I couldn’t tell you when it happened — maybe it was when I heard this chorus…

Kiss me
K-k-kiss me
Infect me with your loving
Fill me with your poison
Take me
T-t-take me
Wanna be your victim
Ready for abduction

…or when I heard this bit of Kanye West’s cameo…

I’m’a disrobe you
Then I’m’a probe you
See, I abducted you
So I tell you what to do

…or maybe it was the glossily futuristic minor-key stomp of the music, or the overall “lover as alien invader” metaphor—but at some point while listening to “E.T.” on one of the local pop radio stations in the car, I realized that if it had shown up on a mid-to-late-’90s album by KMFDM or Lords of Acid, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. The science-fictional lyrics, the conflation of love, death, and violence, the brinksmanship with nonconsensuality as turn-on, the notion that great sex is so scary you could lose your agency and identity to it, the shiny sleazy heaviness of the sound…it all sounds awfully familiar! Listen to “You Belong to Me” by Lords of Acid and “A Hole in the Wall” by KMFDM and tell me I’m wrong…

But then it occurred to me that this is far from the only place where I’ve heard echoes of sexy (or “sexy,” if you weren’t me in the late ’90s) industrial dancey music from my bygone era. Take “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga. At first I was stuck on the “Express Yourself” thing like everyone else. Then Rich Juzwiak opened my eyes to the influence of one of my favorite songs ever, “Born to Be Alive.” But now, in the galloping pace and the pile-up of synthesized sounds and the play-it-to-the-cheap-seats diva chorus, I hear “Juke Joint Jezebel” by KMFDM…

…the gurgling intro to which was immediately called to my mind by “Derezzed” by Daft Punk, from the Tron Legacy score.

And going back a little further, I’m far from the first person to hear Sleigh Bells and think Lords of Acid and Ministry.

Now, of course “I’m’a disrobe you / Then I’m’a probe you” could fit quite comfortably on my list of incredibly stupid things you can hear on pop radio right now (as could Rihanna’s own big kinky hit of the moment, “S&M,” centered as it is on yet another naughty note passed around by seventh graders: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me”). But Sascha Konietzko and Praga Khan’s ESL B&D lyrics could get pretty silly too. And in the buffet of loud, strident, sexualized, goofy, attention-grabbing sounds that is pop music today, this particular flavor strikes me as ripe for sampling.

Tags: E.T., Kanye West, Katy Perry, KMFDM, Lords of Acid, music, music reviews, reviews

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