Joe is working through an arbitrary and unpublished list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.
diVINYLS
Divinyls
1991
Divinyls are focused on love and sex and violence, and how these themes intertwine, and even how they can be symbolic of each other. Love is a gun, a lack of love means punishment, the taboo of masturbation is fanatically embraced, lying down can mean either sex or death, and on and on and on. No wonder "I Touch Myself" made such an impact on a young Joey, even without knowing exactly what "touching yourself" even meant at that age. The chosen themes are dripping out of each song's pores, and you can feel it subconsciously, even if you're too young to feel it consciously.
I would argue that the CLASSIC 1993 film Super Mario Bros. touched on these themes as well. Maybe not as explicitly, since this is ostensibly a "children's film" (don't tell that to any of the children my age who were fucking terrified of Dennis Hopper's King Koopa). And it's not just the villains who are menacing and seductive simultaneously. Think about how Mario decides to steal back the MacGuffin from Big Bertha in a violent/sexy nightclub. He seduces, and later punches his way out. The band playing while all this is happened? Divinyls, of course.
But not a song from this album. You'll hear about that song on Thursday during Song Challenge. And I don't know, maybe I'm overhyping the "sex/violence" thing here, just based on the big song that we all know. I'm not over here claiming that something like "Bless My Soul (It's Rock-n-Roll)" has anything to do with sex or violence. And "I'm on Your Side" is a pure, simple song of devotion. But in general, "I Touch Myself" overshadows pretty much everything, and it really is the most dangerously horny song I've ever heard, or at least have ever been nostalgic for.
But not a song from this album. You'll hear about that song on Thursday during Song Challenge. And I don't know, maybe I'm overhyping the "sex/violence" thing here, just based on the big song that we all know. I'm not over here claiming that something like "Bless My Soul (It's Rock-n-Roll)" has anything to do with sex or violence. And "I'm on Your Side" is a pure, simple song of devotion. But in general, "I Touch Myself" overshadows pretty much everything, and it really is the most dangerously horny song I've ever heard, or at least have ever been nostalgic for.
Something is taboo, not because it's false, but because society has deemed its truth too obscene. Thinking that someone is so sexy that you feel the urge to masturbate to the thought of them—that's normal, yo. It's just that it's considered "rude" to express those thoughts out loud. (Especially since creepy dudes online have in more recent times vocalized these thoughts in the most careless and disrespectful ways possible, in a sort of power play, but that's not really the focus of my thoughts in this paragraph.) But here are Divinyls, doing just that. "I touch myself" is just barely obtuse enough that it sneaks by censor. "That could mean anything!" is a true statement, but we all knew and still know what it actually means. The meaning is barely hidden.
I didn't know anything about Divinyls before this week, besides the masturbation song and the fact that they also sing a song in the CLASSIC 1993 family film Super Mario Bros. Wikipedia tells me the band is primarily frontwoman Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. I'm literally just reading the Wikipedia page now, and the intro paragraph confirms my thesis statement—it says that "Amphlett [performed] on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and she often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience." There you go. Sex and violence. The combination is so goddamn obvious that I'm surprised that only some random fucking Australian band ended up making the song that so codifies the idea in my brain.
Wikipedia also informs me that Amphlett and McEntee were romantically involved up until like 1993, which means that maybe this is a song about their relationship. But it's noted that the couple was "volatile" and abused drugs together and fought a lot, and so maybe this a song about wanting to end the relationship or something. I don't know, that's a dangerous game to play, when you attempt to decipher lyrics and apply them to the artist's real life. Could be that it's just a fun little ditty about rubbing one out. The band's manager also claimed that their relationship was part of the "weird magic" of Divinyls. There's definitely something go on here, magic that supersedes pedestrian notions of domestic concerns.
That magic is: the sex is dangerous, the danger is sexy, the love is violent, and violence signifies love. It's not right, per se, but being wrong is sexy too. I hear Divinyls, and I touch myself.
But let me set the record straight here. I do NOT masturbate to the thought of the legendary 1993 film Super Mario Bros. I don't. Never have and never will. Please reflect this on the record.
I didn't know anything about Divinyls before this week, besides the masturbation song and the fact that they also sing a song in the CLASSIC 1993 family film Super Mario Bros. Wikipedia tells me the band is primarily frontwoman Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. I'm literally just reading the Wikipedia page now, and the intro paragraph confirms my thesis statement—it says that "Amphlett [performed] on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and she often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience." There you go. Sex and violence. The combination is so goddamn obvious that I'm surprised that only some random fucking Australian band ended up making the song that so codifies the idea in my brain.
Wikipedia also informs me that Amphlett and McEntee were romantically involved up until like 1993, which means that maybe this is a song about their relationship. But it's noted that the couple was "volatile" and abused drugs together and fought a lot, and so maybe this a song about wanting to end the relationship or something. I don't know, that's a dangerous game to play, when you attempt to decipher lyrics and apply them to the artist's real life. Could be that it's just a fun little ditty about rubbing one out. The band's manager also claimed that their relationship was part of the "weird magic" of Divinyls. There's definitely something go on here, magic that supersedes pedestrian notions of domestic concerns.
That magic is: the sex is dangerous, the danger is sexy, the love is violent, and violence signifies love. It's not right, per se, but being wrong is sexy too. I hear Divinyls, and I touch myself.
But let me set the record straight here. I do NOT masturbate to the thought of the legendary 1993 film Super Mario Bros. I don't. Never have and never will. Please reflect this on the record.
1 comment:
My “I never masturbated to Super Mario Brothers” blog post is raising a lot of questions already answered by my blog post.
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