The older I get, the less of a shit I give about what people think of my musical taste. So I have no problem admitting that my two favorite Rod Stewart songs are his “disco” songs. We’ll get to the second one…uh, much later.

Anyway, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” is a song that drips with late ‘70s decadence. From the spelling of the title to the pounding beat to Rod’s lecherous delivery, “Sexy” is the delightfully sleazy aural equivalent of cocaine, gold chains, amyl nitrate and maybe a (benign) STD or two. And it’s glorious. Rod rides the thumping beat like Bianca Jagger on one of those horses she took into Studio 54 back in the day.

“Sexy” topped the charts around the time when it seemed like everyone from the Stones to McCartney was “going disco”. Some of these experiments sound forced, others (like this song) sound like a natural synthesis. Then again, I have no rock-ist distaste towards what’s still seen by some as “inauthentic” music. I think a lot of disco was awesome, as this list-and the inclusion of this song- makes very clear.