I love deep, dark music. Artistic lyrics, boosted bass, ethereal vocals, synths, the works. I don’t really know how to categorise this kind of music as it’s so versatile. It’s that emotional, sexy music you can imagine in a movie trailer, or imagine yourself fucking to it. The ‘unleashing my inner stripper’ songs we all have.

Lana Del Rey, Ruelle, Nine Inch Nails and The Weeknd are just a few examples.

One such band’s music I’ve loved for a while is Thirty Seconds To Mars. Minus Jared Leto’s method acting craziness during the Suicide Squad filming (seriously dude, not cool) the trio in 30STM are a seriously talented bunch. Generally I tend to focus on the music than anything else.

I remember flipping through the music channels when I was seventeen and stumbling across the video for ‘Kings and Queens‘ on MTV. I was hooked and have never looked back. I got a whole load of their songs of iTunes, on to my old iPod and away I went, listening on the way to college, work, university etc.

From a kink perspective, I like how in the music videos (usually directed by Leto under his pseudonym, Bartholomew Cubbins) is the fearless, unapologetic approach to symbolism and human sexuality. Listening to ‘Hurricane’ for the first time was an experience and in my opinion, still one of the best songs ever produced.

The video is entirely one on its own. It’s erm…interesting! 

It depicts BDSM and fetishism, along with symbolism and dreams in a surrealist setup. It has two versions: the censored and uncensored director’s cut version. Put it this way, if you’re looking for something non-‘shocking’, this video is definitely not for you.

When it was released, it garnered A LOT of controversy (uderstandably) and was even banned by MTV and other music channels. As well as a scene of a priest, monk and rabbi throwing holy books into a fire over a poetic narration about underlying desire, really pissing off the religious communities.

This video has the whole shebang: knife play, spitting, rubber/leather/latex fetishism, sadomasochism, spanking, bondage, sensory deprivation, the works. It’s basically a surrealist thriller with enough symbolism, sexuality, sensuality and fist-fights to leave you going, ‘What the hell just happened?’ by the end of the thirteen minute video. It is a controversial video, so if you do see it, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Here’s the lyric video (WP T&Cs probably wouldn’t allow the uncensored version. So if you want to watch that, click here.

It has a disclaimer at the beginning of graphic imagery that could be potentially triggering and, goes without saying, it’s 18+ and definitely NSFW. Also disclaimer for anyone with epilepsy there are flashing, quick-fire images.)

I came across ‘Hurricane’ in the midst of the Fifty Shades craze in 2012, in the Fifty Shades fan videos of YouTube. Let’s face it, at that time it was one of the few ways I could explore BDSM content, in a way that I didn’t have to actually read the book (though I eventually did) or access a porn site. So I could still stay in my vanilla surroundings where I was perfectly comfortable.

As you can imagine for 17/18-year-old me, the video had quite the affect on me. I was awestruck, mostly shocked, a little frightened by it (the gimp-mask suited guy chasing Jared Leto with a sledgehammer, as personification of the ‘nightmare’ in dreams, scared the shit out of me.) but overall left jaw-dropped by the sheer creativity of it. (I was in uni studying performance at the time). The making of video is here if you want to watch and understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what the fuck?!’ of the video.

From an objective performance perspective, the concept, cinematography, splicing of different music and overall storytelling is brilliant. Coupled with that incredible song, the video’s a creative masterpiece, hands down. How it didn’t wipe the floor with music awards, I honestly don’t know.

Plus, I liked how they employed adult performers, both from the porn and kink scenes without any shame attached. It’s one you could easily write an essay about if you’re looking at the presentation of sexuality and censorship in music videos, for sure!

As well, other artists’ music I’m particularly fond of are The Weeknd and PVRIS (pronounced Paris). Even though The Weeknd moved more towards pop-like sounds in the mid 2010s, he seems to have moved back to his roots when he released his Trilogy album back in 2012. As you can see, 2012 was a big year for me for music! The Zone feat. Drake was my first introduction to him and like Thirty Seconds To Mars, I was hooked.

More recently, his newest album is particularly good, with ‘I Was Never There’ and ‘Call Out My Name’ being particular favourites.

I found a whole load of these songs through the fandoms of YouTube and aspiring trailer and filmmakers. There are some seriously talented people out there! Exploring trying my hand at writing more sensual and erotic prose (by sheltered 18-year-old standards that is) these songs put me in the zone and became a bit of a sexual awakening, so to speak.

Recently, I’m enjoying the songs I’m hearing on the YouTube channel DYNMK. Here are two more I absolutely can’t get enough of.

All my love,

Violet xx