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 infamy with Team Breezy, the bizarre public meltdown of actor/model/singer/relationship guru/visual artiste Tyrese Gibson, and the forthcoming debut of Dystopian Dance Party in physical form! Also, we talk about our embarrassing physical and mental health ailments.
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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 Trent D’Arby is a debut album with a title as cumbersome as you would expect from the man who once claimed that it’s the most important album since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. I will neither support nor dispute that claim, but I will say that for a late ’80s R&B album, Hardline has certainly held up–and while we’re making comparisons, I’d much rather fuck with D’Arby’s album in the background rather than “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” I doubt even the most devoted Beatles stans can argue with that.
Anyway, Hardline also garnered D’Arby’s several hit singles, including “Wishing Well” and “Sign Your Name.” But it was the lesser known track “Let’s Go Forward” in which D’Arby was at his most Jheri Curl. The sad robot-like atmosphere of the song sounds like a more mature version of Jesse Johnson’s “I Want My Girl.”
We’re nearing the end of Jheri Curl June, but there are still a few posts left; meanwhile, check out the playlists below!
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 the resulting podcast is about 70% wake, 30% roast (well, maybe 60/40). Just believe us when we tell you it’s all coming from a place of love. Hopefully, while everyone good continues to die and leave us trapped on this smoldering husk of a planet, we can at least entertain you (and ourselves) with our impressions of “The Force M.D.’s Meet the Fat Boys”… R.I.P. to Trisco Pearson. Show notes below.
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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 duo reached the pinnacle of their hybrid blue-eyed soul/rock/pop/New Wave sound and hit-making potential. 1981’s “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” reached number one on both the Pop and R&B charts, and was the inspiration for the bassline of jheri curl music innovator Michael Jackson‘s “Billie Jean.”
But Daryl Hall and John Oates did not become the most successful pop duo solely from their songwriting skills, singing prowess, or crossover appeal. Oh no, the 1980s were the music video era, and the inception of MTV in 1981 also had a huge hand in Hall & Oates’ appeal–which is perplexing, since their videos are literally just a collection of weird dance moves, awkward camera angles, and a whole lot of Hall and Oates jumping in front of the camera. I mean, sure, there was definitely a learning curve for everyone with early music videos–as we saw earlier this month with Patrice Rushen–but Hall & Oates are truly better heard and not seen. Some of their videos definitely should have been career enders, much like Billy Squier’s ill fated video for “Rock Me Tonite” (“Method of Modern Love,” I’m looking at you).
The video for “I Can’t Go for That” actually isn’t that bad, as far as Hall & Oates videos go–although the entire first minute is just a bunch of closeup shots of Daryl’s hands interspersed with clips of him wandering back and forth in front of the camera. The simple black background and lighting is a nice complement to the song’s steamy soul sound, though, with bonus points for John Oates’ and saxophonist Charles DeChant’s synchronized hand gestures toward the end.
Jheri Curl June White Boy Week continues tomorrow with more music from artists who could never pull off an actual jheri curl. Spotify and YouTube playlists are below!
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
Musical duo René Moore and Angela Winbush had released three albums before they finally reached commercial success with 1985’s A Street Called Desire
Both René and Angela would go on to have successful solo careers, with René releasing two albums as well as writing and producing for Michael Jackson. Angela would go on to produce and write for yesterday’s JCJ subject, the Isley Brothers. Ronald Isley subsequently became Angela Winbush’s manager and the pair were eventually married, but divorced in 2001–which, to be fair, is still a happier ending than the René & Angela story.
We’ll be back next week with another week dedicated to the women of jheri curl music. Until then, catch up with our Spotify and YouTube playlists after the jump.
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). It’s difficult to overstate just how much Prince means to both of us. He’s easily our favorite solo artist in all of pop music; check our frequently used tags on Dystopian Dance Party, and you’ll see that he’s the most talked-about topic by some distance. All of which fails to adequately capture the feelings we have for his body of work, and the sense of loss we feel now that he’s gone.
Unlike with Bowie, we weren’t actually planning on podcasting about Prince this month–but we had to, if only so we could talk through all the emotions we’ve both been feeling for the last week. The podcast we originally recorded earlier in the month, on Nintendo‘s Legend of Zelda series, will be posted eventually, when it all feels a little less meaningless. But for now, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…
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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 began this year’s festivities with a retrospective on Prince’s 1984 movie debut Purple Rain, it’s only right that we bookend it with a piece on 1988’s Moonwalker: the first full-length feature film dedicated to the music of Michael Jackson.
First, a word of warning. If you’ve been paying attention to my Jheri Curl Cinema series, you’ll have noticed one thing that these films all have in common: judged by conventional critical standards, they’re just not very good. And Moonwalker, quite frankly, is the worst so far. To get an idea of how “not-good”–one might even say “Bad”–Moonwalker is, please note that the film’s distributor, Warner Bros., cancelled a planned Christmas 1988 theatrical release in the United States over financial concerns; just under two years later, however, they apparently had enough faith in Prince’s filmmaking nadir, Graffiti Bridge, to inflict it on cinema audiences worldwide. When your film is considered to have less commercial potential than Graffiti Bridge, you know something is amiss.
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 of jheri curl music as his onetime biggest rival, Prince, he damn sure might have perfected it with his string of early-to-mid-’80s crossover hits, both with and without his brothers in the Jacksons. He certainly sported a jheri curl for longer than any of the other artists we’ve discussed so far; posthumously, in fact, if we count his holographic performance at this year’s Billboard Music Awards, making him possibly the first person in history to be outlived by his jheri curl.
So today, let’s celebrate the life and legacy of jheri curl music’s second most important figure. Just like with Prince, we’ll take a tour through the history of Jackson’s jheri curl music and fashion, and discuss his significance to the genre. Michael may be moonwalking with the angels now, but fortunately for us, his music still lives on.