Posted by fústar in 
Listen, for any length of time, to the likes of Joe Duffy (Ireland's patron saint of reactionary hand-wringers) and you'll come away a) outraged and dismayed, and, b) hopelessly misinformed about absolutely everything.
One misapprehension you might end up suffering from is that "culture" has become more saturated with in-your-face sex than ever before. If you're trapped under that delusion then allow me to drag you out and haul your ass back to the 1970s – a decade when even the most innocent of paperbacks/LPs came drenched and dripping in a gooey porno veneer.
Consider the below for example, recently rescued from a (James Last-dominated) charity shop vinyl graveyard. It may (technically) hail from 1968 – but then the late 60s were really the early 70s, in terms of a loosening of restrictions and a tightening of trousers.
Those of you suffering quickened pulses and drying mouths may well be wondering what sort of pulsatingly sexual music could warrant so lurid a cover. Why Edelweiss and My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean of course! All banged out on a flaccid Hammond Organ. Have a quick listen:
And the Dutch sex-god behind these filthy arrangements? Step forward Stef Meeder – corrupter of the young, priapic defiler of the pure & innocent:
Though Stef was, no doubt, a lascivious & goatish old fornicator, others would soon take up his (sticky) baton and run faster, further and harder with it. Cut to 1977 and another recent purchase – Boney M's jaw-dropping Love for Sale.
It's Smell the Glove. Only real.
I had that Boney M album. Why, How or WTF were my parents thinking, are questions I can’t answer.
One sees a pattern with these records (if one can discern a pattern from only two items). The more hideously bland and awful the music, the more raunchy and inappropriate the cover. Does the photo of Stef Meeder fondling his organ come from the album? (I couldn’t resist…)
John, They were thinking, “Our son could do with more disco-porn in his quiet life”. Fair play to them.
Doubtful, Discerned pattern is spot on. Stef Meeder (on his own, naked, terms) would be a hard sell. Fun as it can be, you’d be hard pressed to find a less sexy instrument than the Hammond organ. There’s no photo of Stef on the sleeve, for reasons that should now be obvious. No point turning up the heat on the front if you’re going to pour cold water with the reverse.
True! And might I add that only a true Alpha Male (as depicted on the Boney M cover) could get away with golden foil underpants. I now have a nightmare image of a red-haired, pasty Irish guy wearing that concoction to the local counthry dish-co (with a full -on ginger afro…)
Yowzers. It appears that Stef, and his sexay young lovers, went even further on his next (?) release – Little Things. Steamy organ classics like Hokey Cokey and The Birdie Song were no doubt to the fore.
The Boney M cover isn’t actually that easy to read. On the face of it, it’s a gross slice of good ol’ 70s misogyny. But then there’s the “For Sale” bit – suggesting, perhaps, that some subtle comment on the evils of slavery is intended.
Hmmm…actually, that probably makes it more offensive if anything…
Another sign that I’m over the hill is that when I saw the BONEY M the first thing that I thought was “Oh, vinyl! What a shame that they got rid of old fashioned records.”
Good God, things may be even more depraved than they seem.
Perhaps I’m mistaken but doesn’t the “girl” on the cover of the Stef Meeder album have an enormous pair of balls tucked in to her bikini bottoms?