For this penultimate post in Week 2 of Jheri Curl June VIbe, I thought I’d highlight another piece of International Jheri Curl. This time, our world tour takes us to France: a country with a vibrant post-disco and boogie scene documented by Born Bad Records’ excellent Chébran compilations.
One of the highlights of Chébran Volume 2 (which I reviewed last June for Spectrum Culture) is this 1984 track by J.M. Black. “Lipstick (Shout!)” actually isn’t as “international” as you might expect: as the 7″ sleeve (above) proudly proclaims, it was recorded in the boogie ground zero of New York City. But Black’s bilingual vocals–complete with a rap!–give the smooth jheri-curl groove a certain je ne sais quoi of Continental cool and sophistication. You won’t know whether to dance or smoke a cigarette and stare morosely into the distance.
Tomorrow, we’ll return to our usual domestic JCM with another post from Callie. In the meantime, check out the growing playlists below!
Earlier this year when we lost James Ingram, I took that as an opportunity to delve deeper into his music. Although I was aware that he was an accomplished singer and songwriter, I was mainly familiar with “Yah Mo B There” and the fact that he helped turn “P.Y.T.” by Michael Jackson into the undisputed Jheri Curl banger that it is today.
If James Ingram was behind “P.Y.T.,” I knew he was bound to have some Jheri gems in his solo career; and lo and behold, the first track on his debut solo album, 1983’s It’s Your Night–nestled right there next “Yah Mo B There!”–is “Party Animal.” With its chickenscratch guitar and synth flourishes, “Party Animal” sounds like a companion to another early era Jheri Curl June inductee, Skyy’s “Call Me.”
Now enjoy this video of James Ingram performing “Party Animal” on stage alone like the nerd at the school talent show:
We at Dystopian Dance Party are, to put it mildly, super fucking hyped about the Bobby DeBarge biopic premiering later this month on TVOne: it’s basically the equivalent of Avengers: Endgame for fans of bad music movies, Jheri Curl Cinema, and/or Party City wigs. Since the movie is airing during the High Holy Month of Jheri Curl June, we’ll almost definitely do something around its release; in the meantime, though, here’s a song by DeBarge from their 1983 album In a Special Way.
“Be My Lady,” the album’s opening track, finds the DeBarge siblings in full-on Jacksons mode–in large part because the song’s bassline and vocal melody bear a more-than-passing resemblance to the latter group’s proto-JCM scorcher “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground).” But the swathes of synthesizers and soaring falsetto vocals–both courtesy of lead singer and producer El DeBarge–add a layer of jheri-curl grease even thicker than Jermaine’s. We can’t wait to hear the no-doubt-unlicensed soundalike on TV One in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, listen to this and our other picks so far on the Spotify and YouTube playlists below. See you tomorrow!
Today’s Jheri Curl June inductee, Michael Wycoff, was a backup singer on Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, as well as a contributor to some of 7th Wonder’s and Natalie Cole’s albums. In 1980 he began releasing solo albums, but it wasn’t until 1983’s On the Line that he fully embraced the Jheri.
Aside from the obvious musical qualifications of the title track in particular, On the Line also makes use of a red landline phone on the album cover. My theory, which I’m still fleshing out, is that the red phone is is a staple in Jheri Curl Music imagery: as you might recall from Jheri Curl June 2017, it also makes an appearance on the cover of Kleeer’s Intimate Connection.
We’ll be back with more Jheri Curl Music–and possibly even more red phones, who knows–tomorrow. In the meantime, YouTube and Spotify playlists are below!
Every year for Jheri Curl June, we go a little further out into the roots and branches of the genre. This year, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the more far-flung examples of Jheri Curl Music from around the world: International Jheri Curl, if you will. One such example is “City Pop,” a loosely-defined subgenre of Western-influenced pop music that came to prominence during Japan’s economic boom of the 1970s and ’80s. Not all City Pop is Jheri Curl Music; the Japanese genre covers a wide swathe of styles, from AOR and soft rock to smooth jazz, synthpop, and disco. But some of it is so funky, you’d swear you were listening to an obscure New York boogie group.
That’s certainly the case for 1983’s “Wanna Kiss” by Hitomi Tohyama. Opening with a bassline “borrowed” from Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” and a chanted vocal hook straight out of the Chic playbook, it’s as funky as music for upwardly mobile Tokyoites gets; and Tohyama’s mannered J-pop vocals add a hint of umami to those sweet, juicy JCM keyboards. And yes, before you ask, the song’s B-side “Sexy Robot” also slaps.
We have some more International JCM lined up in the coming weeks; in the meantime, enjoy our ever-diversifying YouTube and Spotify playlists below!
Listen, I have been sitting on this Jheri Jam for a whole year, sustaining multiple burns on my ass from trying to contain this hot track. But, before we get into that, LOOK AT THAT ALBUM COVER. Larry Graham peeks out from a hot pink, palm-leafed environment, popping his collar and looking like Magnum motherfuckin’ PI. If ever there was an album cover that looked precisely how the album sounds, this is it.
