Divinyls - I touch myself

No.

More the light kind of shockingly funny

because the title means female masturbation - as in Cyndi Lauper "She Bop"

Oy. Divinyls remind me of Berlin. In case anyone cares, Berlin, a mind-boggling Oscar winner of a band, played the California State Fair last weekend. Both these bands remind me of other terrible bands like Missing Persons and The Waitresses. I heard Pearl Harbor and the Explosions' "Driving" in Whole Foods the other day. It was so wrong.

The lamest double entendre ever heard in a song.

Christina Amphlett died not too long after this song was a mega hit. She also did the excellent hard rocker "Boys in Town" which was a modest FM radio hit.

That's sad, r6. Wiki says she died from breast cancer and M.S.

When the Divinyls burst on the scene in Australia in the early 80s she really made an impact. Oz Rock was very 'blokey' and she was probably the first real female rocker we produced. Most people outside Australia only know her for I Touch Myself but they had a lot of good songs. This is one of my favourites. Her autobiography, Pleasure and Pain, is a great read. It also has a twist I'd never seen before - the other people in it get their own entries to tell their side of the story. So she might write 'the bass player was a wanker and never turned up to rehearsals' and then he will have his bit of input: 'Well that's not how I recall it. Chrissie ...'. This occurs all the way through and I thought there was something very honest about letting people you are slagging off tell their side of the story.

she also played Judy Garland in one of the early versions of "Boy from Oz"

my friend and I had tix to see her at the Ritz - the second version of it, at the site of Studio 54. we figured there'd be an opening act so we sat in my kitchen in HK smoking joints. we walked over and when we arrived the crowd was already walking out. they said "the show's over". I think she may have fallen ill onstage and called it a night.

It was a huge song, but I don't remember any controversy, believe it or not. It would probably be controversial today.

I loved the Divinyls from their first album. I must have seen the “Boys in Town” video on USA’s “Night Flight” (we didn’t have MTV yet so you had to hunt around for music videos).

No, OP. After Madonna's antics in the years prior, nothing was shocking by 1990.

I just played their cover of the Rascals hit "Aint Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" which they did for the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie. it's good

IMO their best song was used in SIXTEEN CANDLES, "Ring Me Up."

I remember it in 16 Candles never knew it was them - Hughes had the best soundtracks also the Pretenders covered an Amphlett song on one of their more recent albums - the ones with all the Billy Steinberg songs. Maybe Viva El Amor - don't remember song title.

'Boys in Town' is a truly great rock song. Haunting, desperate, intensely sexual.

The early 80s were a great period for Aussie rock.

the song is Human and I got the album rigjt

I was a naive early teen at the time and U though it just meant she puts her palm on her upoer chest.

No, there was no controversy because it was a more innocent time. Everyone probably guessed that it was a sly reference to masturbation, but the times being what they were, there was enough room to also think, "Well, you know, she could just mean that she runs her fingers through her hair or something. It doesn't have to mean *that*. It could just mean something romantic, not sexual."

If that song came out today, like R11 said, there would've been more controversy because everything's so blatantly sexual.

[quote]the times being what they were, there was enough room to also think, "Well, you know, she could just mean that she runs her fingers through her hair or something.

No. We all knew what she was talking about. The video, in particular, made it perfectly apparent what she was talking about. How innocent do you think people were in the 80s?

The Divinyls were great. Christina was the real deal and sexy as hell. Loads of great songs and style to burn. It’s nice that they had a monster hit in the US. Hopefully, fans of that song will discover their other gems.

"Pleasure and Pain"

People knew what it was about, but there really wasn’t much controversy that I remember.

[quote]Christina Amphlett died not too long after this song was a mega hit.

No, she died DECADES later. In 2013, from breast cancer.

This song was a hit in 1991.

The song was first released in Oz in late ‘89.

I think it was edgy, but in a fun way. It brought to mind images of the singer's fingers flicking her vulva this way and that.

