While a decision was made upon this blog’s inception to stick strictly to music and not splinter off into weightier topics like philosophy or politics, I seek a reprieve this Valentines Day with an issue that encompasses a bit of both. I’m writing, of course, about how people don’t slow dance at clubs anymore. Like the unfortunate phasing out of bench seats in automobiles or dueling to settle a grievance, our generation forgoing the slow dance strikes me less like a cultural evolution as it does a misguided regression by a society that has lost its way.

It might sound fantastical to readers born post Purple Rain, but it wasn’t so long ago that a DJ would pitch things down and play a ballad at peak hour, and why not? It’s well recognized, if not largely unspoken, that an establishment can charge eight dollars for an ounce of down-market alcohol in exchange for creating an opportunity for semi-consensual human contact. So why have we forsaken an imbedded social custom whereby a simple change in music would speed this process along?

Perhaps it’s a cultural shift from those of us raised in an era where sexuality was presented bathed in blue light and accompanied by a saxophone solo on scrambled pay per view, to a generation whose visual representation of sex comes by way of sallow pornography made on the brutally honest medium of digital video. For all of the drawbacks of prudishness, maybe having a bit of shame about sex forces one to be more seductive when asking for it. Or maybe we’re just living through the blowback from rave culture and the libido crushing stimulants that traded the ritual of a slow dance for a 90 minute shoulder rub in the “chill-out room” like members of a benign, sexless cult.

Whatever the reason, I’d like to take this day of romance to offer a plea to those responsible to drop a few ballads at the club so we can all get a bit of touch. The following is a slow dance starter kit, a selection which also makes for a compelling Valentines Day mix whether you’re celebrating with a long time partner, courting someone new, or are at home alone, cutting yourself to recapture an ex-lover’s fancy.

Winter Family – Garden
Soko – I Will Never Love You More
The Velvet Underground – Some Kinda Love (Closet Mix)
Tommy James & the Shondells – Crimson & Clover
Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg – Je t’aime moi non plus
Beach Boys – Disney Girls
Hall & Oates – I’m Just A Kid (Don’t Make Me Feel Like A Man)
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – The Way
James Carr – What Can I Call My Own
Natural Four – Can This Be Real?
Otis Redding – I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
BloodStone – Natural High
Johnny Daye – Stay Baby Stay
The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes for You
Duke Ellington and John Coltrane – In a Sentimental Mood
Chet Baker – My Funny Valentine
Os Mutantes – Baby
shelly duvall – He Needs Me
Steve Martin & Bernadette Peters – Tonight You Belong to Me
Leo Sayer – When I Need You
Prince – International Lover
D’Angelo - Feel Like Makin’ Love
Rufus featuring Chaka Khan – Sweet Thing
Shirley Murdock – As We Lay

Electric Adolescence – Bring Back the Slow Dance (right click to download) 80:00 mins/ 256 kbps/ 146MB