#10. I’m so messed up, I want you here

There is an infamous 1991 performance of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by Iggy Pop, post-Stooges, which took place in the Paris Olympia music hall in France. At the end of that performance, Pop gets his lad out. I’m not kidding. As Patrick Stewart would say, “You see everything.”

I obliviously bought a bootleg of this concert on VHS in ’92 or ’93, when I was fifteen or sixteen and already a big Iggy Pop / Stooges fan. So imagine me with my purple hair and motorcycle boots, blithely watching Iggy Pop writhe and spasm across the stage, all the while innocently thinking, “Wow, Iggy Pop is so kewl.” And then suddenly down go his jeans and out comes his entire John Thomas, and my gum falls out of my mouth like Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

I can’t in good conscience post that version here where other young people might see it, but I did locate this lovely short clip that aired on the Old Grey Whistle Test program on BBC2 in 1979, where Iggy is still all writhey, shirtless sinew, as per usual. Rawr.

#9. I’m his alibi

John Waters has made films that are absolutely filthy. But he’s also made a couple family-friendly-ish ones like Hairspray (1988) and Cry-Baby (1990). Cry-Baby starred Johnny Depp fresh off 21 Jump Street, and happens to boast my all-time favorite, cheesecake-sexy, PG-rated musical number.

#8. Time, in quaaludes and red wine

BOW-IE. The man himself. He’s like a Sara Lee pound cake: “Nobody doesn’t like David Bowie.” He has performed many swoon-worthy songs over the years, but few as sensual and unusual as the televised Midnight Special Floor Show performance of “Time,” filmed in 1973 and aired in 1980.

#7. Kiss us hard on the mouth

Regina Spektor can do no wrong in my book—she’s absolutely magical. This country song off her new Live In London Blu-ray is a departure form her usual fare, but oh so good and unique; just like her.

#6. Caught it off the back of a toilet seat

This is probably the most mainstream clip on this list, but boy do I love me some Russell Brand. The song is a rock-parody about venereal disease from the film Get Him to the Greek, but it’s actually really catchy (no pun intended). It is indeed Brand doing his own singing, and fake-rock-star Russell Brand makes me go all moo-eyed. Work-safe except for one little bit, but it’s short. Just pretend it isn’t there. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” And by droids, I mean boobs.

#5. The world is watching as I get undressed

There was some kerfuffle recently over a Daisy Chainsaw song being used in a Gossip Girl trailer, and some people my age who held the 90s anthem “Love Your Money” close to their hearts got their indie cred in a twist. I say good for KatieJane Garside—the Daisy Chainsaw frontwoman—and the rest of the band. This means a royalty check for them, as well as potential new listeners. I have always felt they deserved a wider audience. And as an artist friend so astutely pointed out: “If you really like someone’s work, you won’t oppose them earning enough to afford health insurance.”

The members of Daisy Chainsaw regrouped in 2000 to form the cathartic, very sexy and very raw QueenAdreena. Some days, we all wish for a hole to scream into. Most of us can’t, so KatieJane does it for us.

#4. Now, fetch this

The Cramps have been called “greasy,” “sleazy,” and “throbbing.” They are legendary and should need no introduction, but just in case: they are the originators of psychobilly music. However, even that description barely scratches the surface of the innovation and influence they have brought to all punk, goth and rockabilly musicians who’ve followed them.

The Cramps’ lead singer Lux Interior was his own carnal, alien cocktail, with just enough bottle-breaking, androgynous swagger to make him that much more appealing as he growled and gyrated with the microphone inside his mouth. He had a 37-year relationship with wife and Cramps lead guitarist Poison Ivy until his untimely death two years ago. RIP, Lux. This live appearance on the British television show The Tube is from 1986.

#3. We’ll get naked and—

This one is the raunchiest video on the list (so have a stiff drink first; it’s worth it), by alternative dance band Morningwood. Lead singer Chantal Claret—who is married to Mindless Self Indulgence singer Jimmy Urine—was also apparently on Oprah when she was nine years old. Crazy. She is so rockin’ and so fine, it hurts.

#2. Get down, get down, little Henry Lee

Much of what I’ve listed here is bawdy, but it’s not like I don’t have a heart too—quite a big one, in fact; I just keep it well-concealed beneath my bawdy exterior. But this video just rends my heart in two. If a performance makes you want to go make out with the person you love and also weep at the same time, you know it’s got something special, ‘cause that’s hard to pull off simultaneously. It’s said that Nick Cave and PJ Harvey fell in love right before our eyes during this shoot. Dunno if that’s true, but damn it makes good copy, and after watching this—I’d believe it. Thanks to Idler music columnist Mike Vincent for reminding me about this one. Henry Lee – Nick Cave & PJ Harvey

#1. When you only sleep with girls who say they like your music

Oh dear, the Dresden Dolls. I can’t get enough of them or enough of singer Amanda Palmer’s now-solo work. She and Dresden Dolls drummer Brian Viglione are a jaw-dropping duo who had great musical chemistry, as evidenced in this stupendously sexy video. Palmer is now married to author Neil Gaiman, who apart from being an amazing writer, must also be quite an exceptional man to have snagged her.

