Playing With a Different Sex

Playing with a Different Sex (1981) was the first album of British post-punk band Au Pairs. In its review, Allmusic described the album as “one of the great, and perhaps forgotten, post-punk records.” The album peaked at #33 in Britain and launched the single “It’s Obvious”, which reached #37 on the Club Play Singles charts in America in 1981. Originally released on LP by independent record-label Human Recordings, the album was re-released in 2000 on CD by RPM Records, a subsidiary of label Cherry Red. The 2000 release includes an additional eight tracks, consisting of singles, remixes and previously unreleased songs.

Themes

Many of the songs on the album deal with sexual politics. Allegations of rape and torture of Irish women imprisoned in the city of Armagh in Northern Ireland are the subject of the song “Armagh.” The song “Come Again” refers to the social pressure to “achieve orgasmic equality.” “Diet”, originally released on Equal But Different (1994), a compilation of 20 of the band’s BBC performances, and included in the extended reissue of the first album, was described by Fact Magazine as a “masterpiece of feminist rock” with an almost unparalleled “power and pathos.”