Let's make one thing clear: horny music is well and truly back.
Shygirl is feeling like a “shlut” and she likes it, BIG WETT is trying to get her G-spot hit, and Brendan Maclean is paying tribute to the carnal pleasures of gay missionary sex.
“Horny music rises whenever social conservatism rears its ungroovy head,” he says. “Explicitly horny art promotes sexual liberation in the ongoing war against prudishness. And honestly, who has time for a double entendre? The ocean is boiling, war is all around us. If you have the number one pussy in the club the time to yell it into a megaphone is now.”
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His latest track, The Front, goes undeniably hard. The pulsating kick drum, the groovy synths with a touch of that ’80s sleaze, his buttery-smooth voice… All of the elements are working just as they should as they build into that unforgettable chorus.
“Rowan Dix (Joyride) literally sent me a file called ‘Fun_Idea’ and I was like, “Well, I guess better sing something fun” – naturally butt-sex was the first thing that sprung to mind. Then it was Paul Mac’s job to balance my lyrical campiness with Joyride’s musical coolness, which as a producer I guess he finds fun? Finally, that version was sent to my queer emo-punk babies Cry Club to record harmonies and the bridge, undoubtedly the most fun parts of the song.”
Taking inspiration from the raunchy sex scenes from Heartbreaker and Red White & Royal Blue as well as Detroit Grand Pubahs’ 2001 bop Sandwiches, he set out to make a track that captured the intimacy and excitement of getting freaky face-to-face.
“I would have heard Sandwiches first on triple j as a kid in the car because dad’s rule was ‘It’s triple j or it’s nothing’. There’s something deeply satisfying about goofy lyrics over a hot beat, like a clown giving you a lap dance. The trick is not to let the joke get in the way of a good song. Not sure if I entirely achieved this with The Front but it was certainly a guiding light.”
Producer Paul Mac has just dropped an extended remix of the track – as Maclean puts it, “it’s absolutely how he would have produced the original version if left to his own devices”. He says Mac, who’s worked with Aussie music greats from Silverchair to Tina Arena, took him under his wing when he was early in his career.
“There were very few openly gay pop singers living in Australia when I released my first record,” he says. “I think Paul Mac saw me struggling with that and invited me into his logical family with Jonny Seymour (together billed as Stereogamous.) Besides being a lifelong friend, Paul is also literally a doctor of music, so when he says he wants to co-produce and remix a track, you know you’ve done good.”
Even though The Front is fresh onto streaming platforms, Maclean isn’t slowing down. There are new singles on the way – either “an electro-pop jam about fisting or a mid-tempo piano ballad about weighted blankets” – as well as a MSO George Michael tribute show at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl where he’ll be performing alongside Emma Donovan, Courtney Act and Natalie Bassingthwaigthe.
He’ll also be hosting his annual end-of-year Brendan Maclean extravaganza:”I’ve got new music, dancers, costumes, piano solos, everything. It’s Gaga on a budget, baby!”
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This article was made in partnership with Brendan Maclean.
