Irwin Sibler of Sing Out magazine said, “The great strength of rock & roll lies in its beat. It is a music which is basically sexual, unpuritan...” (Sing Out, May 1965, p. 63).
Debra Harry of Blondie says, “The main ingredients in rock are sex and sass” Hit Parader, Sept. 1979, p. 31).
Jan Berry of Jan and Dean says, “The throbbing beat of rock provides a vital sexual release for adolescent audiences” (cited by Blanchard, Pop Goes the Gospel).
Chris Stein, lead guitarist for Blondie says, “Everyone takes it for granted that rock and roll is synonymous with sex” (People, May 21, 1979).
Rapper Luke Campbell of 2 Live Crew says, “The sex is definitely in the music, and sex is in all aspects in the music.”
Rocker Tom McSloy says: “Rock is visceral. It does disturbing things to your body. In spite of yourself, you find your body tingling, moving with the music” (Tom McSloy, “Music to Jangle Your Insides,” National Review, June 30, 1970, p. 681).
Paul Stanley said, “Rock ‘n’ roll is sex. Real rock ‘n’ roll isn’t based on cerebral thoughts. It’s based on one’s lower nature” (cited by John Muncy, The Role of Rock, p. 44).
John Oates of Hall & Oates says, “Rock ‘n’ roll is 99% sex” (Circus, Jan. 31, 1976).
Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind, observed: “... rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal to sexual desire” (The Closing of the American Mind, p. 73).
Simon Frith, author of Sound effects, said, “We respond to the materiality of rock’s sounds, and the rock experience is essentially erotic” (Sound Effects, New York: Pantheon Books, 1981, p. 164).
Dr. David Elkind, chairman of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said: “There is a great deal of powerful, albeit subliminal, sexual stimulation implicit in both the rhythm and [the] lyrics of rock music” (The Hurried Child, Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley Publishing Co., 1981, p. 89).
Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention said, “Rock music is sex. The big beat matches the body’s rhythms” (Life, June 28, 1968).
Malcolm McLaren, punk rock manager, said: “Rock ‘n’ roll is pagan and primitive, and very jungle, and that’s how it should be! The moment it stops being those things, it’s dead … the true meaning of rock … is sex, subversion and style” (Rock, August 1983, p. 60).
Adam Ant says, “Pop music revolves around sexuality. I believe that if there is anarchy, let’s make it sexual anarchy rather than political” (From Rock to Rock, p. 93).
Gene Simmons of Kiss said, “That’s what rock is all about—sex with a 100 megaton bomb, the beat!” (Entertainment Tonight, ABC, Dec. 10, 1987).
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