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Eighteen Tunes to Screw To

Updated: May 28, 2015 13:06
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I used to have an iTunes playlist called Music To Fuck To, a curated aural orgy of thumping bass and wah-wah guitar glory.  All the obvious songs were there—”Whole Lotta Love,” “Come Together,” “Lebanese Blonde.”

Naturally, I played it one night when I was giving a platonic massage to a new friend I was hoping to seduce.  When the friend inevitably went over to my laptop and saw the playlist name, I was a bit embarrassed.  I’ve since renamed it Aaah.

Such playlists are important.  Without them and entire music libraries shuffling like drunken bumble bees and coked-up hornets, a song like “Islands In the Stream” might come on when undergarments are being seductively removed.  Then, as a finger grazes a hole with feather-like sensitivity, on comes the blaring of “Yakety Yak.”  You can assure your friend it’s a remnant from when you wrote a research paper on The Coasters’ valuable influence on the 1957 music scene, but it will be too late.
What is sex music?  There’s no hard definition.  Not even in Urban Dictionary.  I didn’t even bother to look, but I sincerely doubt it’s there.  But needless to say, it’s music that creates an atmosphere where dicks, pussies, fingers, asses, lips, nipples, armpits, feet, thighs, eyes, hair and sometimes noses can mingle without feeling that uneasy feeling you feel when an anvil comes crashing through a window or a pigeon flies into an aircraft engine.
The Comments section is below.  Use it to explicate comments like, “This list fucking sucks, how could you skip ‘Whatz Ya Phone #’ by TuPac!” or, preferably, to add delightful auditory gems of your own to the list.  In the end, this will be a rich source of exploration.  Download today, start boning tonight.
Honorable mention goes to the music of Bill Withers.  He’s not on the list because his lyrics are a bit menacing—pretty much every song he wrote conveys the same message: “Bitch, I know you’re cheating on me, and I am disgusted with you.”  Words aside, his music is sexy as fuck.  Check out “Who Is He (And What Is He To You).”
Before getting ready to jam these tunes, you might want to make sure your Tinder profile is up to par. Check out Broke Ass Stuart’s handy guide. http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2013/10/10/reasons-why-your-tinder-profile-is-horrible/
On The Road Again by Canned Heat
Like a 16-wheeler cruising down Route 66 filled with whiskey and cigars, “On the Road Again” has the most incessant rhythm section ever recorded.  Add some vocals by one of the most peculiar voices in the history of rock music, and there you go.  A classic sex song.

Over Our Heads by Zero 7
What’s better than a song that sounds like a cross between Pink Floyd and Air?  I like to listen to this with fat headphones because the sultry vocal harmony is panned beautifully between two ears.  That might be awkward in bed with a partner, though, so just play it on a stereo really loud.  The bass is gigantic.

Feel Like Making Love by D’Angelo
Props to D’Angelo for successfully taking the sound of a dick sliding into a hole and turning it into a full-length song.

Mambo Sun by T-Rex

The less popular but more sex-appropriate pioneers of glam rock alongside David Bowie. Lava lamp-shag carpet-big hair-sexy scream-fuzz guitar-ooh-aah-party, compressed into 3:41 of ear massage.

Fools Gold by Stone Roses
The beat on this song will make you want to shake your ass so hard on a dance floor, but in a small room that’s dark, hot and lined with velvet—ostensibly your bedroom.  Perfect, because about halfway through its 10-minute length (be sure to find the long version, not the shortened one) this turns into an instrumental where the psychedelic guitar noises and spacey booming sounds threaten to blow your speakers to shreds, which may impress your date as you’ve transitioned to the bed. Bonus, it’s all held together with conga drums that keep things barely down to earth.

A Go Go by John Scofield

John Scofield looks like an accountant.  On better days, maybe he looks like a disheveled math professor. The sounds he creates are a different story, however.  I once saw him live and nearly shit my pants when he plugged a wah wah pedal into a backwards pedal and made the most satanic noises I’d ever heard come from a musical instrument.  This track is slow, dark and perfectly moody—and filled with his signature nerve-twisting guitar weirdness.

