite reviews (Blender, Spin, AV Club) and one notably different one.

Won over to the Plan in 2003 by the best show I'd ever seen in my life (one of their last before retiring), I'd pre-ordered my copy of Travistan and was still processing what I thought was a very good, if twisty album. So I was surprised to open the lead Pitchfork review on September 27, 2004 and see the rating at the top: 0.0 out of 10. Even though my tastes hardly ran with those of the site (which I've since written for), I thought it was an error. Other negative reviews popped up on Popmatters and Tiny Mix Tapes, and eventually it came out that at least one music store had refused to stock the album. Used and promo copies sold for as little as $3 on Amazon within months, which wasn't the case with the other releases on Barsuk Records.

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[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]

There are reasons people love Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath. He's good looking, he's charming, and he's written some very catchy pop songs. Those are, coincidentally, the same reasons some people hate him. One of his band's catchy songs in particular has drawn more than its share of ire -- "Every Morning."

In 1999 "Every Morning" seemed to play every hour on the hour. A backlash followed; Buzzfeed named it one of its 20 worst songs of the '90s. Even "Worst Songs" lists that omit it are full of "where's 'Every Morning?'" comments. But you know what? All of those people are full of it.

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Tool doing stuff we would've thought badass when we were 13

Here's the thing about '90s alt-rock: when you're a kid learning guitar, it is the work of heroes. Then some of those kids get older and realize Collective Soul's "Heavy" wasted an awesome riff on a formulaic, mediocre song. We took a trip down memory lane and revisited the albums we loved in junior high to see how well they hold up.

The Verve Pipe
Villians
Grade I Would Have Given It Then: A
Grade I Would Give It Now: B-

These guys were the most musical of the "scrunge" bands (to use an old SPIN term), which at the time got them compared to XTC from charitable press. But boy, were they stupid. A "shoe full of rice" could only belong in a hit ballad where a freshman regrets dumping a girl because she kills herself. But who told them "I'm in the photograph" is a shoutable chorus?

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