A few days ago I made a random joke about Sabrina Carpenter on Facebook. I was talking about how stupid it is that some parents are apparently superman that they took their kids to her concert and it ended up being all about sex, when literally that’s the one thing I know about her. Anyway, since then I’ve been kinda working on something in my head… it might become my PCA paper for next year. But I need your help.
What are the most explicitly sexual mainstream pop albums of all time? Which ones and why? I’m not asking who are the sexiest singers. That’s a different conversation. And I’m not asking about artists who might have a song or two on an album that is about sex or coming out or meeting the love of your life. I’m asking what albums can you think of where the whole album (or at least a significant portion of it) is explicitly about having sex or being horny or getting laid. Carpenter’s current album, Short and Sweet is a perfect example here. I’ve listened to it and not only is it explicitly about getting laid and exploring her sexuality, but it is very good and she’s obviously having a cultural moment here. I’m also thinking several early Prince and Madonna albums, or like Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get it On. Rihanna is she’s, but she’s not what i’m looking for here because none of her albums are really “about sex” in the same way. Similarly, Miley Cyrus I can’t really decide on. Like she’s obviously got some sexy material but mostly she’s not singing about sex… she just looks like that. To be honest, even though I put her in the image for this post, I keep going back and forth on Katy Perry for the same reason.
The other caveat is that I am looking for people who were not only singing explicitly about fucking. It needs to be pretty much the whole album, and I want them to have been mainstream successful. So like, I love Clarence Carter’s “Strokin'” but I don’t think that counts here. Same with something like Carmen Electra’s solo album. It’s very sexual. It’s basically “doing the 90s era Prince thing” but since most no one has ever heard it but me I can’t consider it successful. BUT, Carmen also fronted the Pussycat Dolls for a while, and I think they probably do count. Certainly the version that found mainstream success with Nicole Scherzinger must count? I think? I also considered D’Angelo, but really, it’s just the one song and not the whole album and again, it feels more sexy than sexual. I’m working a lot of this out as I go, obviously.
I think I also want to get stuff that is very much IN the pop genre. But I’m going back and forth here. I wanted stuff that was super mainstream appealable… but part of me wonders if that’s just heavily leaning into whiteness. Like obviously a group like 2 Live Crew was very sexual but they didn’t feel mainstream. On the other hand a lot of modern hip hop is… for instance this is Nikki Minaj’s whole act (and Cardi B, and Megan Thee Stallion) and I can’t decide if it counts or not.
So yeah… give me your thoughts!