FunkShun by Albert King

Albert King’s voice is a stunner—soaring, barking, hooting and crooning all at once.  In any case, he doesn’t sing on this song because it’s an instrumental.  Smokey piano, simmering horns, snaky bass and biting guitar all make this tune groove like it’s escaping the steamy window of a Memphis juke joint.
What Is Love? by Deee-Lite
Deee-Lite’s song “Groove Is In the Heart” was the single coolest thing about the year 1990, narrowly edging out the series finale of the TV show Alf.  This track is more sex-appropriate, sounding like a slow orgy in the moondust of a spaceship landing like molasses on the thick sands of Jupiter.
The Game of Love by Daft Punk
Pulsating, deep and with very crisp production standards, this track is a masterpiece that may take a few listens to fully appreciate, especially since it’s on the same album that features the wildly popular, Pharrel Williams-sung “Get Lucky.”
Back Door Man by Howling Wolf
The only thing better than this song itself—with its creepy piano and stuttering rhythm—are its lyrics, which are delicious and eye-popping in their bravado.  The Doors did a shitty remake of this song in 1966.

Stretched Home by The Album Leaf

An ambient instrumental with a soaring chorus that may remind you of the music from The Legend of Zelda.  That might not sound sexy, but it can work as a soundtrack to intercourse that’s particularly triumphant.  Like the battle of Waterloo.

The Robots by Kraftwerk

These guys were making electronic music decades ahead of their time, and this song is their quintessential ode.  It is deep and minimal, and sounds no less relevant today than it did in the 1970s.  A must-download if you especially appreciate the sound of robots talking to you while you’re naked.

Come On and Love Me by Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz and Creed had at least one thing in common—they both reached high levels of popularity with shitty music that eclipsed their earlier work that was actually good.  On the correct side of that arc, this song comes from Lenny’s album “Are You Gonna Go My Way” where he channels the spirit of Jimi Hendrix quite effectively.  It’s filthy and sensual, drenched in reverb and garage-echo drumming.

Blues Man by Stephen Stills

You know that song “Our House” by Crosby Stills Nash and Young, about a very very very fine house with two cats in the yard?  Graham Nash wrote that.  Stephen Stills was the grit in that band, the source of much delicious tension and famous for doing things like soaking his guitar strings in barbecue sauce to make them sound more fucked up.  He played the filthy intro to their song “Woodstock.”  On Blues Man, it’s just Stephen solo with an acoustic guitar. His vocals are like a bar fight compressed into a set of whispers, and the incessant twang of his finger picking sounds like his guitar is six inches from your ear. This song smokes.

Tribute To Muddy by Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter was blind, and an albino, and the brother of Edgar Winter of “Free Ride” fame.  This is the one song that inspired this entire list — bass that pounds like thrusting hips, guitar bits that sound like a pubescent boner, and Johnny growling and wailing like someone possessed.  “Tribute to Muddy” is a bit heavy in its delivery, less a soundtrack for a candle-lit caress, more of something to blare if you are (1) a cowboy fucking a cheerleader in a barn, (2) a cheerleader fucking a cowboy in a barn, (3) two cowboys taking turns fucking each other in a barn, or (3) two cheerleaders scissoring in a barn. Don’t forget the sub woofer.
Radian by Air
I cannot think of enough expletives to describe this song, and even calling it a “song” seems like an injustice.  Turn the bass up very high.  At about 3:10, just when you and your sex partner(s) feel like your heads are going to explode like watermelons filled with dynamite, in comes an ethereal harp that takes the track to a more floaty realm.  A knockout.
If Only Tonight We Could Sleep by The Cure
Most of the songs on this list are characterized by walloping bass and pulsating drums.  Leave it to the Cure to shatter that blueprint, instead creating an eastern soundscape of glittery spider webs, swaying peacock feathers and plunging forays towards a sort of sitar-laden womb.  The final vocal line: “Don’t let it end.”
What Is Happening by Cornershop
Playing this song, and this entire album, is a risky endeavor.  It’s bright and danceable, punctuated by a lot of record samples and scratching, and anchored by the hit single “Brimful of Asha.”  Half the vocals are sung in Hindi.  And some of the samples, like the grocery store clerk on this song repeatedly stating the price of canned mashed potatoes, may be weird enough to send a bewildered guest jumping out of your bedroom window, fearing you’re about to don a jester hat and a sequin-enshrined dagger made of solid gold.  Perhaps this album is better to play for yourself when you just want to get really stoned and masturbate.
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Dan Nazarian - Uninformed Informant

Dan Nazarian - Uninformed Informant

Dan Nazarian is a Bay Area native whose life has been colored by extensive world travel, a brief white-faced obsession with the Cure, and periodic acid trips while skinny dipping. He is a massage therapist in the City.