The Stockroom Mixtape: Songs to Make Your Day Kinkier
The scent of leather and the slap of a crop become even more intense with the right music behind the scene. Here’s a few of our favorite tracks for the dungeon.
According to English playwright William Congreve, music is supposed to make the world a gentler, more peaceful place. In words swiped and misquoted by generations of greeting-card writers, Congreve wrote:
Music has Charms to soothe a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
Music is so much more, though. The right soundtrack is just as likely to inflame those same breasts and turn a nice, mellow evening watching CNN into a depraved orgy that would make the Marquis de Sade blush. What exactly goes on that soundtrack varies wildly according to the individual, of course. And that’s how we wound up with the Spotify list below.
One of our email threads began discussing what songs the Stockroom staff likes to have playing when we get our kink on — whether that means when we’re getting ready and picking out the evening’s implements, when we’re in the heat of action, or when we’re coming down afterward. Before long, the thread took on a life of its own, and we wound up with our very first kinky mixtape.
With a total of 44 tracks, there’s far too many songs here to talk about every single cut, but we can touch on a few of them. Any thoughts on what we missed?
Rhianna: “S&M”
It was broadly agreed that this had to go on any list of kinky songs. Not only because the theme is right there in the title, but it’s may be the most gleeful and playful embrace of kink ever to hit the charts. The song and video sparked enormous controversy when they were released in 2011, but the most remarkable thing about both is how devoid of shame they are. Most pop artists who have BDSM themes in their music use it as a device to highlight their own dark, gritty side. Rhianna is just a nice girl out to have some fun — with lots of whips, chains, and cuffs.
Lucille Bogan: “Shave ’Em Dry”
There might be a filthier song than “Shave ’Em Dry” someplace out there, but we haven’t found it. Lucille Bogan opens her 1935 blues classic shouting proudly, “I got nipples on my titties, big as the ends of thumbs / I got something between my legs that’ll make a dead man come.” From there, she just plunges deeper into the gutter. Admittedly, it’s not that kinky, but it is one of the most unabashedly raunchy songs ever recorded.
The Cramps: “Dames, Booze, Chains, and Boots”
Between them, lead vocalist Lux Interior and his wife/guitarist Poison Ivy could make the mere act of tuning an instrument seem pornographically lewd. This one sums up all the couple’s passions in one great big psychobilly package. Great if you’re theming your dungeon to look like a redneck bar.
Depeche Mode: “Master and Servant”
As someone said while we were batting favorite songs back and forth, “Do you even BDSM if you don’t have any Depeche Mode in your playlist?” While we probably won’t kick someone out of the dungeon if they don’t like DM, it’s true that they were responsible for helping a lot of baby queers and budding kinksters explore gender and sex in ways that just weren’t easily accessible in the days before the internet. In “Master and Servant,” they flaunted their pervy little hearts right out in the open.
Prince: “Erotic City”
Prince is another one of those artists who just has to be on any list of sexy music. In the past thirty years, there may have been no single artist more essential to how people thought and rethought sexuality or gender. So naturally, Prince had to be on our playlist. The question was: Which song or songs?
Quite a few got kicked around, but we wound up choosing “Erotic City.” It’s another song that isn’t literally, explicitly kinky, but it definitely feels kinky. It’s one of those songs that worms its way into your body and brain until you’re ready to burst past your own boundaries. The lyrics are blunt and explicit, but the true eroticism is in Prince’s voice; if you couldn’t understand a word, you’d still know exactly what he’s saying.
Tom Waits: “What’s He Building?”
This isn’t an especially sexy song, but it’s one that most kinksters can probably identify with on some level. The POV is that of a nosy neighbor who can’t help wondering about the strange activities of the person who lives next door. If you have a home dungeon, or have a fondness for designing your own bondage gear, you may have caught strange glances from the neighbors wondering things like this:
What’s he building in there?
What the hell is he building in there?
He has subscriptions to those magazines
He never waves when he goes by
He’s hiding something from the rest of us
He’s all to himself.
I think I know why….
Now what’s that sound from under the door?
He’s pounding nails into a hardwood floor
And I swear to god I heard someone moaning low.
Check out the whole playlist below and let us know what you think. What did we miss? Do you have any memories of your own connected to any of those songs? Feeling inspired to make some?
