It seems that post-punk outfit Public Image Ltd were remarkably prescient with their 1983 track, This Is Not a Love Song. An analysis of US Billboard hits shows that pop songs are now less likely to be about love, and more likely to be about sex, than at any time since the 1960s.
Of course, this may partly be due to increased objectification of women, not least in the disciplines of rap and hip-hop, where, rather too often, the artists’ favourite baseball caps have been afforded more basic human dignity than their female video extras.
Not that the genres of rock and pop have exactly been shy about focusing on the carnal – or am I missing the sociopolitical subtext of 99% of Aerosmith’s output?
Perhaps the truth is that, back in yon olden days, performers simply weren’t allowed to be frank about sex – doing it, wanting it, any of it.
Sexual desire had to be masked, filtered, hence all those saccharine sentiments about love, hearts and hand-holding. In truth, many of those “love songs” were covertly just as much about sex, as songs that are graphically about sex now. Culture just stopped pretending.
