5. Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & Pink – Lady Marmalade (2001)

The pop world, like the world at large, has always been ruled by white males. But we are in a new millennium, and its opening decade was ruled by black music, and by women. This was the decade that saw the sexual revolution taking another huge step forward, and freeing women as well. This was the record that heralded the event, and still symbolizes it more than any other record.

And how symbolic it is that it was part of the Moulin Rouge project, the movie whose plot was located in the famous burlesque theater, opened in Paris in 1889. While the dominating culture aspired to repress and sublimate sexuality, and "high" art pieces that dealt with sex always transformed it into something else, the Moulin Rouge appealed to people who simply wanted to enjoy their sexuality, and offered rhythmic and orgiastic music, thus becoming one of the starting points for pop culture. It had no artistic aspirations, but it provided a space which allowed creative people to operate, and these people took the free spirit of the Moulin Rouge into artistic avenues. What they created slowly undermined the dominant culture, gradually releasing sexuality from its oppression.

But the dominant culture also dictated that only men enjoy sex, so the loosening of restrictions was something that pertained only to males. The Feminist movement, which arose simultaneously, accepted this division, and instead of demanding that women too would be allowed to enjoy sex, it demanded to "protect" women from the male sexual drive. And so, everyone kept teaching girls that sex is something they should be repelled by, and they remained oppressed. But, yet again, pop was there to undermine the accepted divisions, and offer alternatives. In 1974, the black female group LaBelle released the record 'Lady Marmalade', which turned the male paradigm on its head: the song tells of a white guy who is seduced by a creole lady in New Orleans, and after spending the night with her he cannot go back to his old bourgeois life, because he knows there's something better out there. It's the old story of "once you go black, you never go back", but here, instead of a black man and a white woman, it is a black woman and a white man.

And this attitude kept working underground, reaching its peak in the dirty rap made by Missy Elliott in the late nineties. And in the beginning of the naughties, the girls who grew up on LaBelle, Madonna, Missy Elliott et al. already had a different consciousness. A new wave of pop princesses took over the market, quite innocent at first, but swiftly they began to develop a skankier attitude, free of puritan inhibitions. We are in the Moulin Rouge, the song is 'Lady Marmalade', our hostess is Missy Elliott, and the strippers are Mya, a half-Italian-half-black R'n'B singer; Pink, a white pop tart with a rocking vocal; Lil' Kim, a black rapper; and Christina Aguilera, a half-Latina-half-white minx with a tremendous voice. All these different styles and origins, which in the past imposed such strong dividing lines, all come together now in harmony, and they all have just one demand: voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? I dare you to tell them no.