More Than Just Sex

On June 13th 2003, as Paramount Pictures was engrossed in matters such as releasing Rugrats Go Wild in the United States, Germany revealed an atrocious situation arising within their borders. The announcement informed the public that German eurodance project, E-Rotic, had disassembled. Today marks the seven-year anniversary of this split.

Joining together in early 1994, E-Rotic, would be founded by Lyane Leigh and Raz-Ma-Taz. The group’s mission statement was simple- to provide the public with an onslaught of filthy sex and innuendo to the sound of highly danceable European-pop music.

With singles such as “Max Don’t Have Sex With Your Ex,” “Help Me Dr. Dick,” and “Fritz Loves My Tits,” E-Rotic soon found themselves on the Top-10 charts throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Later in 1996, France and Belgium would catch the E-Rotic bug too with fan favorite: “Fred Come To Bed.”

Despite the simplicity of saturating lyrics with sexual puns, E-Rotic managed to develop a game-changing structure behind their words, the intertwining narratives of reoccurring characters. Each player was first given an origin story, usually a single with his or her respective name in the title, “Willy Use A Billy… Boy,” (Willy fancied unprotected sex), “Oh Nick Please Not So Quick,” (Nick suffered from premature ejaculation), “Billy Jive With Willy’s Wife,” (Billy was an adulterer), etc.

From there, those characters were now accessible pawns to appear in all future albums developing a soap-opera-like essence to their existence. Dr. Dick would move in with a private checkup on Molly Dolly as poor Nick Not So Quick was left in the dust. Meanwhile, Willy Use A Billy would learn the importance of safe sex as his poor decisions led to unwanted pregnancies and diseases.

With the exception of one album, Thank You For The Music, (a tribute to their strongest influence, ABBA), the discography of E-Rotic proves they have stayed honest to their goal from start to end. Just browse through the album titles alone, Sex Affairs, The Power of Sex, Sexual Madness, Sexual Healing, Mambo No. Sex; hell, even their Greatest Hits compilation was cleverly dubbed, Greatest Tits. This very well may be the only group in history to ever reach a level of such immaculate consistency.

E-Rotic never quite made a name for themselves in America aside for several greatly watered-down Dance Dance Revolution tracks. This is unfortunate but should come as no surprise. As liberal and sexually explicit as the U.S.A. has become, we’re still ten blow-jobs and half a boner behind Europe. Don’t anticipate this changing anytime soon.

E-Rotic is the Freddy Got Fingered of music, you like it or you despise it, and nobody is in the middle on this one. As with all art, there should only be satisfaction held in this position. This group has managed to hurdle past mediocrity and land drastically on the side of brilliance and insanity- two fields that always overlap. Seven years have now passed in the world without E-Rotic and as much as I miss them; I could not claim their library to be anything but complete. Like an ideal television series, they left before the material got stale- and that’s saying so damn much considering the content they wrote about.

Here’s the music video to “Help Me Dr. Dick” for your viewing pleasure: