Makeout music is as old as the phonograph (older, if you believe that Bach really wrote the "Goldberg Variations" to help Herr Goldberg get Frau Goldberg in the mood), but Barry White was the first recording artist who made a conscious effort to emphasize only those musical and lyrical elements that would get a date into the sack.
Chest Rockwell (Prince Paul) opens the new album by Nathaniel Merriweather, his partner in the Handsome Boy Modeling School, with a plug for the record's utilitarian function that name-checks the Big Daddy of Makeout: "Barry White used to work for me. Shoot, even Abba used to work, the way I was doing my thing. But you put this on, and the hos go wild."
"This" is "Lovage -- Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By," which is tongue-in-cheek about sexual conquests the way the Handsome Boy Modeling School's "So How's Your Girl?" was tongue-in-cheek about male bonding. Merriweather (Dan "the Automator" Nakamura) keeps the music relaxed and down-tempo most of the time, using samples from lounge jazz and unfamiliar soundtracks as background pheromone-enhancers.
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