A few months ago, Coolio returned from the Valley of the Shadow of Death with a new, NSFW video called "Take It to the Hub", commissioned by the popular, YouTube-esque porn playground known as Pornhub. As a 51-year old Coolio name-drops Pornhub-run sites and gives shout-outs to his starlets of choice (all while decked out in Pornhub gear, no less) a crowd of vixens cavort about, washing cars, donning dinosaur onesies, and felting bananas; at one point Coolio jabs at a woman’s breast with a drumstick as she lounges in a hot tub. "If you want touch touch love, can’t get enough/ Don’t hesitate to grab that glove and take it to the Hub," Coolio instructs, punctuating it with a quick “porn” in case you weren’t exactly to which Hub he was referring.
"Take It to the Hub", sadly, was not the comeback single from a forthcoming Coolio album, but rather an advertorial one-off to promote Pornhub Records, a new record label started by the web giants. In an interview with Rolling Stone the rapper dismissed it as a "promo song", adding “It’s not even my song that I’m putting out. I’m never doing a new album” (he also scoffed at the notion that he’d need porn to stage a comeback—"I am fuckin’ porn," he insisted).
But somebody has to take up the mantle of silicone and sweat, and so, with the Pornhub Records' official launch last week comes news of a Worldwide Song Search to find the label’s new anthem. A panel of site and music execs will pick through a varied set of demos to determine which one shows the most promise for the “Pornhub brand and message," rewarding the winner(s) with a $5,000 music video and a guaranteed 500,000 views minimum. All genres are accepted, except “boy bands or teen-pop," according to company vice-president Cory Price (think of the consumer!)
Dozens of contestants have staged their bids for legitimacy since the contest began in September, resulting in a diverse ballot that features not only dreamy rap (Lilassassin’s "Pornhub Records") and moan-ridden electronica (Alpha Runt’s "Sore Ventricles"), but also excruciating, beautiful ballads such as Derelict Derek’s "Faptastic Voyage". It takes a certain amount of gusto to thrust one’s chafed palms out into the public conscience for intense scrutiny, especially when it’s those palms that drive the artwork itself.
But this is a game of logic, not just lotion, and while Pornhub may not be the most popular porn site on the internet, it still nets 40 million users a day and hosts more videos than any other competitor, essentially making it largest triple-X destination on the web. Then there’s pop’s spike in ass obsession, emblemized in the blockbuster music videos for Nicki Minaj’s infamous "Anaconda" (212 million views), as well as Jason Derulo’s "Wiggle" (289 million), Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea’s "Booty" remix (40 million), and thanks to its twerkfest of a video, even Mastodon’s “The Motherload” (only time will tell). The hordes of think-pieces spawned by such videos, in turn, ensure a steady stream of viewers that lingers long after the talking points have been played-out.
More intriguingly, the site’s potential as a creative conduit has already been readily demonstrated over the past year by several independent artists. New York-based producer Drew Lustman, aka FaltyDL, used Pornhub to tease a cut from his recent album In the Wildbefore its official release. The accompanying visuals contain no nudity, and no humans, for that matter—just a lone bed, darkened by the fading sunlight as shown through time-lapse photography (comments included "?????" and "I am so fucking hard right now"). On the other side of that spectrum lay Xiu Xiu, who spliced together footage of hardcore porn and kittens clambering around on top of Crocs for their "Black Dick" music video, also uploaded to Pornhub. By respectively removing and distorting the viewer’s interwoven notions of music, sexuality, and the intersection between the two, FaltyDL and Xiu Xiu hint at a new, post-internet lens by which to examine so-called "bedroom music"—creating the potential for a forward-thinking style of art that, as an added bonus, grants the company that hosts it some unexpected artistic cred.
It’s still uncertain as to how Pornhub Records and the Worldwide Song Search judges will address these approaches, if they choose to engage with them at all. The contest’s judges reserve the right to modify the winning song to best meet the brand (a possible explanation for Coolio’s awkward "Hub Porn" advertisements in the chorus of "Take It to the Hub"), and an ambient song set to grainy footage of kittens climbing on shoes probably won’t convince the average teenage boy to stick with Pornhub Records for all eternity. Regardless of who ultimately snags the mic, Pornhub's foray into aural pleasure warrants attention—not just as a new "Faptastic Voyage", but as a crucible for the ways in which two mammoth, similarly-minded industries can share the love.