Nope, just a Madonna rip off

Ironically I heard this son on Sirius XM early this morning in the car. Me and my friends loved this song when it came out, I was 20. We'd listen to it over and over on the way to the bar ;)

She’s rolling around on a bed (the floor?) in the music video. You’d have to be headless to not know that she was diddling her knob. All in good, sexy fun.

[quote]No. We all knew what she was talking about. The video, in particular, made it perfectly apparent what she was talking about. How innocent do you think people were in the 80s?

Stop doing that jerky thing of playing obtuse to come off as superior. I was alive and well when the song came out. I said that because the period was more innocent that it could've been interpreted both ways, as either nasty or romantic, not like today where if it just came out today, everyone would just go, "Yeah, she means she fingers her twat and then rides the Sybian until she squirts." That's why the song didn't create any controversy. There was enough innocence where it could be interpreted as clean.

And times definitely were more innocent then. Anyone remember when they used to advertise those cheesy "Better Sex" videos in the back pages of women magazines like Cosmo? This was a "tasteful series" that used to teach couples how to have sex because there were still people who had no idea how to do oral or anal sex, or even do positions outside of missionary. Can you imagine something this corny being needed today?

R6, it was Giorgio Moroder who won an Oscar for Take My Beeath Away not Berlin.

The guy in the Divinyls video was hot. The song was just the right side of clever with a great hook.

Loved that song! I was a teen when it came out and sang it every day to my bf.

Chrissy Amphlett was the cousin of a wholesome and successful '60s Australian pop singer called Little Pattie. When I Touch Myself came out Aussies were not at all shocked by the content because it was tamer compared to what had passed in the 1980s. But they were surprised by the sleek new sound and style. The Divinyls had split in Australia then regrouped in Paris where they reinvented their themselves. Love School is another sleek track from that period.

Aussies love to make fun of their rock heroes.

This song was in response to an embarrassing TV interview where her then-pretty blond assistant giggled and refused to disclose his masturbatory habits

Michael Bay directed the video, which probably made it less "fun" than She Bop.

it's a Billy Steinberg Tom Kelley song. they wrote hits for Madonna, Chrissie Hynde, Cyndi Lauper and Pat Benatar. It was also featured in "Austin Powers"

Divinyls were seen as a positive step towards discussion of individual sexual history. The big controversies of the time were NwA's Fuck the Police in 1988 and a few years later there was a controversy about Heavy Metal music and its link to suicide rates.

I seem to remember there was some talk about it but not any huge controversy. I grew up in the south so maybe it was more controversial there.

Billy Steinberg's first big hit was Linda Ronstadt's "How Do I Make You" from her Mad Love album

Nope.

Not controversial at all. And the people who objected to things like masturbation didn't really like this type of music so they had no idea they should get all Xtian and flip out over it.

The biggest controversy by far that I can remember from that era (late 80s - early 90s) was Madonna's video for "Like A Prayer." I think it would make a lot of people uneasy even today.

It was more "naughty" than scandalous...but rock was still pretty much underground back then. Those who were into it listened, (or watched) but grown-up types didn't really hear it. There was a lot more privacy then, everyone didn't have to be all over everything. Lots of things got under the wire.

It’s not as if she was singing “Cum inside my sugar walls”

By comparison, “I touch myself, I honestly do” is a lullaby for kiddies

Good golly, Miss Molly!

This is another great one of their's. 'Oh baby, wonder if we can get involved ...'

And one last one.

'I thought that love was science fiction, Until I saw you today, Now that love is my addiction, I've thrown all my books away'.

I feel so silly now for thinking all these years that they were called "The Vinyls."

If I could be a lesbian for only 24 hours, I doubt my fingers would ever leave my meat curtains. I'd play the Divinyls CD, or put on a Janis Ian album, and go to town.

R36 that TV show from the 1980s also featured some cock—