By the release of 1982’s Sooner or Later, Graham was already an elder statesman of funk, having been a member of Sly & The Family Stone, worked with the likes of Betty Davis, fronted his own Graham Central Station, and oh yeah, INVENTED SLAP BASS. Sooner or Later is his foray into the new world of the ’80s, effectively saying, “Here I am, new and improved and ready to slay all the Kingdom Hall pussy.”
This is especially true of the instrumental version of the titular track, which contains some of my favorite tropes of Jheri Curl Music: a talk box vocal that sounds like a horny robot a la Roger Troutman, laser gun noises, and a bright, trilling synth line. This is a song made for cruising on a neon lit street in a Ferrari 308 GTB convertible with the top down on a steamy summer night, the warm air lightly caressing your curl and ruffling your mustache.
Week 1 of Jheri Curl June VIbe comes to a close tomorrow! In the meantime, check out the Spotify and YouTube playlists below.
It’s a testament to the depth and breadth of Jheri Curl Music that in five Jheri Curl Junes, only two bands have been featured repeatedly: Slave (with 2015’s “Watching You” and 2017’s “Turn You Out”) and the Gap Band (who kicked off 2015 with “You Dropped a Bomb on Me,” followed by last year’s “Disrespect”). This year, for our sixth Jheri Curl June, we’re bequeathing that honor on a third group: Cameo, whose 1986 jam “Candy” was part of the very first JCJ way back in 2014.
My pick for this year comes from earlier in the group’s career, but is even more of an essential Jheri Curl cut. “Flirt,” from Cameo’s 1982 album Alligator Woman, has it all: futuristic synths, a funky groove that splits the difference between P-Funk and the Minneapolis Sound, and a music video (above) that is roughly equal parts synchronized dance moves and leering closeups of models’ butts and cleavage. And speaking of leering, you’ll probably recognize the young lady from the Alligator Woman album cover: that’s none other than Denise Matthews, a.k.a. Vanity, star of the 1985 Jheri Curl Cinema classic The Last Dragon.
We’re halfway through our first week of Jheri Curl June VIbe and just getting started! Click through for YouTube and Spotify playlists, and see you tomorrow.
Two years ago, we admitted that Bootsy Collins is probably not the first name that comes to mind when thinking about Jheri Curl Music. And while that may still be true, in the early 80s he definitely dipped an entire platform boot into the jheri curl juice. Here, he joins fellow Ohio funkateers Dayton on this Jheri Jam from 1982, “Krackity-Krack.”
Though still sounding very much like a P-funk groove thanks to Bootsy’s inclusion, “Krackity-Krack”’s whiny synths and hard robotic beat coat this heavy groove in a chrome plating that smoothes out the hard edges of its ’70s funk influence. It’s a hint of things to come: a year later, Dayton would fully embrace the Jheri Curl (in every sense of the word) with this smooth jam, complete with a Roger Troutman-style talkbox:
Remember to follow along on Spotify as we continue to update this year’s playlist. See you tomorrow!
It’s a little hard to believe that we’ve reached our sixth consecutive Jheri Curl June, our annual celebration of all things wet and silky in ’80s post-disco R&B; yet here we are, kicking off Jheri Curl June 6–which, since we’re using Zapp naming conventions, we’re calling Jheri Curl June VIbe.
Our criteria for what qualifies a song for Jheri Curl June are, for us, a little like what qualifies a work of art as pornography: we know it when we see (/hear) it. Basically, if the song calls to mind a big ol’ luscious J.C., then it makes the cut. But since not everyone shares our specifically hairstyle-based form of synaesthesia, we’ve laid out some ground rules in our original introduction post from 2014, our 2016 video, and our podcast from last year. The short version is, if it sounds like it was recorded in Minneapolis in the first half of the ’80s, then it’s in the Jheri Curl Music wheelhouse.
Today’s song doesn’t come from Minneapolis at all, however, but from New York’s garage/boogie scene. “This Beat is Mine” was released in 1981 by the enigmatic Vicky “D”, a collaboration between producer Gary R. Turnier, formerly of pop-disco group Gary’s Gang, and songwriter Andre Booth, who would later emerge as a collaborator with hip-hop artists like MC Shan, Big Daddy Kane, and Lords of the Underground. Like many groups from this era, they weren’t exactly built to last: Vicky “D” released only one other single, the reggae-flavored ballad “Mystery Lover,” before disappearing in 1982.
But what they lacked in longevity, they made up for with pure jheri curl juice, which drips plentifully off every one of “This Beat is Mine”’s 358 seconds: from the mewling synth line to the rapped interlude leading into a funky bass and rhythm guitar breakdown. And if the groove didn’t make it clear enough, the lyrics are here to spell it out for you: “It’s party music, so we all can freak / And do that dance / Oh, clap your hands now to this beat.” Don’t have to tell us twice.
As always, we’ll be posting every weekday for the rest of this month with more silky-smooth classics from the jheri curl area. Watch the Spotify playlist grow:
It isn’t every day that an Official Dystopian Book Club selection gets adapted into a movie; so, for the first and quite possibly last time, we’re reconvening after just one week to discuss Jeff Tremaine’s biopic version of Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt. Spoilers: we liked it! But then again, we’re also garbage people, so maybe get a second opinion.