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.
After almost three years of ripping on trashy rock biographies with Dystopian Book Club, it was only a matter of time for us to get around to the trashiest of them all: Neil Strauss’ and Mötley Crüe’s masterpiece of filth-wallowing, The Dirt. The two-hour conversation we had doesn’t even begin to cover everything in the book, but we think it will give you a good idea of what to expect from the movie adaptation that just premiered on Netflix. Thanks to our YouTube subscribers Bruce Gaskins and Tony Bernardo for recommending we cover this book–I think it’s obvious that it gave us a lot of joy.
September is kind of our unofficial Marc Bolan month at Dystopian Dance Party; so for this installment of our Dystopian Book Club podcast series, we thought we’d read the excellent 2006 biography Bolan: The Rise and Fall of a 20th Century Superstar by music journalist Mark Paytress. This one goes a little bit long (sorry ’bout that), but there’s plenty of music to keep you entertained!
As we’ve mentioned on the podcast, we’ve been cultivating a vibrant fan community on our YouTube page, so we decided it was high time that we shared some of the love. Here’s a video of us sharing some of our favorite comments from some of the dumbest members of the KISS Army; and if you want more ammunition to insult us with, look out for our print KISS issue this October!
Heard ya missed us, we’re back! After a year-long absence, the Dystopian Book Club returns with an extensive look at Crazy from the Heat, the memoir/literary classic/deranged, barely coherent rantings of former Van Halen frontman, raconteur, and assless pants aficionado David Lee Roth. So limber up, slip into your comfiest Spandex, and maybe treat yourself to a powdered doughnut or two (wink, wink)–this may be our most fun book club since Peter Criss. Thanks to Matt from Toronto for sending in a question and making sure we didn’t take our shirts off for nothing.
Somehow, despite his over-decade-long tenure as lead singer for the proto-JCM group L.T.D., we still haven’t gotten around to covering Jeffrey Osborne for Jheri Curl June. But as we say goodbye to our fifth annual celebration of all things Jheri Curl, it feels right to end on the title track from Osborne’s 1988 solo album One Love – One Dream. After all, it’s our one love for Jheri Curl Music that brings us together every year, and our one dream for the wet, silky R&B music of the 1980s to get the recognition it deserves.
But most importantly, “One Love – One Dream” just sounds like it could be the song rolling over the credits of Jheri Curl Music: The Movie. The dry rhythm guitar and softly tinkling synthesizers sound instantly nostalgic in an R&B market dominated by the emerging New Jack Swing; it’s the song you listen to the night you take your jheri curl for one last spin, before trimming it into a hi-top fade. But as Osborne sings, in that sonorous voice that launched a thousand barbecues, “We’ve been together for a long time, baby / And our feelings have never died / Don’t think that anyone could break us up / Because you really mean the world to me / There’s no deeper emotion / I only want you and I’m filled with devotion.” He may not have been singing those lines to a jheri curl (okay, he definitely wasn’t)–but he totally could have been, and that’s the important thing.
As we’ve mentioned before, by the late 1980s, the sound of mainstream R&B was developing into what would become known as New Jack Swing. We’ve been writing about this for five years now, so if you don’t get it by now, let me explain it in Pokémon terms: your starter Pokémon is Disco. With love, attention, and experience, that eventually evolves into Jheri Curl Music. New Jack Swing is its final form. The basic elements exist throughout, but the forms morph into a larger, stronger monster.
Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” was written and produced by Jheri Curl June inductees L.A. Reid and Babyface; and while it knocks harder than their work with the Deele, it still maintains much of the wet, silky flair of Jheri Curl Music.
It’s a poetic fluke of the cosmos that so many Jheri Curl Music innovators’ birthdays fall in June, the genre’s holiest month. So far, we’ve highlighted Prince (June 7), Jimmy Jam (June 6), L.A. Reid (also June 7), and Jesse Johnson (June 1)–as well as Michael Jackson, who passed away on June 25, 2009. Now, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, it’s finally time to induct André Cymone into the JCM Hall of Fame.
As Prince’s earliest musical collaborator, André Cymone played an integral, but regrettably overshadowed part in the creation of the Jheri Curl Music strain more popularly known as the Minneapolis Sound. On our Prince associates podcast from a couple of years ago, I described Cymone as the twin Prince (figuratively, of course) consumed in utero. So many of the more famous artist’s stylistic choices in the first three years of his career–from his embrace of New Wave sounds and fashions to the whole song “Do Me, Baby”–can be more accurately interpreted as a collaborative effort between himself and his one-time surrogate brother. By the time André, understandably fed up with the lack of credit for his work, went solo in early 1981, the persona known as “Prince” had been more or less fully formed; this inevitably did his longtime partner a disservice by making his solo career look like an imitation.
But today we celebrate André Cymone not as an imitator, but as the innovator he was. While he may not have scaled the critical or commercial heights of his musical other half, his efforts–both behind the scenes and in the spotlight–left an indelible mark on Jheri Curl Music, and on the last 30 years of pop and R&B in general.