It’s an experimental episode this time around, as we try to kill two birds with one stone by watching Shrek the Thirdat the same time as we record the podcast. The results are… not great, especially since Zach sounds like he’s recording from a really large open bathroom (don’t worry, he’s not). Still, rest assured that the experience of listening to us watch Shrek the Third can’t possibly be worse than the experience of watching Shrek the Third alone! We’ll be back at the end of July with a more traditional (for better or worse) episode on The Love Guru.
It’s the end of yet another Jheri Curl June, and of course that means it’s time to signal the end of an era for Jheri Curl Music. As we’ve mentioned many times, musical scenes have an incredibly short lifespan, and by the late ’80s, JCM was turning into New Jack Swing. Troop, a quintet discovered by none other than previous JCJ inductee Gerald Levert, have the Levert-infused, end-of-’80s New Jack sound that you would expect from… well, a late-era Jheri Curl Music group that was discovered by Gerald Levert. And just look at Troop whipping their Jheri Curl mullets around in the video to “Mamacita!”
You can check out our full playlists below, and we’ll see you next year for another Jheri Curl June!
Earlier this month, I noticed a comment on our Instagram that said we’d been “sleeping on MJ.” My first thought was, “sleeping on MJ?! We gave Michael Jackson our second-ever Jheri Curl June Special way back in 2014; we also wrote about his 1988 film Moonwalker for Jheri Curl Cinema! If this is sleeping on MJ, what would being awake on him be like?!” But then I realized, maybe the “MJ” in question isn’t Michael at all; maybe, in fact, it’s his older brother Marlon Jackson. If that’s the case, random Instagram person, then I owe you an apology: we really have been sleeping on MJ these past seven years–but no more.
Marlon, who once described himself as the “background Jackson,” was an original member of the Jackson 5, but didn’t get his chance in the spotlight until the group’s 1984 album Victory: writing, singing, and riding a motorcycle in the music video for the third single and closing track, “Body.” Two years later, he contributed a solo track, “(Let Your Love Find) The Chosen One,” to the soundtrack for the Eddie Murphy vehicle The Golden Child. Finally, in 1987, he released his solo debut, Baby Tonight, for which today’s song served as the lead single and title track.
“Baby Tonight” is the definition of a late-period Jheri Jam, with its busy programmed bass and electronic rhythms (particularly in the remix used for the music video). It actually reminds me, not so much of Marlon’s brothers and bandmates in the Jacksons, but of our 2018 Jheri Curl June honoree Georgio–which might be a backhanded compliment, but I consider it a compliment nonetheless! Sadly, this MJ wouldn’t achieve anywhere near the solo success of the other one (or, for that matter, his older brother Jermaine, who I’m sure we’ll get around to writing about one of these days); Baby Tonight remains his only solo album, though he continues to perform with the Jacksons to this day. Which, for a self-described “background Jackson,” isn’t such a bad thing all in all.
It’s hard to believe, but there’s only one more day of Jheri Curl June! We hope you’ve been enjoying it as much as we have. Feel free to catch up with the playlists below, and we’ll be back one more time tomorrow!
We opened this year’s Jheri Curl June with a socially conscious Jheri Curl song. Well, here’s an entire album of Social Justice Jheri Jams. Appropriately titled Listen to the Message, Club Nouveau’s second album is an overt political statement that you can dance to. The opening track, “It’s a Cold Cold World,” has lyrics about poverty, homelessness, war, and racism over a knocking beat.
Listening to this song, recorded over 30 years ago, really drives home the fact that things aren’t getting better and the hour is surely getting late, both for humankind on this planet and for Jheri Curl June. We only have two more days in June, folks! But don’t worry, we will (probably) be back next year.
In the meantime, check out the playlists below and stay tuned for the final days of Jheri Curl June 2021!
As we round the corner into the last days of Jheri Curl June, today’s pick is another repeat induction into the JCM Hall of Fame. You may recognize Curtis Hairston as the lead vocalist for the 1985 album Genie by the B.B. & Q. Band, who we spotlighted back in 2016. This time, however, we’re talking about Hairston’s 1987 solo track, “The Morning After”: the third and final single from his self-titled Atlantic Records debut–and, sadly, his last single as a solo artist. “The Morning After” wasn’t a hit in the U.S., but it did chart in the U.K., where Hairston remains better known; and the combination of the singer’s soaring tenor with those slick keyboards makes it the perfect song to slide into the weekend with.
You can listen to “The Morning After”–and the rest of our picks so far–on the Spotify and YouTube playlists below. We’ll be back next week for just three more days, after which we must sadly return our ceremonial Jheri curl wigs to the Dystopian Dance Party Vault for another year. Still, we’ve got some more great songs in the pipeline, so we’ll see you again soon!
This year’s Jheri Curl June has leaned heavily into harder go-go beats and electro grooves. Sure, we had Atlantic Starr‘s grown and sexy “Love Me Down” at the beginning of the month, but after that it’s been back to back Jheri Jams. So, I felt it was again time to relax into something as silky smooth as the sheets that Angela Winbush rests on in the music video for her song “Angel.”
We previously spoke about Angela Winbush and her abusive working relationship while she was a part of René and Angela. On her first solo album, 1987’s Sharp, Angela really shines as a powerhouse vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. Her credits on this album include drum programming, keyboards, synthesizer, bass, and percussion.
