Oneohtrix Point Never, “Sticky Drama” | After Dark 🕛 🌃

In the 80^th edition of After Dark (2022), we explore the naughty, risqué, & sexual vibes behind, “Sticky Drama” by Oneohtrix Point Never. 

Innuendo? More like full-on sexual vibes! Welcome to After Dark 🕛 🌃, a column featuring songs that are best suited for nighttime, specifically, the bedroom.  Many of the records featured here raise eyebrows, as well as the temperature! These After Dark tunes focus on the universal three-letter word:  SEX. The dark records gracing After Dark are old and new alike, with all genres of music welcome.  In the 80^th edition of After Dark (2022), we explore the naughty, risqué, & sexual vibes behind, 🎵 “Sticky Drama” by 🎙 Oneohtrix Point Never. 

Theme & Lyrics ✍

“Sticky drama is the girl for me / She’s so sticky from the memories.”  Hmm, these lyrics don’t sound innocent in the least, even if the vocals sound like a child is performing them.  Children are innocent creatures, right? Well… Listen on, and 🎙 Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) clarifies a lack of innocence – the beginnings of adulthood! “How I lust her in your eyes / Sticky drop.” Again, Lopatin seems to shove stickiness up in our faces on 🎵 “Sticky Drama”, which appears on his 2015 album, 💿 Garden of Delete.  Yes, the lust confirmed that the stickiness is a product of, um, self-pleasure. That said, Fader provides additional insight: “‘Sticky Drama’ [is] a polyrhythmic earworm named after a vicious, now-inactive gossip website that was run by a morally bankrupt pornographer.” Whoa! It doesn’t stop there:

Lopatin says it’s technically about the shock of ejaculating for the first time, but it’s written more like an absurd love song…, a sort of self-aware version of the thinly veiled innuendos that tend to populate mainstream rock songs.

So, yes, there is masturbation in the mix.  “Know it’s some special fade in / They’re here to see you: V-I-Penis…” Woo! Clearly, the experience the protagonist has is, um, gnarly – a rite of passage – but it also intriguing musically.  The production, by Lopatin and 🎛 Paul Corley is rad, featuring unique keys, and synths, vocal effects, and touting an experimental vibe.  You don’t expect that from a record about, well, masturbation, particularly from the perspective of a teenager.

Final Thoughts 💭 

Well, 🎵 “Sticky Drama” is indeed sticky.  Although the subject matter is, um, unexpected, “Sticky Drama” isn’t nearly as raunchy as some records that have appeared in After Dark 🕛 🌃.  Still, is there any way that a song that references the rocket launching or the volcano erupting shouldn’t be featured as an After Dark entry? Nope – had to do it!

 🎙 Oneohtrix Point Never • 💿 Garden of Delete • 🏷 Warp • 🗓 2015

Oneohtrix Point Never, “Sticky Drama”: After Dark 🕛 🌃 No. 80 (2022) [📷: Brent Faulkner, cottonbro, Foundry Co, John lucas, The Musical Hype, Pexels, Pixabay, Tazz Vaughn, Warp]