I absolutely agree but realistically you could search every artist and find something that relates to some form of nudity or sexual connotation even if it's just the song lyrics. It's the point is that sex/nudity sells. Music is a commercial product artists only make money by selling their product. All artists use various other aspects and tools to sell their music from religion to political view points.
Just because you use nudity or sex doesn't mean your talentless, you might get a one hit wonder on it Sabrina Boys Boys Boys, yep crap song but her assists on show bouncing in a pool guaranteed a number 1 single. Album flopped follow ups flopped. But to have any longevity of course you have talent maybe not the best singer but you've got to be talented in some form to keep a following.

However the point I was replying to was:


Pink Floyd haven't done so to sell their music, they haven't needed to, and you would struggle to find much, if any, sexual content in their lyrics as well. The film of The Wall was a separate project to their music and the selling point of that film certainly wasn't a bit of nudity.

well tbh summerhearts got a point about madonna. im neither a fan, nor a 'hater', i like madge overall especially her earlier material. but im no fan of her recent antics , and im no fan of overt sex being used to help sell music. im dead against soft core porn pop vids as it sends out the wrong message to younger people propping up gender stereotypes on how you are 'supposed' to look or how you should aspire to be like.

if i want porn, ill go to a porn site where it belongs.

you say that most top icons of the last 50 years have used sex in some way... well there might be some truth in that, but as i mentioned earlier, theres a difference between an odd shot here or there and deliberately pushing it as far as you can on every occasion.

i cannot recall dusty, aretha, karen, sandie, pet, cilla, lulu, carole, joni, etc etc etc using such a level of nudity to promote their music. the worst they ever did was wear a mini skirt! nor did i get any kind of play to sex from any of the greats from the 60's or 70's. did we ever see the beatles topless?... elvis gyrated a bit, so did tom jones, so what? thats hardly in the same league as todays scantily dressed popsters who more frequently then not perform in their underwear!

whats all this 'sex sells' bullshit?

has anyone ever bought a musical track because someones performed it half naked?.... REALLY?

sex is obviously a big part of young peoples lives and most pop stars are young singing about what is big in their lives, relationships, love, sex, . but that is not the same thing as appearing half naked, gyrating about, gusset shots, the way many females do today.

imho its just a cheap way of trying to get noticed, look at my body and youll hear the song... its desperate, cheap, nasty, a truely good track does not need any visual enhancement, the material should be strong enough to stand up on its own merit.

Surely it actually was Elvis's dancing and the looks as well as the music of The Beatles and The Stones that helped sexualise and, indeed, feminise pop/rock music?

So much of the 60/70s music and the best of the 60/70s artists like Dylan, The Beatles, The Stones, Bowie and Tina Turner etc etc challenged many of the prudish attitudes to sexuality which existed at the time. Are you forgetting, 'All you need is Love', 'Rocks Off', 'You Really Got Me', 'Lay, Lady, Lay' etc etc. These are all sex songs or expressions of free love. The Beatles and The Stones were never just about the music, they were about cultural change, they were liberating in all sorts of ways.

Many of the 'gyrating' females (always females it seems) are simply showing how visable sexuality has become in modern western society. You can criticise the sexualisation of our modern civilisation but you can't blame the messengers.

At the time Elvis was considered extremely sexual. He was censored on The Ed Sullivan Show, the biggest tv appearance of the times, by the cameras being instructed never to show him below the waist because of his hip gyrations. That probably says more about how we perceive sexual to have changed.

I find using sexual images to be boring now, because its been overused so much. I prefer concept videos and performances for visuals.

I noticed Katy Perry was mentioned in the OP. In her defense, she doesn't use sex to sell. I think the only thing she has done which is remotely sexy is having whipped cream cannons above her chest.

She might look sexy in her videos, but it's not done as a "look how shocking I am" kind of way, she's just naturally pretty. If anything most of her vids are just fun.

at the time elvis gyrating was indeed seen as very sexual, but in relation to what these poor female (largely) pop stars do today it was lame. i dont think ive ever seen a topless pic of elvis..

yep, i said they sang about sex and relationships, and the did it in a much 'tamer' way then they do today. when 'all you need is love', 'you really got me' 'lay lady lay' etc were shown on tv, you saw competent musicians performing their own material , you didnt see half naked artists gyrating, often accompanied by dancers in their underwear, singing crudely about sex. you highlight my earlier point - more nudity is related to quality of the music.

...or has pop music lead the way in sexualising society? its certainly been at the forefront.

Pop music today is as much about keeping in the public eye as producing music. Look how many threads there are on here when a pop performer releases a new single or album, it is always called a "comeback" single or album, which implies that without constant media attention you disappear from a teenage fans view their attention span is so short.

And the simplest way to get that media attention is to expose a little flesh. Britney Spears getting photographed getting out of a car in a short dress and showing the world she didn't have any knickers on wasn't an accident but it got her name, with pixelated photograph, in every paper. If people see her name it jogs their memory and they may check out her music in Spotify, or their music streaming service of choice, and buy some of her songs if they like them.

It can almost be seen as a form of indirect marketing.

So in that respect sex/nudity does sell.

Popular music has always been, to a greater or lesser degree, about sex. When Robert Johnson, arguably one of the founding fathers of modern pop music, recorded Dust My Broom in the late 1930s he wasn't singing about cleaning the kitchen.

The term Rock and Roll was originally a Black American euphemism for sex, although virtually no white American teenagers were aware of that in the 1950s.

Also in the more restrained 80s when most popstars kept their clothes on, the singers could still be sexy. I was a fan of Debbie Gibson,Belinda Carlisle,Janet Jackson,Cyndi lauper and they could make you melt with just a look or a smile. Sexiness does not mean nudity. Sex was still selling them but in a 'I wish she was my girlfriend!!' way rather than having it thrust in your face like Miley Cyrus, sexiness is better when sudtle like how Taylor Swift does it, with a wink and a smile.

It's only 'tamer' because of time. Once you open the gates you can't always control the flow.

The 60s counter-cultural proclaimers of free love probably did not envisage how under late capitalism there would inevitably be commodification of the human body, the female body in particular. So yes, you can say that pop music especially with the rise of the music video has been complicit in the sexualisation of modern society.


Though when Robert Plant was singing about being a 'back door man' he knew what he was proclaiming. The Rock Gods of the 70s weren't averse to a little casual sexism in their songs and their antics. Hawkwind were quite prepared to have Stacia 'dance' with them as I recall.

It is one of the defining aspects of popular culture and popular music that it does deal in a euphemistic and sometimes explicit way with the baser aspects of human existence.


Just remember that the 80s had bands like Aerosmith, Motley Crue and ZZ Top 'decorating' their videos with semi-naked females.

And, as the Bible suggests 'But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.' (Matthew 5:28). So from a morality point of view it doesn't matter how naked or sexy a female/male appears, it's all about personal lust.

I believe this is partly due to the fact that, since the internet, albums don't sell like they used to. Singers make as much or more money from live shows as from recordings nowadays. And people get bored if someone just stands there and sings for an hour. The easiest way to keep the crowd entertained is to sex it up.

While I don't like this trend, I'm afraid it's likely here to stay.

And The Lemon Song was hardly an ode to a yellow citrus fruit either.

With Hawkwind, though, from what I have read it was Stacia who wanted to dance on stage with Hawkwind rather than the other way around.


Although to be fair to ZZ Top their videos, whilst reflecting society at the time, were obviously very tongue in cheek.