Music to listen to after watching Two and a Half Men.

You know it’s lowest common denominator-type stuff. You know it’s predictable, filled with cheap laughs and there’s something about Charlie Sheen that is even sleazier than Charlie Harper. But sometimes you’ve just got to push back that voice inside your head telling you western civilisation is taking a backwards step every time you laugh at Jake farting and just enjoy the show. It’s a bit like Ben Lee.

These days Ben’s albums aren’t even pretending to possess a semblance of artistry. They’re so short, simple and inoffensive I can taste bubblegum in my mouth when I listen. But there’s something refreshingly unpretentious about an artist who is unapologetic about his desire to write simple, catchy songs.

To say songs like ‘I love pop music’ are radio-friendly is to disregard the state of modern radio. Perhaps “wireless-friendly” is a more apt description. His music does seem to be more popular with Madonna King than Kyle and Jackie-O.

It wasn’t always this way for Lee, who began his career 16 years ago in Noise Addict. Early albums Something to Remember Me By, Breathing Tornadoes and hey you. yes you, cheekily bastardised pop conventions and experimented with instrumentation and modality without ever pushing the envelope too far.

Admittedly I stopped buying his CDs after Awake is the New Sleep. As a teenager the middle-class brand of whiney angst dominating 'Cigaretters will Kill You', 'I am a Sunflower', 'No Room to Bleed' and 'music 4 the young & foolish' resonated with me in the same way Silverchair’s grungier angst did. I guess Ben Lee and Silverchair both just outgrew their torment. Ben Lee found enlightenment and Daniel Johns found...well, Paul Mac?

I can’t see myself listening to much Ben Lee anymore. I suppose I’m just a little frightened if I do, I’ll catch his disease and spend the rest of my life roller-skating around the house, malted strawberry milkshake in hand, only stopping to watch Two and a Half Men before bedtime at 8:30pm.