I don’t care who you are, I insist that this holds true. You need that one friend in your life with whom you can belt out your favorite songs at the top of your lungs. I give bonus points if they’re songs from Taylor Swift or Katy Perry.

Why pop songs, you might ask? I’m glad you asked, person who didn’t actually ask that. I say this because I earnestly believe that the dumbest, most shallow pop songs we inevitably end up loving can reveal just as much about us as the most complex, meaningful songs that we connect to on an intellectual level. And yeah, I know how pretentious that sentence must sound if you actually read it out loud. Doesn’t mean it isn’t kinda true, though!

Think about it for a sec—it’s like the difference between stream of consciousness writing and the short story on which you spent agonizing hours revising and improving—a pop song versus a song with actual thought and meaning put into it. One took relatively no thought to get out as the words just poured out of you. Most of it was pretty crappy writing, but there were some pretty great, pretty real moments that came out of that writing. It’s the same with pop songs—most of those lyrics you’re belting out mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. But out of all those glitzy, manufactured lines about crushing on hot people, breaking up with them, moving on to more hot people, and inanely repeating that vapid cycle, there’s always a few lines that really stick with you. Even the fact that the particular sound of that song can tell you things about yourself.

“Love Story” by Taylor Swift will always be the first modern song that I heard on the radio and fell in love with on my own, free of my parents’ influence or suggestion in music. Yeah, that could just mean that I had really shitty taste in music on my own right out of the gate, but I also know that I’m a notoriously romantic sap, and “Love Story” strikes those chords in anyone on the inside, regardless of how much they might deny it. I don’t care what you say, songs like Swift’s “Love Story” and Katy Perry’s “Firework” do lift you up just a little bit when you hear them. Your cheeks grow a little warm, you suppress a grin, maybe you even hum a few of the lines. Hell, if you do it right, you’re belting out the lyrics loud and proud—preferably with a friend who enjoys it just as much as you.

It’s a sign of your confidence in yourself that you can legitimately like something with someone else, regardless of public opinion. If you can admit to yourself that you like something as basic, vapid, and common as a pop song for legitimate, personal reasons, I kinda think you become stronger as a person for it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go do the dishes while wailing along to “I Knew You Were Trouble”.