Sex in the 70s
Bow chicka wow wow
Though this newsletter is usually family friendly, today’s edition is a bit more risqué. Why? I want to say because Valentine’s Day is this week, and I always plan these newsletters to coincide with whatever is going on in the world. That’s not the case, though. I just stumbled upon a shockingly sensual song from 50 years ago and felt the need to write about it. If you want more explicit content, feel free to check out my history of cursing in songs.
As always, if you enjoy the stuff that I do here, consider purchasing a copy of my book Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. It’s a data-driven history of popular music that I wrote as I spent years listening to every number one hit in history.
Sex in the 70s
By Chris Dalla Riva
In August 2020, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion were at the center of political firestorm. The duo had just released “WAP,” a raunchy collaboration that Ben Sisario of The New York Times referred to as “certainly the most graphic and explicit song ever to reach the top” of the Billboard Hot 100.
Everybody felt like that had to say something about “WAP.” Pitchfork ranked it the best song of the year, declaring it “the rare instant hit that exists as a trend and future monument.” Rolling Stone and NPR followed suit in their year-end rankings.
In a since-deleted tweet, one-time Congressional candidate James P. Bradley said that after “accidentally” hearing the song, he needed to “pour holy water in [his] ears.” Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro also went on an eight-minute rant about the X-rated song.
Until this moment, I’ve never felt much of a need to comment on “WAP.” The controversy around the song is just the latest in a long line of lyrical controversies. Here’s what I wrote on the topic in my book when discussing explicit music in the 1990s:
No, this wasn’t the first time that popular music was engaging with controversial topics. In the 1950s, Variety decried the obscenity of rock ‘n’ roll “leer-ics.” Two decades later, Time magazine lamented, “15% of [radio] air time is devoted to [sex songs].” A decade after that, the US Senate brought popular musicians to Washington, D.C. to discuss the effects of controversial lyrics, ultimately resulting in certain albums getting a “Parental Advisory” sticker.
So, popular music and lyrical controversy go hand-in-hand. But in the last week, I’ve begun to think that the most sexually explicit songs were not released in the last decade. They were released in the 1970s.
Sex, in short, is nothing new. But the modern sex song was birthed during the Richard Nixon administration.
