This punk-as-hunk shot of Jimmy Pursey - only aimed at the 18 percent of the Sounds readership that was female, honest! - reminded me that one of the papers (for once NME I think) ran with a Playgirl style nude pin-up of Jean-Jacques Burnel.
Yes it was the New Musical Express - here it is in disappointingly low quality.
Even as late as 1986, J-J B was still whipping his kit off in hopes of shifting a few records.
Is he taking the piss out of Morrissey here?
He's also not buff by modern standards, which is odd given his whole Mishima-fan cult-of-the-body, martial-arts practitioner.... perhaps in that world, being lean is what counts, not the six pack and muscle mass
These nuddies remind me of Top Of the Pops appearances - Ian McCulloch baring his nipples in hopes of getting "The Cutter" to jump up the chart (it worked), Morrissey likewise pulling open his shirt to reveal 'Marry Me' daubed on his chest with lipstick (that's "William, It Was Really Nothing", I think)
Good job Jet didn't go naked.
ReplyDeleteshudder
DeleteI may be wrong here, but I seem to recall that, when the Mondays guest-edited Penthouse, they included a shot of Shaun Ryder naked.
ReplyDeleteEven though I'm a Happy Mondays obsessive, that's one bit of memorabilia I don't need.
That definitely rings an unsavory bell!
DeleteWhat search terms you using to get this stuff Simon??
ReplyDeleteIt just pops up quite regularly from this guy Soundsclips who posts old pages from Sounds on Twitter.
DeleteSounds had a reputation as the Sexist Rock Paper - so I don't know if this male rockers unclothed was some kind of equality gesture, or just part of their general interest in all things earthy.
ReplyDeleteAlthough in this period Sounds had a bunch of intellectual and poetic types writing - Savage, Dave McCullough, John Gill and others - it tended to have a less cerebral feeling for rock. The humour was consistently on the coarse side. The language less high-flown.
But also in a way, more upfront about sex and desire.
There was a long running theme in the letters page about the unbelievable prettiness of Peter Perrett, for instance.
I remember in the sixth form someone showed me the letters pages of Smash Hits. The first letter was from somebody expressing a thirst for Larry Mullen Jr's semen.
DeleteIt was quite discombobulating because I was thinking a) isn't this a magazine for kids? and b) Larry Mullen Jr.?????
Larry Mullen was an uncommonly handsome guy; Boy George used to joke that whenever Bono stated singing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", George felt like calling out, "then turn around!"
DeleteHe seemed to be a bit of a non-player character though. Part of the furniture. It was a bit like somebody really fancying one of the extras in the Rover's Return.
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