World’s Worst Songs: “I Want Your Sex” by George Michael

Somewhere in this photo you can see George Michael, onstage in Italy last November. (Getty Images/Vittorio Zunino Celotto)

Everybody who loves music also hates music — certain specific examples of it, anyhow. This feature is about those songs: the World’s Worst Songs.

There had been lots of sex in pop songs before, lots of moaning and heavy breathing, not to mention the works of Barry White, but until George Michael‘s 1987 hit “I Want Your Sex,” no song had been quite so explicit. And no song had been quite as instantly controversial.

“I Want Your Sex” rose to #2 on the Hot 100, but when Casey Kasem played it on his nationally syndicated radio countdown show, he didn’t give the title. Some American radio stations stayed away from it entirely, and the BBC wouldn’t play it, either.

George Michael must have suspected how the record would be received, because the accompanying video tried to dial it down: he’s seen writing the words “explore monogamy” in lipstick on a woman’s naked back. One version of the song is called the “Monogamy Mix.” But you’d have to be pretty thick to believe that “I Want Your Sex” is about how great monogamy is, not with the lines “Sex is natural/Sex is good/Not everybody does it/But everybody should.”

A facet of the controversy that’s forgotten now is that 1987 was still the Age of AIDS. By encouraging sex, was George Michael encouraging risky behavior? At a moment in history when many people had begun equating sex with death, perhaps it’s no wonder Michael tried to retrofit the song to make it about monogamy.

Social impact aside, “I Want Your Sex” makes the list of the World’s Worst Songs precisely because it’s so explicit about its subject matter. One of the rules of good writing is “show, don’t tell” — by that standard, the song’s utter lack of subtlety, and Michael’s waffling on its intended meaning, makes it a big, sexy, artistic failure.

If you think we blew it — if there’s a case to be made for why this song is better than we think it is — click “Add a Comment” and tell why, then listen to and debate more of the World’s Worst Songs.