Valentine’s Day is a celebrated day of love and affection, hallmarked by the cheesy romantic imagery splashed on everything from cheap waxy chocolates to quickly forgotten stuffed bears peddled in every drugstore from here to Timbuktu. However, the holiday’s roots are grounded in murky, unverified legends that all tend to point to the martyrdom of one Saint Valentine, who by some accords was imprisoned for marrying young Christian couples, who were persecuted under the Roman law of the time, and gave a letter to his jailor’s daughter signed “From your Valentine” before his execution.
In order to accurately celebrate that dramatic encapsulation of love and bloodshed, we’ve turned the focus on the more violent delights experienced by those with a taste for the dark and unusual. That’s right, we’re talking BDSM – and not the milquetoast experimentation of first-time viewers of Fifty Shades, either. The 12 tracks below all directly or metaphorically refer to the world of kink in all its delectable glory, as brought to you by the world’s greatest purveyors of sex and cool: rock musicians.
From the hard industrial stylings of German fucklords Rammstein to the synth-driven sex pop of new-wavers Depeche Mode, a common thread of power, pain, and pleasure run through these songs with each charged riff and line. Some lean heavy on the carnal acts of bodily violence while some are more inclined to pull out the psychologically extreme (and use the word “slave” in the kink context: warning for those who prefer not to engage with that language), but all encapsulate a specific shared feeling of taboo fulfilment gained from enjoying the rougher things in life.