Then came its deployment in the culture: think key parties and films like Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris (1972) and the triumvirate of Melvin Van Peeble's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), Gordon Park's Shaft (1971), and Gordon Parks, Jr.'s Super Fly (1972). The introduction of such self-help books as Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex (1971) and The Boston Women's Health Book Collective's Our Bodies, Ourselves (1972) capitalized on the late '60's loosening of moral and sexual standards to bring a new more scientific and insightful awareness about sexuality. Its full hegemonic effects weren't felt until almost half a decade later, when mainstream culture had absorbed this normative shift.įirst came the intervening educational effort with two primary texts. Characterizing this emerging ethos would be films like Paul Mazursky's Bob, Carol, Ted, & Alice (1969). The sexual revolution supposedly emerged in the late 1960's, but it was primarily a youthful revolution involving free love and bra burning however, from it arose a more culture-wide shift. So why did this particular musical trend appear when it did? Lest I be accused of re-producing what Foucalt's calls "The Repressive Hypothesis," note that I agree with him that in between the 17th and 20th centuries there was a "veritable discursive explosion" in the discussion of sex, albeit using an "authorized vocabulary" codifying what one could say and how, when, where, and to whom one could speak it. This music has two key features: 1) lyrics explicitly about sexual encounters and 2) actual or simulated sounds of intercourse interpolated into the song. Let's call it The Big "O " or, ballin' music (apologies to Mr. We can consider the music I will discuss a specific subgenre of the category "Quiet Storm" so titled by Smoked Robinson's 1975 title track and popularized by DJs like Washington, DC's Melvin Lindsey. This article involves a more poptimist-ic, inclusive version of music, gender, and sexuality as opposed to Marsh's narcissistic self-satisfied discharge. This first generation Detroit-based rock critic, Creem stalwart, and Lester Bangs mentor always had his eyes set higher, so while it might be Jon Landau who first saw "the future of Rock and Roll "and thanks to good buddy Jerry Wexler had already had a go with producing both the MC5 and The J. In 1979's Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island edited by Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh represented the Caveman first generation of phallocentric rock critics with his regressive essay "Onan's Greatest Hits," which seems not to understand that women pleasure themselves too-sure, he's got a girl group but they're singing about a guy getting himself off and he focuses on the front woman's vocal power (code for masculinity) and then he further proclaims, "I wish I could say that ‘Party Lights' represents the female perspective on masturbation, but my understanding of women sexually stops far short of that" (225)-and gleefully participates in all the usual moves of what McRobbie and Frith labeled "cock rock" (374-6) way back in 1978: "a great deal of my favorite rock is about wanking" (220). Marvin Gaye kicked it off, or more properly, a bit of an audio recording of Fred and Madeline Ross did. But it's full and "deathly" flowering didn't occur until the middle four years of the 1970's (1973-6). It began in the late 1960's as everything does (or so one Baby Boomer version of history goes). Moanin' and Groanin' Why was mid 1970s music so orgasmic? Perfect Sound Forever: Why was mid 1970s music so orgasmic?
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