The Love Symphony Orchestra
Let’s Make Love In Public Places
Let Me Be Your Fantasy
At The Football Stadium
Oh boy, where to even begin with this one.
I suppose I should get the obvious out of the way; yes, Penthouse actually released a record. In fact, from what I can gather, they actually released two records. This one in 1978, and a follow-up the year later which also featured The Love Symphony Orchestra entitled Messdames Ce Soir (the typo in “Mesdames” is theirs, not mine). That album is predominately covers, but this one is all original material – and I suspect is all the better for it.
The back cover lists two tracks, “Let’s Make Love In Public Places” and “Let Me Be Your Fantasy.” But that’s actually misleading in multiple ways. Firstly, the album has a third track, the decidedly unsexy-sounding “At the Football Stadium.” But in actuality, all of the tracks are really just sections of a multi-part suite, that for all intents and purposes is “Let’s Make Love In Public Places.” That’s both the thematic and musical glue that holds all three numbers together. The chorus of the main track makes an appearance in the other two tracks.
This is longform disco, which was very much the style of the time. Acts like Donna Summer and Grace Jones were putting out albums that had entire sides dedicated to a single track. This is before the idea of the “dance remix” really took hold. You wanted to craft a 12-to-17 minute banger that would really take hold of the dance floor.
In case you couldn’t already guess by, well, literally every single thing I’ve said about this record, it’s entirely about sex. More specifically, it’s about banging in public. The entire first section, all 13 minutes of it, is an ode to lewd behavior in public, complete with a spoken word interlude by a woman desperate to convince her man to get down to business outside.
Oddly enough, the second part, “Let Me Be Your Fantasy,” offers a slight argument for doing it behind closed doors, with the male counterpart taking the vocals to exclaim that he wants to “make love alone in private.” But his viewpoint is almost immediately shut down once the chorus for the original track returns. This woman wants to get down in public and this dude sure as hell isn’t going to stop her.
And she finally gets her wish with the grande finale “At The Football Stadium,” where the two characters get down to business…at the football stadium (duh). A few absolutely horrible football-as-sex metaphors are exchanged (“On the next play come inside our huddle/don’t care who wins as long as we score”) before the chorus of the title track returns once more and segues into an extended instrumental outro.
The only member of Love Symphony Orchestra that Discogs lists on the group’s page is Matthew Raimondi, a violinist who mostly works on classical music now. But if you dig into the page for this album, you’ll find more detailed information. A lot of people worked on this album, some really talented people at that. Andy Newmark from Sly & The Family Stone played drums, and the Blues Brothers’ Lou Marini is here as a flutist. Everyone on this album is on a billion other albums, many of which you’ve probably heard. Check out their Discogs’ pages and discover the wonderful rabbit hole that is exploring the work of session musicians.
I don’t know if I really like this record all that much, even though it is more than technically proficient and definitely well-produced. But I do know it’s funny as hell. I really appreciate its enthusiasm and commitment to its cause/mission statement of fucking in public. This is more or less a concept album dedicated to lewd public indecency, and I respect that.
Regardless, you certainly don’t hear anything like this these days. So if you want a throwback to a sound that is long forgotten, give it a listen. Just don’t hold me responsible for any laws you might break if you find yourself inspired after the album is finished.