We’ve already covered Slave not once, but twice in the seven years that we’ve been celebrating Jheri Curl June here at Dystopian Dance Party: First in 2015, with 1980’s “Watching You”; and then in 2017, with 1983’s “Turn You Out (In & Out).” But, Slave is my absolute favorite and they have bangers for days, so I’ll talk about them every year if I feel like it.
Despite being a huge Slave fan, I had never bothered to listen to 1984’s New Plateau until a few years ago when I was watching old clips of The Scene and came across an episode in which there was a dance line to “OOOHH.” Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me find the clip again (and I highly suspect it either got removed from YouTube or had the music stripped from it due to copyright issues), but it got so hype during the part that goes “I’d love to see you party with me tonight / together we can make our own scene tonight / Ooohh.” Making our own scene! ON THE SCENE! The excitement in the room was palpable and infectious and I immediately found the song and listened to it 15 times in a row. Talk about a groove that you will remember.
We’ll be back tomorrow with another classic JCM cut; in the meantime, check out the increasingly funky playlists below.
We’ve talked a fair amount about Prince, who would have turned 63 today, as one of the architects of the genre we call Jheri Curl Music: Most notably in our very first Jheri Curl June Special back in 2014, but also in various JCJ entries and profiles on his former colleagues (Sheila E, the Time, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Vanity, Wendy & Lisa, Jesse Johnson, and André Cymone), rivals (Rick James and, depending on when you ask, at least half of the previous list), and even a few knockoffs (Phil Collins, Ebonee Webb). In fact, we’ve talked so much about Prince on here, you’d be forgiven for wondering if there’s anything else about the Purple One we could possibly have to say (and that’s not even mentioning Zach’s long-running, exhaustively-detailed blog about him).
The thing about Prince, though, is not only is his extant body of work both massive and exceedingly deep, but it’s also constantly growing, as more and more of his music is liberated from his storied Vault. Case in point: his version of “Jungle Love,” a 1984 hit for side project the time after its appearance in the Jheri Curl Cinema landmark Purple Rain, wasn’t even circulating on the robust bootleg market before 2019, when it was released on the posthumous compilation Originals.
“Jungle Love” is actually a Jheri Curl milestone in more ways than one. Aside from being penned by Prince and made famous by the Time, it was also based on an instrumental demo by guitarist Jesse Johnson, whose 1985 “Be Your Man” has the distinction of being the second song ever highlighted for Jheri Curl June. As for the song itself, it’s one of the greasiest of Prince’s early-’80s peak as Jheri Curl progenitor par excellence: an infectious workout driven by a lubricious keyboard line, squelching bass-synth, and rhythm guitar so clean it sounds like it’s still in the shrink wrap. So happy birthday, Prince; here’s to another five years (at least!) of more Jheri Curl gems being unearthed.
We’ll be back tomorrow! Spotify and YouTube playlists below:
Four Tops teamed up with labelmates the Temptations for this toe dip into the pool of Jheri curl juice, 1983’s “Hang.”
With lyrics about working hard to get by in a difficult world, “Hang” belongs alongside Zapp‘s “Playin’ Kinda Ruff” on any Jheri curl playlist. If you too feel like your life is an endless cycle of working and paying bills as your social life, youth, hopes and dreams slip through your fingers and time continues its relentless march, well, this is the song for you. “Hang” doesn’t really provide any solutions for life’s difficulties, except not to give up and give it all you’ve got. Otherwise, the message is a bit buried in the fun-time horns, synth and ambient party noises. But, hey, between a global pandemic and just plain old exhaustion, this might be the closest thing to fun that you’ve had in over a year!
We’re taking a quick break for the weekend, but we’ll be back on Monday with more Jheri curl goodness! Playlists, as always, are below.
In the first six years of Jheri Curl June, we’ve had occasion to cover two of what I like to call the “Three Stars” of Jheri Curl Music: Midnight Star and Starpoint. So, now that we’re on year seven, I think it’s past time that we gave Star #3, a.k.a. Atlantic Starr, their due.
