Good Booty

Here’s a game: Complete this lyric …

A-wop-bop-alu-bop-a-wop-bam-boom

Tutti Frutti, ______

“Aw rooty” is on the record of Little Richard’s seminal hit, but the original rhyme was “good booty.” And that’s where NPR music critic Ann Powers gets the title of her new book.

It’s a decades-old cliche that parents complain their kids’ music is far more sexual than what they grew up with, but history teaches us that’s not true. By examining erotically androgynous stars, sensual dances and double (and sometimes single) entendre in lyrics, Powers makes the case that pop music has long been “America’s primary erotic art form.”

GUESTS

Ann Powers, Music critic and correspondent, NPR; author of Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music; @annkpowers

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