What was the first number one song with ‘sex’ in the title?
The age-old ‘sex sells’ principle has served many artists well across the last 70-odd years of popular music, since even before the modern charts as we understand them today.
Shock and horror reached volcanic levels of prudish outrage over Elvis Presley’s swivelling hips at rock and roll’s birth, the Memphis white boy channelling the Black man’s working-class music deemed an affront to youthful morality from the incandescent pulpit, despite The King’s devout Pentecostal faith. Less than a decade later, the Israeli authorities were so panicked by the screaming hysteria at immortal sex symbol Cliff Richard’s Tel Aviv gig in 1963 that the state rejected any such idea of Beatlemania stirring such teen passions.
Even into the countercultural era, an eye-rolling Mick Jagger sings the revised line “Let’s spend some time together” on The Rolling Stones’ fifth appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, having to revise the original ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ lest their performance be pulled from the mammoth CBS show. Pop would eventually have its way, from LaBelle’s French ardour with ‘Lady Marmalade’ and even Donna Summer triggering many a blush with her orgasmic ‘Love to Love You Baby’ disco seduction.
Yet, it would take a while for sex to stand tall all by itself in a number one single. Topping the Hot 100, Madonna would prod prurient buttons with 1983’s ‘Like a Virgin’, but “sexy” found its way to the US singles peak with anti-vax cranks Right Said Fred’s camp ‘I’m Too Sexy’ in 1991, followed by top spot hits from Justin Timberlake and novelty duo LMFAO.
The first “sexy” to top both the US and UK singles charts is Rod Stewart’s spandex horror show ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’. Dropped in November 1978 and eventually spending four weeks at number one in America the following February, Stewart gained a whole new level of popularity while devastating his old Faces fans, entering his new peroxide, leopard-printed chapter that would define his 1980s. The number’s queasy sex appeal was boosted years later by Ministry side-project Revolting Cocks’ wry cover, swapping lines like “He says, I’m sorry, but I’m out of milk and coffee” with “He says, I’m sorry, but I’m out of KY Jelly”.
“Sex” itself, however, doesn’t make the number one spot til years later, despite many artists having a good go.
So, what was the first number one song with sex in its title?
George Michael’s ‘I Want Your Sex’ only reached number three in the UK, and Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’ scraped second place four years later, but the first group to definitely reach number one on either side of the Atlantic is atrocious R&B group Colour Me Badd.
Enjoying a three-week stint at the top spot, 1991’s ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’ from their CMB debut album, broke the “sex” barrier for British pop at least, helped in some fashion by its bewilderingly unsexy video. It would take 17 years til such a feat would strike UK charts again, when Kings of Leon’s Carling rock ‘Sex on Fire’ spent a likewise three weeks at the top of the charts in 2008.