Another fun thing of note is that on the vinyl release of Sharp, the A- and B-sides of the album were titled the “Slammin’ Side” and the “Quiet Storm” side, respectively. On our own playlist, we’ll probably return back to the Slammin’ Side tomorrow, but Angela Winbush’s “Angel” was like a nice cooling summer rain on a hot day.
Over the years, we’ve talked a lot about how Jheri Curl Music evolved over the decade: taking on associated sounds like electro and freestyle, before finally being subsumed by the emergence of New Jack Swing. On the other hand, there’s Midnight Star, who continued to plow more or less the same furrow throughout the whole Jheri Curl era: from their breakthrough in 1983 until the departure of creative nucleus, brothers Reggie and Vincent Calloway, three years later. Listen to 1983’s No Parking on the Dance Floor back to back with 1986’s Headlines and you’d be forgiven for thinking they were recorded during the same sessions: pretty much the only thing that changed, in fact, were the group’s actual J.C.’s, which had blossomed from the relatively modest coiffures of the former to the baroque salon lookbook lineup of the latter.
But hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; and the title track of Headlines shows that, if nothing else, Midnight Star’s signature sound was still good for a decent groove. If we’ve heard these tricks before–right down to Vincent’s Vocodered rap, which sounds copied and pasted from the No Parking club hit “Freak-A-Zoid“–it’s only because they proved so effective the first time around. Just one word of advice: while “Headlines” hardly necessitates a 12″ mix–the damn album track is already almost eight and a half minutes long–it’s still my preferred version, if only because it contains the hilarious breakdown where singer Melvin Gentry demands we “take a memo” and then spends the next 45 seconds rapping the words “type” and “backspace.” Also, Reggie plays a flute solo. Who knew journalism could be so funky?
We’ll be back tomorrow with more latter-day Jheri Jams. Meanwhile, check out our growing playlists below!
Last December, hip-hop pioneer John “Ecstasy” Fletcher passed away at the age of 56; so it seemed long overdue to pay tribute to the group he co-founded, Whodini, with this year’s Jheri Curl June. “Freaks Come Out at Night,” from the group’s seminal 1984 album Escape, is a perfect example of an early hip-hop, electro Jheri Jam, complete with a bouncy synthesized beat and a horny robot talk box.
Whodini now lives in the hallowed halls of the proverbial Jheri Curl Hall of Fame, in the same wing as the Egyptian Lover and the Jonzun Crew, with Ecstasy’s signature Zorro hat and tiny shorts on display right next to the Egyptian Lover’s leather suit and everyone’s fingerless gloves.
We’ll be back tomorrow with more Late Era Jheri Curl Music; in the meantime, playlists are below.
If there’s ever been an artist who embodied proto-Jheri Curl Music without ever quite crossing over into J.C.M. proper, it’s Nile Rodgers. As the guitarist and co-producer behind disco innovators Chic, Rodgers played a key role in the creation of the more streamlined “post-disco” sound; yet by the early ’80s and the dawn of what we call the Jheri Curl Era (JCE), he had taken a left turn from the majority of his acolytes, moving in more of a pop direction with his solo debut Adventures in the Land of the Good Groove and high-profile productions for the likes of David Bowie, Madonna, and Duran Duran.
Rodgers’ second album, 1985’s B-Movie Matinee, is no exception; it isn’t quite Jheri Curl Music, though it certainly has elements in common–dig, for example, the electro-style programmed bassline and bright, brassy synths that open “Let’s Go Out Tonight,” one of two singles released from the album (and, incidentally, the only one of Rodgers’ solo singles to crack the Hot 100). But then again, J.C.M. itself was kind of on the wane by 1985; and even if it isn’t quite orthodox Jheri Curl, how could I refuse myself the opportunity to share this absolutely bonkers video, which features Rodgers (wearing some kind of futuristic Cosby sweater) bringing a Japanese Bunraku marionette to life, taking her out on a date, and then seemingly turning into a marionette himself? Besides, Nile Rodgers wrote the Soul Glo jingle; even if his rhythm guitar style hadn’t influenced virtually every artist we’ve written about for Jheri Curl June, that alone would ensure his place in JCM history remains secure.
We’ll be back tomorrow with more picks from the latter-day JCE; in the meantime, playlists are below.
We’ve spoken briefly about Perri “Pebbles” Reid before, in the context of our 2016 profile of her ex-husband and producer, L.A. Reid, as well as our 2018 profile on André Cymone, who co-wrote her contribution to the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack, “Love/Hate.” But part of the point of Jheri Curl June Ladies’ Week is to give the women of Jheri Curl Music a chance to step out from their male producers’ shadows and get their own turn in the spotlight; and besides, Pebbles’ 1987 debut album–and the Number 1 R&B hit “Mercedes Boy” in particular–is just too damn good to ignore.
Written by Pebbles herself and co-produced with Charlie Wilson (yes, thatCharlie Wilson), “Mercedes Boy” is vintage late-era JCM, with a freestyle-inspired programmed bassline and a positively dripping guitar solo. The music video, released in March of 1988, might try to fool us with its close-cropped male dancer; but we all know the hairstyle the boy of Pebbles’ dreams is really rocking, and let’s just say her Mercedes had better have some plastic headrest covers.
Sadly, that wraps up Ladies’ Week for this year; but Jheri Curl June still has a week and a half left to go! Until then, check out those growing Spotify and YouTube playlists below: