Month: June 2016
Jheri Curl June: Scritti Politti’s “Boom! There She Was”
The last post of Jheri Curl June is always a bittersweet one to write. On the one hand, there’s the satisfaction of knowing we have another solid month’s worth of writing about classic 1980s R&B under our belts; but on the other, there’s the sense of emptiness that comes when we realize we have to…
Jheri Curl June: Dan Hartman’s “We Are the Young”
Few artists exemplify the ability of jheri curl music to cross racial boundaries like Dan Hartman. This is a man who started his career as a sideman for the literal whitest musician of all time, Edgar Winter, and went on to co-write and produce for one of the Blackest, James Brown. So it should come as…
Jheri Curl June: Madonna’s “Lucky Star”
Look, I know we called this final week of Jh3ri Curl Jun3 White Boys’ Week, but I think we would be remiss to talk about jheri curl music’s appropriators without a shoutout to the anointed queen of all swagger-jackers: Madonna. Almost a decade before she brought a sanitized version of Harlem drag ball culture to Middle America…
Jheri Curl June: Daryl Hall & John Oates’ “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”
What better way to start White Boy Week here on Jheri Curl June than with the smoothest, most soulful white boy duo, Daryl Hall and John Oates? Hall and Oates began writing and recording music together in 1970, and scored their first number one hit in 1977 with “Rich Girl.” It wasn’t until the 1980s, however, that the…
Jheri Curl Cinema: Coming to America (1988)
When we decided to expand the focus of Jheri Curl June last year to include cinema, I knew there were two films I absolutely had to write about: Purple Rain and Coming to America. As it turned out, I was only able to work the former into our schedule. This year, however, I’m making amends. Coming to America, directed by…
Jheri Curl June: Loose Ends’ “Watching You”
As we’ve mentioned in past Jheri Curl Junes, by the end of the 1980s jheri curl music had been overshadowed by fresher genres like hip-hop and New Jack Swing. Loose Ends’ 1988 hit “Watching You” is a perfect example: it’s still very much a Jheri Curl song, but the beat knocks harder and the production is less slick,…