What are the most sexually explicit songs to make onto mainstream pop radio?

Maybe with a focus on the censorious 80s & 90s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y8w2W1uy2A

"I Want Your Sex" wasn't a huge it, mainly because it wasn't a very good song I guess, but I'm still surprised it got played.

"I Touch Myself" was shocking. It was turned off immediately if it came on during the car ride to school.

I had no idea, at the time, what Frankie was talking about in "Relax". Come where?

"Let's Get Physical" I thought was an ode to fitness.

"Push It". I have no idea what I made of that as a kid. But I was down with pushin' it! Guess I thought it was a dance move?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob9e-o_s7Gg

he had pictures of naked ladies

lol

When did WASP get played on mainstream pop radio?

My answer for this is "Sugar Walls"

I did know what a centerfold was. Given my church-going, evangelical upbringing, I found the J Geils song offensive and would change it myself.

Yes, I think "Sugar Walls" is the winner. My half-sister explained that one to me and a friend. I'm still not sure we got it.

"You make a dead man cum"

did that line get censored?

"I didn't get laid . . ." in "Kiss Me Deadly" -- don't think I'd ever heard the phrase before that on radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPOTtiH_Jt0

It's the 2000s but 50 Cent's Candy Shop offered to let you lick the lollipop

Girl I want to make you sweat
Sweat till you can't sweat no more
And if you cry out
I'm gonna push it
Push it, push it some more

Not just explicit but downright rapey.

That stones line, not only was it not censored, I heard it on the recent TOTP repeat. Admittedly on the fade, but still clear enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTXsXVFm0SE

https://youtu.be/loKdKr1dukk

omg salthigh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDJu7r6OUvk

I guess "Miracles" doesn't count, since the "I got a taste of the real world when I went down on you" verse was cut from the single version.

Silk - Freak Me

oh, the inspiration for this thread was a misheard lyric. At a bar, playing in the background, was a song with a female vocalist and the chorus "if I was you, I'd want up in me too, I'd want up in me too, I'd want up in me... too", which I thought was outrageously lascivious, so. I Googled those words to discover that what I was hearing was Meghan Trainor's "Me Too" and the lyrics were in fact "I'd want to be me, too". Surely whoever wrote this song knew exactly what s/he was doing.

I think about this all the time and it's probably Petey Pablo's "Freak A Leek"

I need a girl I could freak wit'
And want to try shit? and ain't scared of a big dick m
And love to get get her pussy licked, by another bitch
Cause I ain't drunk enough to do that shit

DO YA WANT IT IN YOUR PUSSY DO YA WANT IT IN YOUR ASS

The Whisper Song by the Ying Yang Twins managed to sneak a lot past the censors simply because people couldn't hear what they were saying

That "Lick my neck my back, lick my pussy and then my crack" song.

you mean the one I just posted?

This really died off after the 00s, didn't it? I guess the novelty of hearing dirty songs on the radio wore off.

x-post ha, sorry, youtube links don't work on my iphone

Save It For Later?

Baby Got Back?

Shameka, Keisha, Tara, Shonda, Sabrina, Crysta, Daronda, Theresa, Felicia, Tenisha, Sha'von, Monica, Monique, Christina

self-rejected the thread idea of songs listing girl names after i realised i couldnt be bothered to think past freekaleek and she's got that vibe

Vaguely recall listening to a 2 live crew dirty mix on vinyl

In the early 90s

self-rejected the thread idea of songs listing girl names after i realised i couldnt be bothered to think past freekaleek and she's got that vibe

Freek-a-Leek vs Song for Whoever

Aw, skeet skeet skeet skeet skeet skeet

And that was the radio edit.

Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop" or The Divinyls' "I Touch Myself"

Ahem *Mambo #5*

xp

how far back do we go? most of the stuff out there when i was young is nothing compared to the double-entendre blues of the 30s and 40s. no idea how much, if any, airplay songs like "dirty mother for ya" or, you know, "good golly miss molly" got.

Rough Trade's "High School Confidential" hit #12 and got a lot of airplay here in Canada (and still does). "Crimes of Passion" was also a top 20 hit.

I didn't think most of those raunchy pre-rock blues songs were getting much mainstream airplay as opposed to things like these, though? xp

"Milkshake" should be right up there, even if I didn't get it at the time (in fact, I'm not sure I get it now...but I'm told it's quite explicit!)

"My Ding-A-Ling" has to count for something...

If we're talking explicit, I'm not sure that many of these could beat something like "My Neck My Back" (assuming that got mainstream pop airplay; it didn't on stations I was exposed to).