It starts starkly, four people in various shades of black standing in front of deep green ground foliage. PJ Harvey is easily recognized, looking fetching clad all in black. Yet hers is not the first voice, no, the first voice belongs to Australian bon vivant Mick Harvey. Initially a member of the Bad Seeds now sprung free, Harvey’s is the first voice heard. Then Polly Harvey, then Jon Parish then the other guy (who I am assuming is the producer Flood). All four sing the song, coming in at different points. And after 1.54 of this the song closes slowly. And then begins anew. But this version, the second version on the video, is the full band version, recoded in studio with full instrumentation.

Over the weekend, in an apparent state of delirium, I dreamt of a street in Australia. The street was across the University of New South Wales campus and housed the bus station to catch the 373 to Circular Quay and Syndey Harbor. The name of the road is ANZAC Parade. I didn’t spend much time on this street but I dreamt of it over the weekend. Waking and coughing I thought about the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, the organization that lends their name to the acronym. To the untrained or the basically informed, the ANZAC are probably best known for the eight month battle of the Gallipoli peninsula during World War I. As the first war felt by Australians and New Zealanders, the Battle of Gallipoli caused the death of 8709 Australians and 2721 Kiwis. Why did I dream about this? Why after all these years did my mind come back to the ANZAC? Who knows.

As I listened to the song out of the corner of my eye I heard the lyric, “Fighting in the ANZAC trench.” My brain stopped whatever it was I had been doing and just began to listen. When the a capella version ends and the band version begins there is a shocking depth to the song. It feels rich and sad and the images that make up the video are all completely striking and crisp and. . . mournful. It is a song about war, about friendship in times of struggle, about death and loss. The images in the video were filmed by a man named Seamus Murphy, who I can safely say is not a household name. Maybe he should be, though, as when I dug a bit deeper it turns out that Murphy is a war photographer who has been photographing the aftereffects of what nations do to other nations for many years. It seems that while the song deals with death, the death of a solider, the death of a friend (as the lyrics state), that the video is beautiful due to the song’s subject.

The images we see: older gentlemen, cows in the cold, an old bike, a football flag, tuning a guitar, birds in the sky. Every image you see is one of simple beauty. The first face you see is smiling, followed by the evening sun breaking onto a tree. Chickens. A pub. The little things, the little things in life that are the most important. The things in life that are lost in an instant when we die. Hail falling on the ground. The things that we might see all the time yet never pay much attention to due to the hectic natures of modern life.

The song is the last song on Harvey’s latest album, Let England Shake. Murphy has shot more than one video for the LP but when I think about the song and its placement on the LP and the video it feels all the more striking. I haven’t heard (or seen) much more from the LP but I plan to, all on the strength of this one track and one video. And as I read about the LP the choice of Murphy is fitting.

It also got me thinking about Polly Harvey as an artist. When she first became a force it was in the 90s, a wacky time as I think back. Her trio was upfront and muscular, as was her singing and presence. Spin magazine put her on the cover wearing only a bra and I remember the lines of record store customers who when faced with a female ideal that did not revolve around traditional beauty said “ick” more often that I would have liked to have heard. From there she mutated into a blues banshee on To Bring You My Love. A romance with Nick Cave led to a few haunting LPs for she released her “New York” LP, Stories From the City, Stories From The Sea. Thinking about nearly 20 years with this female artist in the continuum of music makes me think about the nature of female artists then and now. When I first became aware of Harvey it seemed like music was more open to different female artists—heavy on the word artist—existing in the marketplace. Now? Now not so much. There are no popular female artists nowadays that are different, that look different. This is not a slam on her looks, but Polly Harvey has a small face and a big nose. She stands out and yet is beautiful in doing so. Look at her in the video for “The Colour of the Earth.” She is clad in black, all black, yet you can’t take your eyes off her; glamorous minimalism. I wonder if those college kids, of both genders, that said ick at that magazine cover so long ago have moved out of that kind of thinking, where beauty is defined by desire rather than truth. The years that followed that magazine cover saw beauty become more of a standard, defined commodity where the content of the clothes became more than the substance of the person. Polly Jean Harvey is a singer of substance, an artist of substance, and a woman of substance. Long may she run.