I’ll admit, there’s a reason why it took us so long. Atlantic Starr is my least favorite of the “Three Stars” by some margin; their music, particularly during the peak of their late-’80s crossover success, tended to be softer and more ballad-heavy, verging on adult-contemporary, compared to their similarly-named peers. And yet, as any true Jheri curl connoisseur knows, there’s a time and a place for soft (and wet!). And “Love Me Down” (not to be confused with Ready for the World‘s previously-featured “Love You Down“), from the group’s 1982 album Brilliance, is the perfect companion for those moments when you just want to let your hair down–as much as a Jheri curl will allow, anyway–and unwind. The groove is smooth but still funky, with Sharon Bryant’s sultry vocals mellowing Wayne Lewis’ bass-synth and David Lewis’ rhythm guitar like ice in a glass of cognac. So, Atlantic Starr, welcome to the party; we’re sorry it took us so long to let you in, but it’s a whole lot more chill now that you’re here.
We’ll be back tomorrow–in the meantime, as always, check out the Spotify and YouTube playlists below!
This track by Mystic Merlin is a great early Jheri Curl song: funky but still mellow, with a real horn section and a clear disco bent with its Nile Rodgers-esque guitar riff. Mystic Merlin was initially a novelty band who incorporated magician acts in their live shows. Their 1982 album Full Moon continues with the mystical, magical motif. Many of the track titles include some reference to magic, and the album cover (see above) is an image of the band dressed in harem pants and turbans and posed with a scimitar, an hour glass, and a genie lamp, all in front of what is ironically a waning gibbous moon.
The final track on the album, “Mindreader,” opens with the verse: “I know what you’re thinking / by the look in your eyes / I’m a magician / and a master of disguise / but I can’t disguise this feeling / and it’s very plain to see / you can tell I’m digging you girl…” That’s right folks, magicians need love too.
Full Moon would be Mystic Merlin’s last album with singer Freddie Jackson, who went on to have a successful career as a solo artist.
We’ll be back tomorrow with more magical Jheri Curl picks. Playlists below:
So, let’s begin with the elephant in the room. As you might recall, last year the month of June began mere days after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which made the idea of a semi-irreverent celebration of dated Black music and hairstyles by two privileged White people feel… tone-deaf, to say the least. It was also, of course, less than three months into a once-in-a-lifetime (knock on wood) global pandemic… long story short, we just weren’t in a party mood. But now it’s a year later; and, while the copsstillhaven’tstopped killing Black people–nor, despite what our respective homestates‘ governors apparently think, is the pandemic over–I think we could all use the mood lift that only the smoothest, silkiest ’80s R&B can provide.
For those of you who are new here (or just need a refresher), “Jheri Curl Music” is our name for a specific brand of glossy, heavily synthesized post-disco R&B music from the early-to-mid ’80s–it’s kind of like our yacht rock, except not even 1% as successful or widely recognized. For details, see our original introduction post from 2014, our 2016 video, or our 2018 podcast. We dedicate each June to celebrating this unsung art form: mostly because “Jheri Curl” and “June” are nicely alliterative, but also because early summer is the perfect time to roll down your windows, let the wind blow through your hair (or, if you’re rocking a J.C. yourself, let it blow kind of against and around your hair), and blast some vintage J.C.M.
This year’s Jheri Curl June is a back-to-basics move for us. There will be no long-form artist/producer retrospectives (like we did for Prince, Michael Jackson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, L.A. Reid, Jesse Johnson, and André Cymone), no Jheri Curl Cinema features (like we did for Purple Rain, The Last Dragon, Moonwalker, and Coming to America), and no special podcast episodes; just a J.C.M. song every weekday for the whole month, with Spotify and YouTube playlists for your listening pleasure. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t spend our seventh year stretching the boundaries of what belongs under the J.C.M.-brella. That’s why this year, I’m kicking things off with a possibly controversial choice: Eddy Grant’s 1982 reggae-funk hit “Electric Avenue.”
On the surface, reggae and Jheri Curl Music don’t appear to have much in common, aside from their general origins in the African musical diaspora. Hell, just look at each respective genre’s trademark hairstyle: Jheri curls, as has been well established, are glossy and determinedly non-kinky; meanwhile, Rastafari locs (a.k.a. “dreadlocks”) embrace the organic textures of African hair types. Jheri curls have a well-earned reputation for being synthetic and potentially damaging to Black people’s hair follicles (not to mention their furniture), while locs are (rightfully) celebrated as a “natural” hairstyle and an expression of pan-African pride.