I didn't think most of those raunchy pre-rock blues songs were getting much mainstream airplay as opposed to things like these, though? xp

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r)

I guess that brings up the question of what qualifies as "mainstream" in a segregationist era. Truthfully I don't really know what "black radio" would have sounded like pre-rock, though a Chicago radio station premiered an hour of programming targeted towards black audiences as early as 1929.

the original lyrics to Tutti Frutti were "Tutti frutti/good booty"

the original lyrics to Great Balls of Fire were

If we're going to include songs that had their lyrics altered to become radio friendly, then the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" (originally "Black Pussy" fits). Actually, "Cocksucker Blues" was intended to be a single, but was never played on any commercial station in the Western world

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2ko2VXpW7_g&feature=player_embedded
not really relevant but wth

"You Suck" reached #7 on the Dutch pop charts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH6DhcR51iQ

look i didn’t say it was a competent months-long fbi investigation

they couldn't see the wood for the trees!

"Smell Yo Dick" didn't chart but was an internet hit

Xposts sugar walls was the very first thing that sprang to mind when I saw thread title

"Smell Yo Dick" didn't chart but was an internet hit

“Suck My Ass It Smells” by GG Allin didn’t chart, but every single person reading this thread has heard of it, QED

DO YA WANT IT IN YOUR PUSSY DO YA WANT IT IN YOUR ASS

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Saturday, December 17, 2016 10:55 AM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Slob on my knob like corn on the cob
Lie on the bed and give me some head

That's all well and good but what are the most sexually explicit songs to make onto mainstream pop radio?

This really died off after the 00s, didn't it? I guess the novelty of hearing dirty songs on the radio wore off.

― Mr. Snrub, Saturday, December 17, 2016 4:20 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Times have changed!

what was it like hearing "love to love you baby" on the radio? did parents tell their kids she was laughing?

I only ever heard that on Radio Luxembourg.

Oh, and we never got to hear "Sugar Walls" over here.

Speaking of Gainsbourg, surely "Love on the beat" belongs here !
(of course, the song AND the video are NSFW !)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI8GZ6CHVIA

The lyrics are pretty... raunchy too !
(first, there's a pun in the title as "beat" means "dick" in french...)

D'abord je veux avec ma langue
Natale deviner tes pensées
Mais toi déjà déjà tu tangues
Aux flux et reflux des marées

Je pense à toi en tant que cible
Ma belle enfant écartelée
Là j'ai touché le point sensible
Attends je vais m'y attarder

Il est temps de passer aux choses
Sérieuses ma poupée jolie
Tu as envie d'une overdose
De baise voilà je m'introduis

J'aime assez tes miaou miaou
Griffes dehors moi dents dedans
Ta nuque voir de ton joli cou
Comme un rubis perler le sang

Plus tu cries plus profond j'irai
Dans tes sables émouvants sables
Où m'enlisant je te dirai
Les mots les plus abominables

Brûlants sont tous tes orifices
Des trois que les dieux t'ont donnés
Je décide dans le moins lisse
D'achever de m'abandonner

Une décharge de six mille volts
Vient de gicler de mon pylône
Et nos reins alors se révoltent
D'un coup d'épilepsie synchrone

Love on the beat
Love on the beat

and an approximate translation for those who can't read french (difficult to translate Gainsbourg's stuff since it's all about wordplay !)

At first I want with my tongue to guess your thoughts
But you are already pitching At the ebb and flow of the tide

I think of you as a target
My pretty quartered child
Here, I've touched the sensitive point
Wait, I will linger on it

It is time to pass to
serious things my pretty doll
You have a craving for an overdose
of fucking, here it is, I'm introducing myself

I really love your miaow miaows
Claws outside, my teeth inside
Your nape, seeing your pretty neck
Like a ruby, forming beads of blood

The more you scream, the deeper I will go
Into your quicksands, sands
Where I get bogged down, I'll tell you
The naughtiest words

Blazing are all your orifices
The three that the gods have given you
I decide in the least smooth of them
To finish off and let myself go

A six thousand volt discharge
Has just spurted out of my pylon
And so our waists revolt
In a blow of synchronous epilepsy

*fans self*

nobody can deny that French truly is the language of lo...ads being blasted between her kidneys

maybe it's a generational thing but "sugar walls" sounds quaint more than anything, and not really all that explicit (since it still works on an entirely metaphorical level)

...which I posted two years ago apparently, oops

anyway rihanna's "rude boy" would qualify

Probably considered quaint today, but Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" seemed pretty explicit for a Top 40 hit in 1995.

It's not sexually explicit in any sense, but props to Mylo for managing to get the word "motherfucker" in regular rotation on mainstream radio for a few years.

As far as metaphorically dirty 80s pop songs go, "Get into the Groove" is up there.

