Overview

'Love is two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squelching noises' (Johnny Rotten, Rolling Stone) The theory is that sex sells. And sex sells music. The connections between music and sexuality are long-standing, 'rock'n'roll' itself being a slang term for sex, and there are many ways in which ar sts have explored sex and love through the medium of sound. Some of the records discussed in this book are experiments in expressing sexual desire through musical forms, mixing musical and sexual sounds. Others use sex purely as a marketing device or as 'whimsical entertainment' (sexualised images on LP covers, for example). Other records examine the politics of sexuality and/or offer a subversive take on the relationship between popular music and eroticism. As an accessible form of 'entertainment, the LP was part of the 'democratization' of sexuality and erotica, something that was previously only available to the upper classes collecting erotic and pornographic materials on their many travels around the globe. Recorded music extended the reach of sexual content from literature, with books such as An ABZ of Love by Inge and Sten Hegeler (1963) or Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex (1972), into the audio-visual realm. The 'stirrings of the soul', the animation of the spiritual and the emotional, is what 'heavy conscious creation' is about and the sexual aspect of this is significant and profound. Canadian electroacoustic composer Robert Normandeau once claimed that 'music, unlike other contemporary art forms, has hardly dealt with eroticism as a genre'. This book tries to fill in the gaps that this statement implies. And the 'two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squelching noises' that Johnny Rotten spoke about are here, sometimes literally, in musical form.

Full Product Details

9781915316455

Table of Contents

Reviews

""A cult classic in the waiting"" -Jonny Trunk, Record Collector ""Each book looks at a dozen or so LPs from the author's personal collection that fit a particular theme, with handsome sleeve reproductions and short essays on their origins, significance and respective artists... well worth checking out."" -Ben Graham, Shindig! ""I loved this book. There were enough familiar topics to hook me in, but in addition to its consciousness-expanding and historical insights, it operated as a vital guide through some of the world's most challenging sonic experiments. Exciting connections appeared throughout, which meant that while reading I was constantly inspired, making notes of obscure tangents to follow once the book reached its end."" -Kier-La Janisse, Spectacular Optical ""I'd heard of very few of [the albums covered], always a great sign [...] An ear-opening experience."" -David Holzer, Ugly Things ""Notionally, you could say these releases are tied into the on-going folk horror boom that preoccupies so much of the British (and elsewhere) underground these days; to do so, however, would be to overlook the allure that albums of this nature have long held for vinyl hounds and crate diggers. ... this is not your average book of record art or writing ... fascinating studies of their chosen themes."" -Dave Thompson, Goldmine

Author Information

Mark Goodall is an author and academic who teaches and writes about film. He is also a musician and composer, experimental filmmaker and has worked as a journalist, bookseller, community artist, printer and cheesemonger.

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