And yet, “Electric Avenue” is proof that even styles as diametrically opposed as these can exist in harmony. Oh, sure, Eddy Grant probably wouldn’t have been caught dead with activator in his hair; but who needs an actual Jheri curl when your keyboards are as moist and juicy as the ones on “Electric Avenue”? Meanwhile, Grant’s lyrics–a righteously angry ode to the 1981 uprisings against racist policing and systemic poverty in Brixton, South London–show that Jheri Curl Music, like reggae, can have a political point of view. As far as this writer is concerned, “Electric Avenue” belongs right next to Paul Laurence‘s “Racism!!!” on any self-respecting J.C.M. protest mix.
Speaking of mixes, below you’ll find Spotify and YouTube playlists for this month’s festivities, which we’ll update with every new track. Unfortunately, the Spotify list is currently empty, as “Electric Avenue” does not appear to be available on the service. We can’t blame Eddy Grant, if this was his choice: a banger like this is worth a lot more than the fraction of a cent a Spotify stream earns. But I think we can all agree that our playlists are a little bit weaker for its absence. See you tomorrow!
We’ve been making an effort to include some international Jheri Jams this year, from the Japanese City Pop of Hitomi Tohyama’s “Wanna Kiss”to the French post-disco groove of J.M. Black’s “Lipstick (Shout!).”Today, we’re showcasing the Brit-funk cult classic, “Melodies of Love” by Pink Rhythm.
From the twinkling, dramatic synth opening to the throbbing bassline and dripping Moog solo, this song is soaked with jheri juice. I imagine it playing over a montage of extreme closeups of Jheri curls being seductively played with in a room full of mirrors and purple strobe lights. Don’t kink shame.
We have one more day of Jheri Curl June coming up tomorrow! Meanwhile, check out the YouTube and Spotify playlists below.
We’re breaking Jheri Curl June protocol in a few ways today: first, because Callie and I were both out of town on a family vacation last Thursday and Friday, we’ve extended Ladies’ Week into the first few days of this week. And second, rather than following up Callie’s 1985 Aretha pick with something later, I’m going a year back in time. My original plan had been to pick something from Destiny, Chaka Khan’s 1986 followup to her smash 1984 album I Feel for You. But, frankly, there isn’t anything on Destiny that slaps anywhere near as hard as I Feel for You’s opening track, “This is My Night”; and our priority for Jheri Curl June has always been to slap first, follow the rules later.
https://youtu.be/sy6IUDoL8Bg
But if any sticklers out there have doubts, allow me to enumerate the reasons why “This is My Night” deserves the spotlight today. First and foremost, there’s Exhibit A: the shimmering keyboards and freestyle-inspired drum programming by songwriters David Frank and Mic Murphy of JCJ vets the System. And if that isn’t enough, there’s Exhibit B: the above music video, an homage to 1930s backstage comedies featuring Chaka, in all her bewigged-and-décolletaged glory, acting opposite everyone’s favorite bald ’80s character actor, Wallace Shawn. I rest my case.
We’re now back on our regular schedule, so we’ll see you again tomorrow for a few more days of Jheri Curl June. Meanwhile, playlists are below!
Who’s Zoomin’ Who? was recorded and produced with a younger, more contemporary audience in mind, hence its Very Jheri production: slick synthesizers, a programmed drum machine beat, and a rhythm guitar that bounces like soft, wet curls.
We’ve long since established that Jheri Curl Music is an amorphous genre, with many roots and branches; but even still, it isn’t every day when we get to spotlight a track that is both perfectly Jheri Curl and emblematic of a style all its own. Shannon’s “Let the Music Play,” released as a single in 1983, is just such a track. The song’s inventive mix of Latin rhythms and electronic instrumentation–“a cross between Gary Numan and Tito Puente,” as music journalist Peter Shapiro put it–sparked enough innovators to earn its own genre designation: “the Shannon Sound,” it was called at the time, though today it’s better known as freestyle.
But even if “Let the Music Play” didn’t basically invent a new subgenre, it would still have its place in the annals of Jheri Curl Music history. Sure, the heavily syncopated drum programming by lead producer and songwriter Chris Barbosa leans a little more into electronic music than orthodox JCM; but those swelling keyboards and squelching synth-bass are as wet and silky as they come. Later freestyle music may have moved toward more of a hip-hop feel; but “Let the Music Play” proved that the genre’s primordial ooze was actually Jheri curl grease all along.
We’ll be back again tomorrow with more Jheri Curl June! In the meantime, why not “Let the Music Play” on our YouTube and Spotify playlists below?
