Passion: The Music of Love
Various Artists
Intersound

Passion: Music for Guitar
Various Artists
Narada Lotus

Romance: Music for Piano
Various Artists
Narada Lotus

THE CONCEPT OF MAKE-OUT MUSIC is probably as old as music itself. Surely Pythagoras developed his notion about the “Music of the Spheres” after a particularly hot toga party. Beats there a modern heart so cold that it can’t be turned to mush at the first strains of some radio hit from the puberty years? The song that first stirred your loins may be embarrassing twaddle in the full light of maturity, but that’s beside the point. The point is, music hath many charms, one of which is to fan the flames of desire.

The average 45 rpm record lasts barely three minutes. Granted, that’s longer than most anxious teen-age males need, but it’s still problematic. The old long-playing vinyl album was only good for 20 minutes, at most, before someone had to get up and replace the tone-arm. But with the advent of compact disc technology, modern swingles can program hours and hours of sensual sounds for uninterrupted rapture. For the multi-orgasmic and slow-to-ignite, this would seem a near necessity.

After the mad vault-cleaning rush of best-ofs and box sets, enterprising record companies have realized they can target acquisitive consumers with theme releases. And since nothing sells like sex, it’s hardly surprising that a near glut of prepackaged boudoir soundtracks should appear. In addition to the discs here, Cyborgasm 2 is out, and Rhino will shortly release Smooth Grooves: A Sensual Collection, four volumes of “Quiet Storm” music.

The discs at hand contain no triple-X, Donna Summer “Love to Love You Baby”-style explicitness. Rather, they take a Hallmark-card approach, with the packaging including many poems to set the appropriate tone. No Bukowski. No Ginsberg. Strictly the high-school sentimentalists: Byron, Yeats, Shelley.

Passion: The Music of Love offers four discs, arranged under the titles A Time for Love (pop symphonic), Classics for Lovers (classical hits), Sensual Interludes (solo piano), and Forbidden Pleasure, which is defined here as soft AOR pop.

A cavorting couple adorns the box, as well as each jewel case and the discs themselves; the man and woman affect that bored, vacant manner of the professional model, illustrating the collection’s lascivious theme like the “serving suggestion” on a box of Rice-a-Roni. Liner notes helpfully identify the pair as Shelly Jones and Brad Cooper. Also credited is a hair and makeup artist. What makeup? They’re nearly nude!

As the discs played, I found myself becoming ever fonder of the distant Shelly. Her sepia-toned cheeks, her pouting lips, piqued my imagination. I pictured myself in Brad’s place, holding her close. I imagined myself with Brad’s body. I imagined calling the makeup artist over for a quick touch-up. Eventually, I grew to despise them both. These collections reach me at a moment when I am—how to phrase it?—between tragically doomed affairs, and the languid couple’s feigned infatuation mocks me.

To fully test the passion-producing prowess of these recordings, I dug deep in my phone book, seeking a listening partner. When the enticement, “Just you, me, some Asti Spumanti, and the shuffle/repeat key,” yielded only threats of fresh injunctions, I swallowed my pride and a hefty slug of Chianti and pressed on, unaccompanied.

Fully one-third of the songs on Passion are identified as theme songs from movies, and most of the rest often appear on soundtracks or commercials. Fine—cinema has long defined what is romantic. But conspicuously absent is that famous film song, Ravel’s “Bolero,” from the Bo Derek flick 10. It is widely regarded as the most erotically charged piece of music ever written (after, of course, Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s “That Smell”). It’s omission here seriously dampens the collection’s usefulness.

Also missing is Wagner‘s “Ride of the Valkyries,” which could have been identified as the Apocalypse Now tune. Maybe this is too personal a complaint, but I say there’s nothing like a little Viking foreplay to get the pheromones racing.

AS SEDUCTIVELY STIMULATING AS A POP SONG MAY BE, it is but a peck on the cheek compared to the deep, sustained soul kiss that is classical music. Classics for Lovers runs through those “hits” most people are familiar with, as performed by the London Festival Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and others, from the pastoral Trois Gymnop