Erotic Embarassment: The 10 worst “sexy” songs of all time
Some of the greatest rock songs of all time return to those three criteria: sex, drugs and rock and roll. Just look at any of the songs by AC/DC, and there’s a good chance that more than half of their discography just goes back to those three topics and never changes throughout their runtime. Sex might be one of the greatest sellers in the music industry, but there are often times when bands like The Beach Boys hit on a song about sex, and it hits a really ugly note.
Because, in essence, writing a good song about sex is a lot like having sex itself. It may work incredibly well if you know what you’re doing, but if you’re handling it without the proper care and attention, chances are you’re going to make for some awkward conversations and partners who would rather do anything else than be in the room with you.
Most of the time, these songs just go for the kind of sexy angle and end up going way too far. They usually end up going for sleazy, resulting in the kind of angle that makes people think that they are a sexual predator. On the other hand, there is a way for it to go too far in the opposite direction as well, where artists write songs that sound like they would need to have any sort of sexual intercourse explained to them.
Although not every song can be a winner, the songs on this list are the kind of questionable tunes that would make anyone question having sex ever again after listening to them. The sex, drugs and rock and roll principle might work most of the time, but when you hit the wrong note, no one is going to want to be in your general area listening to these songs.
10 worst sexy songs of all time
10. ‘Afternoon Delight’ – Starland Vocal Band
So let’s start this thing off with softball. As much as people have loved to knock ‘Afternoon Delight’, there is at least the makings of a decent song in here, having the kind of 1970s sheen that’s ready for primetime. The pop appeal is definitely there, but putting a sexual angle on it feels like the musical equivalent of fire and gasoline.
When thinking about what makes a good sex song, it usually comes down to the amount of passion that you put into it, which can either come off as sexy or desperate, depending on how you’re listening to it. Starland Vocal Band chose neither option, instead writing the kind of song that feels like you’re being given “the talk” by your parents as they attempt to act such lewd acts out in front of you.
There’s nothing wrong with a nice piece of 1970s cheese, but the amount of double entendres in this song doesn’t even make any sense half the time, either. Ron Burgundy may have done everything he could to shine some light on this track in Anchorman, but if you added this to a sexy playlist, there’s no guarantee that people will still be in the room once the song’s over.
9. ‘You’re All I Need’ – Mötley Crüe
Most of the biggest names in hair metal could have easily qualified for a list like this. While there have been some brilliantly-written ballads from the likes of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, a lot of the biggest hair metal bands handled dealing with sex about as carefully as a teenager who just figured out what their genitalia was for the first time. So when you give that same kid a pen and paper, you get a song like this Mötley Crüe attempt at a ballad.
Then again, most of the hair metal legends’ ballads weren’t anything to write home about. They had one ballad about the wonders of the road on ‘Home Sweet Home’, but their attempt at calling back on their old lover is more than a little bit questionable. Once this man doesn’t get what he wants out of his old flame, he ends up doing the one logical thing to do when someone turns you down: stab her to death.
When taking inspiration for the track, Nikki Sixx wrote from the perspective of someone writing his memoirs from his prison cell, later regretting his actions and wishing that he could have his lover back again, no doubt so he could have his way with her in the worst way possible. Sixx already had a mixed track record when it came to songs about sex, but he shouldn’t have been at all surprised when his girlfriend stormed out of their apartment after he dedicated the track to her.
8. ‘Still Remains’ – Stone Temple Pilots
The entire grunge scene never seemed to care all that much about writing sex jams. Usually, they were more inclined to write about their personal problems, and if you did end up getting a song about sex, it felt more like a happy accident than anything. Once Stone Temple Pilots started to sing about their infatuation with a lady friend, Scott Weiland took the sexual angle to a borderline stalker level on ‘Still Remains’.
In the context of the album, though, this is a nice slice of grunge-flavoured power pop, including a decent riff and the kind of flashy glam aesthetic the band would use later. Once Weiland talks about being unable to share his feelings, he gets a little more graphic, saying that she should take a bath so he can drink the water she leaves behind.
By the time the chorus ends, Weiland’s line about being able to bring a friend into the afterlife is clearly targeting a Romeo and Juliet angle, but with the booming guitars, it doesn’t really earn that kind of distinction. Since the entire song has that chugging rhythm, Weiland feels more out of his element than he was when he was singing about absolute nonsense on songs like ‘Plush’ and ‘Dead and Bloated’.
7. ‘Marvin Gaye’ – Charlie Puth
No one’s looking at an artist like Charlie Puth and thinking that he’s necessarily going to be the kind of suave ladies’ man. Although he is a brilliant performer with a piano in front of him, there’s no chance that he’s going to give off the energy of a sex god from sitting behind that keyboard. If he can’t get that reaction from the audience, why not try to take all of the sexiness out of one of the genre’s kings?
Throughout ‘Marvin Gaye’, Puth sings about wanting to have sex with his lady friend in a tone that any grandmother would approve of. Since most songs about sex are known to be sensual, this feels like the version of sex that sheltered kids are told about by their parents.
While pop star Megan Trainor does her best to try to make the whole thing a two-way conversation, she only makes it less sexy as she keeps talking, evoking the kind of Motown sound Gaye was known for and making it sound like someone’s geriatric aunt is singing it after a few too many cocktails at a wedding reception. It might come down to personal taste, but are we sure that either of these performers has even had sex before?
6. ‘Sweet Hitchhiker’ – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival were never the kind of band to write mindless sex jams. Looking through some of their best work, John Fogerty usually had an innate ability to sing about the cold, hard truths of life rather than trying to score some action wherever he went. When the band had completely run out of ideas, Fogerty returned to the one bad idea he had, and ‘Sweet Hitchhiker’ was what fit the bill.