I'm tired of dancing here all by myself
Tonight I wanna dance with someone else

It's not as forthright as "She Bop" or as OTT as "Sugar Walls" but I think of it in the same category.

Precisely what "groove" are you speaking of here

I probably posted this but there was a moment in adulthood where I understood the weird violence in Van Halen calling a vagina “Pound Cake”

is that Meatloaf song about not wanting to perform oral

I nominate "Laffy Taffy".

Saxophone / Lord Kitchener
Les Sucettes / Gainsbourg
Push the Button / Sugacubes

Einar’s part in Push The Button was a real eye-opener, yeah

That Gainsbourg video is funny... the guy looks like he can barely muster up the enthusiasm to take a drag on his cigarette, let alone perform all the vigorous acts described in the song.

also [citation needed] for how much Lord Kitchener was getting played on mainstream pop radio in 1954, when mainstream pop was not legally allowed to be played on UK radio waves, let alone calypso

Dinosaur, Jr's "Lick Me Where It Looks Like Milton Berle" didnt get much traction

― Neanderthal, Tuesday, December 27, 2016 5:05 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

underrated post

re: "Too Close" the spoken intro is "I wonder if she can tell that I'm hard right now" so I never really thought it was about anything else.

even knowing many of the lyrics pretty decently, including the spoken intro line, it took me a while to put two and two together for "too close". mind you my age consisted of a single digit when it was popular.

a few years later when the "lady marmalade" cover got big i felt like i had learned some extra-juicy secret when i looked up the lyrics online and realized it was about a prostitute. (i even knew enough french to understand the chorus line, so why i even needed to look up the lyrics to come to this realization is beyond me. i was a fairly oblivious child.)

maybe not the most explicit song, but Sean Paul was able to hide a lot of frank sex talk with his patois on "Like Glue"

That Gainsbourg video is funny... the guy looks like he can barely muster up the enthusiasm to take a drag on his cigarette, let alone perform all the vigorous acts described in the song.

― yuh yuh (morrisp), mercredi 20 février 2019 20:05 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahah, yeah. but he had a huge reputation as a lover... and had a baby with the woman dancing in that video a couple of years later !

Was Prince's "Erotic City" played uncut on the radio?

I recall stories of at least one station getting stuck with a substantial fine for playing "Erotic City" uncut during rush hour.

I remember our local contemporary hip hop and R&B station in the mid 90s sometimes doing throwback type shows and playing Erotic City unedited - only time I remember hearing the word fuck on the radio as they were usually pretty thorough with playing the edited versions

Britney's "If You Seek Amy" perhaps?

― Mark G, Tuesday, February 19, 2019 2:10 AM (four days ago)

radio played an edit that replaced 'seek' with 'see' in the chorus. + the song is very unremarkable beyond the title

re: "erotic city" i suppose stations could have claimed ignorance, thinking utterances of 'fuck' were actually 'funk' or w/e (i'm guessing the ambiguity there was intentional to begin w/)

lol which also reminds me of non-swear words that sometimes get edited out for radio because they sound like they might be swears. i remember ne-yo singing 'pimp-ship flying high' in keri hilson's "knock you down" often having 'ship' cut out

I think ZZ Top is still getting away w/the "Shit! I've Got Have Her" line in "Legs", but I could be wrong.

Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction made it into the UK Top 20 in 1987 with a song that includes the following verse:

Well, I'm Christ in shades, I'm the Napalm God
Your lipstick flickers 'round my lightning rod
You fever-pitch bitch, you love to tease
I'm a hot dog daddy - open your knees

Alison Moyet’s Love Resurrection is one for the ‘massive daytime radio hit where if you don’t listen closely to the words you wouldn’t think of it as raunchy’ category. It’s genuinely amazing they got away with it. Master And Servant too obvs, there was something funny in the British water in 1984/85. Possibly it was the Frankie Goes To Hollywood influence?

Speaking of the Britney track, how many recall the Canadian band April Wine doing nearly the same thing back in 1982 with their single "If You See Kay." It certainly got radio play (and MTV too I think) - otherwise I wouldn't have remembered it, but wasn't a big hit. Granted, Britney's little lyrical twist makes it stronger.

gimme more seems like a more sexually explicit song than if you seek amy, had wider exposure too

*cntrl-Fs "khia"*

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c'mon people

"my neck my back" was mentioned twice

haha woops

speaking of, i heard "oops (oh my)" today and thought of this thread

Late Junction on radio 3 the other week played a live Throbbing Gristle track that mentioned fisting

"she told me to come but I was already there" is legit compelling because, in its case, the meaning is so glaringly obvious