Jheri Curl June: Zapp’s “Heartbreaker”

Last June, we talked about Roger Troutman‘s “I Want to Be Your Man“–a classic jheri-curl ballad, completely worthy of inclusion in the annals of JCM history. But the song I really wanted to talk about was “Heartbreaker,” the 1983 hit by Troutman’s band Zapp. The reasons for this are obvious: first, because it’s a Zapp classic–a song scientifically engineered to be bumped as loud as one’s car speakers will allow, preferably while rolling through South Central L.A. in a 1961 Impala like Big Worm from FridayAnd second, because it’s one of the few jheri-curl songs to make lyrical reference to an actual jheri curl: as Troutman croons through his vocoder at the beginning of the third verse, “Everybody thinks that you’re a nasty, nasty girl / Wearing short dresses and that sexy jheri curl.”

The fact that Troutman and company knew a little something about “nasty” is obvious just from “Heartbreaker”‘s patented bass-heavy bounce. And as for whether they knew a little something about jheri curls…well…

roger troutman en 1981

Enough said.

Enjoy “Heartbreaker,” and the rest of the playlist, below. And look forward to more Jheri Curl June tomorrow!


Posted

in

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.