A Classical Kink Playlist

What does kink sound like in music? After posing the question to myself, I felt slightly paralyzed, so I set out on a walk with a friend, who sometimes sends me links to iconoclastic piano pieces. I thought he could be a kind of kinky music sensei. “Have you listened to any ‘kinky’ music lately?” I asked him. He was quiet for a moment, then answered, “Honestly? I don’t think so. But maybe…” He wasn’t sure what I was asking. In truth, I wasn’t sure what I was asking. But I was resistant to “kinky” as a reductive modifier, which could only be applied to music with phonological disturbances, or conversely, a meaningless modifier, applied to all music that “breaks rules” or violates expectations. 

In The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard, Leonard Bernstein suggests, “The best way to ‘know’ a thing is in the context of another discipline.” A few days after the kink talk walk, I realized that if I needed a sensei, it was probably Bernstein. Channeling him, I began asking, Whither kink? Whence kink? What kink? Whose kink?  

On the other hand, I was thinking about another man—and I might love him—who describes anything truly spectacular as “pussy.” A magnificent charbroiled chicken? It’s pussy. Mulled wine with orange rounds, cinnamon sticks, and star anise? Pussy. Not everyone can pull off such declarations. Nor preside over, dominate, push you to the…