Since most of Mardi Gras is borderline unlistenable, this barnburner was meant to be the one song that actually sold the audience on the final record. While Fogerty does an admirable job of selling the song like a hot journey down the street trying to pick up this girl, this ending of the track borders on comedy with how poorly it’s handled.
After spending most of the song drooling over this girl that he wants to get with, Fogerty ends up crashing his motorcycle in the final verse, leaving the other girl blowing by him and laughing at how pathetic he is. There are plenty of songs where the artists end up striking out with their girlfriends, but none of them have turned in a song that has the same setup and payoff of a Benny Hill sequence.
5. ‘Christine Sixteen’ – Kiss
I’m going to make a bold statement that has never been uttered by anyone: Gene Simmons likes sex. As shocking as that may sound coming from a guy who wrote the lyric sheet for a song like ‘Nothin’ To Lose’ and ‘Ladies Room’, Simmons does enjoy getting a little bit of sexual favours at the end of a nice day on the road. There’s a right and wrong way to go about it, though, and Kiss’ ‘Christine Sixteen’ went well over the line before it had even started.
Because yes, that uncomfortable feeling of the title is about exactly what you think it’s about. While it would be acceptable if the narrator was around 17, this is one of the most predatory songs about sex ever created, including Simmons watching this girl as she walks home from school and admiring her body.
Although the song may have been kept in the spirit of the ‘Demon’ persona that Simmons likes to bring across, it’s impossible to separate the artist from the art when looking at the lyrics. Once you’ve written a line about how this 16-year-old is “young and clean”, chances are boyfriends and dads will be giving you a kicking next time you get next to this girl.
4. ‘Fuck Time’ – Green Day
Green Day have come a long way since the guys who sang songs about masturbation. Although a lot of the songs on Dookie come from a teenage perspective, Billie Joe Armstrong went from a naive young kid into one of the best writers of his generation, being able to make romance sound a lot more believable throughout the band’s rock opera years. They decided to go back to basics on the trilogy, though, and ‘Fuck Time’ looks like watching a backwards evolution chart.
When Armstrong first put the song down, he wanted it to be the kind of 1960s pastiche that he would have saved for Green Day’s alter-ego band, Foxboro Hottubs. It slid by as a Green Day song when it came time to make material for Dos, and lines about wanting some sexual healing have never sounded so cringe-inducing.
Even though the tune itself is nothing but a by-the-numbers bluesy track, the lyrics about wanting to hold this girl until she’s blue in the face are a lot less sexy and more uncomfortable, especially when Armstrong decides to include the moan at the end of every verse. Armstrong may capture real love in a way few pop punk songwriters could, but this sounds like it’s being sung from the perspective of a man who loves sex but has hardly ever talked to an actual real-life woman.
3. ‘Sister’ – Prince
If Prince was forced not to sing about sex during his prime, the world would be a much darker place. From the first time you listen to a song like ‘Darling Nikki’, you can practically feel the air in the room get thicker as ‘The Purple One’ sings about an evening alone with a freak in the sheets. Prince was still finding his sound in the early days, but a sexual album like Dirty Mind hit every wrong button the minute that he titled the song ‘Sister’.
There’s no real way to sugarcoat it…this is a track about incest. You could make any kind of claim that you wanted to the contrary, but Prince seems to be intent on talking about wanting to have sex with his sister throughout the tune, giving the exact opposite of the tense atmosphere that ‘Darling Nikki’ was talking about.
The worst crime behind a song like this is that the instrumentation itself is actually pretty good, to the point where it might be the finest instrumentals on the entire record. There’s a lot of potential in a song like this, but this is the feeling of getting an amazing salad at a restaurant that happens to have cyanide as the dressing.
2. ‘Roller Skating Child’ – The Beach Boys
Brian Wilson was never one to write meatheaded songs about sex. Music was a heartfelt experience for him, and if he was going to write about love, it would be about songs that professed his devotion to the love of his life or the love of the life he had been given. The Brian Wilson of the 1960s and the Brian Wilson of the 1970s were two totally different people, and the comeback trail for him with The Beach Boys was marred by ‘Roller Skating Child’.
As if it wasn’t already apparent by most of the songs on The Beach Boys Love You, this is about trying to recapture the sounds that made him love rock and roll in the first place. When you put that style of songwriting in the mouth of a man in his mid-30s, songs about making love with a literal child are enough to have a few law enforcement officers raising an eyebrow.
Aside from making claims that he wants to have sex with this girl, there’s a heavy undertone of grooming going on here as well, which isn’t helped by future tracks like ‘Hey Little Tomboy’. The Beach Boys’ classic sound may have been back, but the number of double entendres and questionable lines in this song would have many fans calling Child Protective Services before the track ends.
1. ‘Cherry Pie’ – Warrant
And now we return to one of the worst offenders of sexy songs: hair metal. Seriously, there are some good songs to be found in this genre that are about sex, it’s just that many of the biggest artists were the ones that had the strangest takes on what sex was actually about. Although Warrant’s Jani Lane admitted that he didn’t even want to create the song ‘Cherry Pie’, this is the kind of track that gets more and more questionable as it keeps going.
Sounding like a second-rate Aerosmith for most of its runtime, the song compares a woman’s genitalia to a cherry pie, which raises a lot more questions than he probably intended. There are many songs that compare sex to candy or dessert, but if you know anything about what a cherry pie is like, chances are Mr Lane is going to be in for a bit of a messy experience if he partakes in whatever he’s going to do.
Compared to other songs that commit to singing about the pleasures of sexual desire, this reads more like he came up with one double entendre and then completely forgot what he was doing. No hair metal band is meant to write a Shakespearean take on rock lyricism, but by making half a tune’s worth of decent material, Warrant made a song that gets worse every single time you read the lyrics over.
