Monday, June 8, 2009

Addicted to Rub

The year was 1986. Robert Palmer's Riptide LP spawned a #1 hit titled Addicted to Love. The video for the song featured the singer, cool in a dress shirt and tie, backed by a "band" of leggy, lipsticked Stepford Wives.

Flash forward to the present. It's like we're watching the video remade with an all-bovine cast.

Robert Bullmer croons as his accompanyists pretend to play instruments fashioned from the apparatus of their eventual cooking.

Enough with the scene-setting. Let's get to the guts of the matter: The whole pun rests on the substitution of love (as a euphemism for sex) with rub (as a symbol for barbecue and, therefore, animal destruction). When seen in that light, as intended, the image becomes merely the latest in a worryingly long line of sex-obsessed barbecue logos that represent an unwholesome flirtation with veiled violence.


2 comments:

Red said...

Small correction. The year was 1986.

Ben said...

You are correct. It was released in March of '86. Fixed.