I saw an interview with George Michael the other day, in which something he said caught my ear. Basically, he made a distinction between two opposing elements within popular music - the music of sexual prowess, and the music of sexual frustration. Interestingly he tagged rock as being based on frustration, while soul and R'n'B are expressions of carnal knowledgeability.
Obviously this is no hard and fast rule, but it's an interesting idea to kick around. Which bands are which? And which sort predominate in your music collection? Is this a new criterion to add to the indexing information on MP3 downloads? Plainly Prince wants us to know he's the king of the horizontal bossa nova, while the Smiths are telling us they're far from convinced they'll ever get laid. And what of other genres?
This has also woken me up to a long-held assumption I didn't realise I had. It always seemed to me that rock was about as manly as music got. No judgements there - I love all sorts of music - but somehow Marvin Gaye was never as macho as Motorhead. All that rock-god posturing and amps turned up to 11 - could it really mean that we've come to equate manhood with sexual frustration?
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