Pornosonic: Unreleased 70's Porn Music

Album Review

Especially in the wake of Boogie Nights, it's common to think of the '70s as the golden age of porn, before a more businesslike, crank-'em-out approach and lower-budget production techniques began to rob the films of some of their liveliness. It's also possible to link the music used in their soundtracks to that general trend, since much '80s and '90s porn used cheap-sounding, repetitive vamps played by generic synth/guitar rock combos, which never quite augmented the films like the classic, sexy '70s sound. That sound — wah-wah guitars sometimes spiced with organ or horn accents, and a backbeat that's half funk, half hard rock — is all over Pornosonic: Unreleased 70s Porno Music, which purportedly contains soundtrack excerpts from mid-'70s porn flicks. However, there are a few too many knowing winks in producer/guitarist/composer Don Argott's presentation to believe that — from the spoken introductions by highly recognizable porn veteran Ron Jeremy, which mimic the blindingly obvious innuendo of porn-film dialogue, to the way the song titles play off of the titles of their supposed "source films." But even if it isn't genuine, Pornosonic accomplishes its mission quite well — so well, in fact, that the wink-wink-nudge-nudge dialogue snippets can actually break the mood created by some pretty sexy music. The irony is kind of fitting in a way, since porn rarely takes itself too seriously, but the slinky grooves are so effective at recreating their intended atmosphere that it isn't really necessary. Quibbles aside, though, it's a highly entertaining project.