So then, according to a, err, study (best use the word loosely) carried out by Tastebuds.fm (a dating website that finds you matches based on your last.fm compatibility), Coldplay fans are the least likely to have sex on the first date. Obviously, this is no great character indictment – “what?! you mean you’d rather get to know this person you’ve just met instead of taking them home and bonking seven bells out of them? You prude.”
On the flipside, the band whose fans are supposedly most likely to do the do on the first date is Nirvana, and in another example of gauchely unscientific research, I’d be willing to bet that a large swathe of their fans are pre-pubescent boys who’ve only ever shagged a warm flannel.
Anyway science and in-depth research aside, this all begs the VITAL question: what’s the best and worst music to have sex to? An email around NME staff surprisingly garnered no reply (aside from NME.COM ed Luke Lewis, whose shagging soundtrack is apparently ‘Eye Of The Tiger’. In his dreams, more like.).
Before you make any jokes about indie fans never getting any, I’d wager that a prime candidate for top prize would be The xx’s self-titled debut. It’s sultry, sad, and set under the covers – perfect. That is, until David Cameron confessed to “snuggling” (or some other repulsive verb that I’m too traumatised to google) to it with Samantha, which is about the aphrodisiac equivalent of your mum coming in whilst you’re doing it and commenting that you have a similar technique to your dad. IE, grounds to condemn the CD to the bin and check into a monastery. Forever.
A quick Twitter straw poll has drawn some mixed results, from understandable – Portishead (sultry sex), Godspeed (moody sex), The Velvet Underground (badass sex), Prince (comedy saucy sex) – to downright disturbing – Tenacious D, Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ and the Top Gun OST, which also makes for a handy list of the three men I would least like to get naked with ever, of all time, ever. My favourite answer so far is “Los Campesinos! Great for a cry afterwards too :)” And who said stereotyping was bad, hmm?
A couple of years back, Charlie Brooker made a playlist for the Guardian called ‘Aural Contraceptive’, compiling the most off-putting songs he could think of as a challenge to see if any couple could complete the whole thing. It’s pretty nauseating stuff. But frankly, if you can do it whilst Barbra Streisand sings “my grandma’s hands used to ache sometimes and swell,” you’re not a trouper, you’re sick in the head.
Based solely on conjecture (hi mum! I’ve only ever held hands with my paramours, honest), the new Wild Beasts album has sauce written all over it (despite ostensibly being about a terrible break-up). Sticking Jamie Woon’s ‘Mirrorwriting’ on in the bedroom is practically the equivalent of wearing a flashing “kiss me quick, squeeze me slow” thong, and Metronomy’s ‘The English Riviera’ is a ripe contender to steal Prince’s throne as the number one soundtracker of horizontal hip wiggling.
To be honest I’m not sure that I want to know lest you ruin any of my favourite songs for me, but err, which songs work for you? Should the soundtrack be unobtrusive and minimal, or offer rough play-by-play commentary of what’s going on, a la Marvin Gaye? All I know is this: anyone who does it to either of the following songs never deserves to do the sex again.