Boogie Friday
Mad, bad and dangerous to know, Grace Jones was something of an icon before she even made a record. Working as a model in 70s New York she was already a face on the Studio 54 disco scene when she cut her first album "Portfolio" in 1977. Her early records weren't huge commerically but she was a big hit on the gay scene and earned the title "Queen of the Gay Discos." Not that there's anything wrong with that, but come the 80s Grace had a makeover. Her stylist/photographer boyfriend Jean Paul Goude gave her a sharper, more avant garde image and her records gained a modern, sleek funk/reggae/new wave sound to go with it courtesy of producer Alex Sadkin and the killer rhythm section of Sly and Robbie.
This collaboration produced three albums between 1980-82, the most successful of which was the second one "Nightclubbing." The third album "Living My Life" didn't do as well but was still pretty damn good and spawned the single "Nipple To The Bottle." This is very similar in style to her earlier hit "Pull Up To The Bumper" which is a polite way of saying it rips off the same beat. But it's a bloody good beat, powerful and pumping like a big, expensive German car. The song (co-written by Grace and Sly Dunbar) is a savage bitch slap to some man who acts like a baby and Grace isn't the sort of woman to suffer fools gladly. She delivers her lines with such withering venom I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard. We can't all be Dolph Lungren I guess.
"Living My Life" doesn't appear to be in print anymore but this is the 12" version that isn't on the album anyway, you can get it on the 2-CD set "The Compass Point Sessions" or "The Millennium Collection" if you don't want to shell out for the former. While you're in a Grace frame of mind be sure to visit her, um, interesting personal web site.
[Download]
Nipple To The Bottle - Grace Jones
6 Comments:
waow, i've never heard before
fanx
love the pic, by the way
Great track! After I bought it several years ago, I played The Compass Point Sessions set almost constantly for about a year, still a favourite of mine..
I [heart] grace jones and htis is a great track. theres a really nice larry levan remix of "feel up", another tune of hers to download at http://dilate.choonz.com
Nice post. I went to her website and actually made it through all the pages of nonsense. That has to be the funniest site that doesn't try to be funny.
Grace would say: "Go and check out my Nassau session work, you little bastard" and I would reply: "I already did, Aunt Grace" She made some wonderful covers like 'Love is the drug', 'The hunter gets captured by the game' or 'The Apple Stretching' and at the beginning of the 80s she was really ahead of her time both for her music and style. But please don't forget 'La vie en rose' - released before her Reggae/New Wave-Years and still very, very beautiful. By the way, the pic with Dolph were made by Helmut Newton and issued in PLAYBOY at first.
Damn. I love that crazy bitch!
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