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Illustration by Steven Johnson and Lou Fancher

By MARY BETH WILLIAMS

The candles are lit; the shades are drawn; there's a can of Reddi-Wip cooling in the fridge. But can we bear, yet again, to doff our vestments to "Let's Get It On" one more time? I think not. After all, if you have tuna surprise every Wednesday night, it's no longer a surprise. It's time for something different. There are dozens of new albums released every month, a veritable Kama Sutra of musical possibilities. A little steel-pedaled assertion that "The Woman in Me (Needs the Man in You)," a taste of gritty British "Testosterone." CD rack, take me away.

The current Billboard top ten albums represent somewhere around 35 million compendiums of melody shipped to stores and eventually into homes, Discmans, and car stereos around the country. And right at this moment, there are people getting lucky to the music on that venerated list. Determined lovers can make mood music out of anything -- even the acrid yowlings of a Canadian scorned or the cadences of manly men who call themselves Bush.

My personal lab rat/love bunny and I set out recently to see what happens when the music of the masses is applied to a private setting. In the name of research, we did everything that we could with everything the charts gave us. We worked our way up from R. Kelly -- the greatest innovation in social lubrication since the invention of the tequila shooter -- through pending-Vatican-approval alternative birth control Hootie and the Blowfish, all the way till we got on top. Our exhaustive investigations have confirmed that whether the songs are overtly about sex or determinedly devoted to existential angst, with the proper setting the most popular albums in America today can all carry a Let's Get It On subtext in a try-a-new-position package.

R. Kelly: "R. Kelly"

Music: Supercool soul stud swagger. Kelly's lyrics are a textbook example of the kind of sexual bravado that makes R&B the superlative makeout music it is. The grooves alternate between nice and easy and nice and rough, and with a solid hour of smooth-talking love, well, you should be so lucky. Song titles range from the subtle ("Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby...") to the less so ("Hump Bounce.")

Sample Wisdom: "Baby you know I want you real bad, and girl I really like your freak style -- how can I be down with you?"

Mood: You're plying me with sweet nothings and putting the R. Kelly album on the stereo -- hey, are you trying to seduce me?

Suggested Act: Hump bounce

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Next page: Alanis Morissette: The singing vagina dentata!