Jnunior Senior. The Darkness. Lumidee. Do any of these names ring a bell? They might not in five years, but the memory of their music will be permanently implanted into our collective musical conscience, just like the Rex-n-effect, Toadies and Klymaxx.

One thing these recent hits have in common with the aforementioned older ones is the music itself. By and large, these songs are pretty spectacular. There’s literally something wrong with you if you don’t like Beyonce’s “”Crazy in Love.”” What’s wrong with you? It’s great in every way. And I’m not just talking about the fact that Beyonce is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. The Chi-Lites-sampled horns are great, but Beyonce’s attitude and terrific harmonies really make it move. The song is dynamite and should be respected as much as any other form of music.

As long as we’re on the subject of R&B, here’s a quibble: Why is it that hip-hop and R&B songs are considered guilty pleasures? Apparently four skinny white guys playing unoriginal guitar-rock is more deserving of praise than other forms of music. Weirdo soul-songstress Kelis has the best song on the radio right now with the atonal Neptunes groover “”Milkshake.”” It’s a little gimmicky, but it’s also as daring as anything in pop music today. And calling something like Outkast’s “”Hey Ya!”” ‹ truly one of the most formidable pop songs of our day ‹ a guilty pleasure is completely condescending.

Luckily for everyone, the past year has seen so many good “”novelty songs”” that critics have actually started coming around. The music of Junior Senior’s “”Move Your Feet”” sounds exactly like the music that occurs when you beat the level in “”Super Mario Bros.”” (You know what I’m talking about.) Somehow, when taken with infantile lyrics about not stopping some kind of beat, it becomes great. The awesomely named Fannypack had a weird-ass pseudo-hit with “”Cameltoe,”” a Salt-N-Pepa-ish tune with the line “”Is your crotch hungry girl? ŒCause it’s eatin’ your pants.””

I have a confession to make: I like the new Britney Spears song. And not that shit she did with Madonna, the “”Toxic”” song. It’s because it doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t. It’s catchy and easily forgotten as soon as it’s over. Britney Spears could be an enjoyable pop star like, say, Kylie Minogue, if she had more songs like this and not ones that rely on girl-on-girl action or “”oops, I got married”” misadventures to get airplay.

And then there’s the Darkness. Well, they are four skinny white guys, four particularly hurtin’ ones at that, but their campy “”I Believe in a Thing Called Love”” and the accompanying video and album have gotten just about every critic’s attention. If you haven’t seen the video, it’s some nonsense about fighting a giant octopus in outer space and shooting lightning out of guitars. The song itself is a terrific Queen homage with a catchy power-chord riff, monster solo-ing and extremely high-register vocals. What’s not to like?

Plenty of indie rock fits this category. The Faint, who are now getting radio airplay, really wish they were in the 1980s and in the Cure. They’re not, but they’re still pretty cool. The single may be called “”Agenda Suicide”” (I really hope that’s a joke), and it does sort of remind me of wannabe Nine Inch Nails bands like Orgy and Stabbing Westward, but didn’t we all kind of like those bands anyway? Didn’t we own those albums? Maybe that was just me.

Let’s not forget about the Strokes and Weezer. Not the actual bands, the fake ones: Phantom Planet, Ozma, Rooney, etc. None of these bands are any good, but there’s something appealing about bands who copy not-so-original bands. There’s no surprise whatsoever, and that’s what’s good about them: You know exactly what you’re getting.

Let’s change gears here: Entertainment value alone is no way to judge music. When I see some critic’s end-of-the-year list that has every novelty act under the sun but is noticeably missing bands like Grandaddy and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, all these guilty pleasure songs do become a problem. Sure, I love the Darkness as much as anyone else, but does its music honestly compete with the low-key neo-folk of Cat Power or the out-there hip-hop of Dizzee Rascal?

Some of the songs in question just plain suck. Maybe you sing along to Hillary Duff, A Simple Plan, Bow Wow, whatever ‹ but the music sucks. I can’t handle seeing another good review of Evanescence. There’s no pretending that they don’t suck; they suck, and they suck a lot. Some guilty pleasures are just plain guilty. Take the Paris Hilton video. Now that’s just gross. Let’s just hope we can squeeze a good novelty hit out of her when she releases her album (there really is a Paris Hilton album on the way).