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Music

Dead Musicians 005: Julie London's SFW Porn

Sometimes music feels like pornography. Musicians of every era have aimed to arouse and titillate, squeezing in classically obscene elements like nudity and suggestive dancing wherever the culture permits. Hot music can turn people on without being called pornography, an unusual artistic freedom.

If there’s any fully-clothed performance I’d designate as pornography, it’s this clip of Julie London performing “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

For those who don’t know, Julie London is arguably the singer with the sexiest voice. She defines herself as a sexpot at every opportunity. Her breathy, nymphomaniacal delivery is entirely deliberate. Once, as guest star on The Mickey Mouse Club, she sang a version of the Mickey Mouse theme as if on the precipice of an orgasm. In this clip, she takes “Bye Bye Blackbird”, a rather innocent song, and turns it into sex.

I’d wager she chose this minimal bass/vocal arrangement to conjure a couple in bed—her voice playing the female and the bass playing the man. London evokes this idea visually as well, cozying up to the bassist, tantalizing him, until the finale when she literally slaps the microphone against her ass and makes out with him as his fingers slide up the bass in a barely-veiled reference.

Seduction is complex and nuanced. People can’t all pull off the same things. Being good-looking isn’t everything. Some throw their sexiness in your face and it seems desperate, and others are fun specifically because they try so hard.

Intentional, calculated sexiness doesn't always work this well. Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison pulled off aggressive, premeditated sexiness, but the Kurt Cobains, Bob Dylans, and Steven Malkmuses of the world seduced with their boyishness, punkyness, and neuroticism. Most of my favorite musicians would look so awkward doing a sexy open-shirt photo shoot. For years, Cat Power wore baggy clothes, kept her bangs over her face, and performed in almost complete darkness. The more she refused to let anyone look at her, the more lust she inspired. Grace Slick, Joanna Newsom, and Kim Gordon became sex symbols by emphasizing their unique personalities and styles, by being themselves. Perhaps Julie London's flaunting is cool because it's her version of being herself. Let's face it: some people are actually sexpots.