Tag: michael jackson

  • Podcast: Jheri Curl June 2K18

    This year marks our fifth annual Jheri Curl June, and we’re going to make it a thing or die trying. Join us as we define the Jheri Curl Music genre and share our picks for the most essential tracks; then, starting Monday, we’ll formally kick off the month-long celebration of wet, silky ’80s R&B. Oh,…

  • Podcast: (Zoloft) Zombie Nightmare

    Oh, hey, remember when we said we would watch the 1987 Jon Mikl Thor sorta-vehicle Zombie Nightmare and discuss it in time for Halloween? Well, here it is, just in time for…Thanksgiving. Yeah, we kinda screwed the pooch on that one, but bear with us, because we also have a lot to share about Zach’s 15 minutes of…

  • Jheri Curl June: Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Let’s Go Forward”

    The fact that Sananda Maitreya, the artist formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby, was not considered for Jheri Curl June until our fourth year is surprising. Of course, his music isn’t Jheri Curl proper–few artists were, by the end of the ’80s–but the influence of Michael Jackson and Prince is particularly obvious. Introducing the Hardline According to Terence…

  • Dystopian Listening Party Podcast: Memorial Day, 2016-2017

    Well, here we are: for the second consecutive year, we’re turning Memorial Day weekend into a time of remembrance for the many great artists we lost since last May. But because this is still Dystopian Dance Party, and we’re constitutionally incapable of being reverent for more than a few minutes at a time, please be aware that…

  • 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: René & Angela’s “I’ll Be Good”

    Musical duo René Moore and Angela Winbush had released three albums before they finally reached commercial success with 1985’s A Street Called Desire, which contained the hit single “I’ll Be Good.” Sadly, René and Angela were not good to each other, and ended their nine-year musical partnership in a mess of legal battles and physical abuse less than a…

  • Dystopian Listening Party Podcast: Prince, 1958-2016

    If it wasn’t official before, it is now: 2016 is a terrible year for musical icons. Callie and I were blindsided by the news of Prince‘s untimely death last Thursday; it hit us even harder than the news of David Bowie‘s passing back in January (and that, as you might recall, hit us pretty damn hard).…

  • Jheri Curl Cinema: Moonwalker (1988)

    Like most human measures of time, Jheri Curl June is intimately tied to the cycles of birth and death. The month opens with the birthdays of two of jheri curl music’s greatest architects, Prince and Jimmy Jam, and closes with the anniversary of the death of its most anointed practitioner, Michael Jackson. So, since we…

  • Jheri Curl June Special: Michael Jackson

    It’s only fitting, as we spend the last full week of Jheri Curl June discussing the twilight years of the genre, that we pay tribute to the man whose passing five years ago today helped spark a revived interest in the music he popularized: Michael Jackson. Though Jackson didn’t play as formative a role in the invention…