Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: sinead o’connor

  • Jheri Curl June: Jane Child’s “Don’t Wanna Fall in Love”

    As we’ve mentioned time and time again, while Jheri Curl is both a musical genre and a hairstyle, a jheri curl is not required to make top-notch Jheri Curl Music. Jane Child is a prime example of an artist whose hair consisted of just about everything BUT a jheri curl, but who still made a banger that fits firmly within the JCM genre.

    Waist-length braids and spiky mohawk may not be the most conventional hairstyle, but it does not exclude one from making excellent Jheri Curl Music.

    Raised a classically trained pianist, Child wrote, arranged, and performed all of her self-titled 1989 debut, and was referred to by the press as “the female Prince” (like Prince, she was also signed to Warner Bros. at the time). Her first album is a great collection of late-era Jheri Curl Music, with plenty of synthesizer flares to smooth out the late-’80s hard rock guitars. “Don’t Wanna Fall in Love” is a catchy jam that was Number 2 on the Billboard charts for three weeks–kept out of the top spot, ironically, by Sinead O’Connor’s cover of the Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

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  • Dystopian Listening Party Podcast, Jheri Curl June Edition: Jamie Starr’s a Thief

    Well, folks, it’s our first-ever Jheri Curl June podcast–and before you ask, yes, we’re talking about Prince again. This time, though, we’re shedding light on a somewhat less-discussed side of his career: the series of (very) thinly-veiled side projects and ghost productions he released in the early-to-mid-1980s under various pseudonyms, most famously “Jamie Starr.” If you’re even an intermediate-level Prince fan, some of these records are essential listening; so settle in, turn up your headphones, and get ready to take a bite of our purple rock.

    But first, a word of warning, as I’m afraid there’s a factual error in this one: I was speaking from memory in the section about Sheila E, and incorrectly stated that “Noon Rendezvous” began life as a Revolution outtake. It was actually co-written by Prince and Sheila for the Glamorous Life album; the Revolution just happened to cover it in concert. Oops! Anyway, I left that bit in because I still like the song, so just enjoy the music and try to ignore the fact that I’m blatantly lying to you. Finally, if you like this kind of content (with less inaccuracies), check out my new side hustle: dance / music / sex / romance, a chronological exploration of every (known) song in the Prince oeuvre, which I expect to be updating a couple times a week until it actually kills me.

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  • Jheri Curl June: Jody Watley’s “Still a Thrill”

    Jheri Curl June: Jody Watley’s “Still a Thrill”

    One of my favorite things about researching and writing for Jheri Curl June is the complex web of connections between the various artists within the genre. Today’s selection, Chicago‘s Jody Watley, is no exception. Naturally, as with most things jheri curl, many roads lead back to Minneapolis: Watley’s 1987 solo debut was co-produced by Prince‘s childhood friend and former bandmate–and, as of this year, JCJ vet in his own right–André Cymone. The other producer on the album? None other than David Z, the older brother of Revolution drummer Bobby, who engineered much of Prince’s work through the mid-1980s.

    But Watley is far from just another footnote of the ever-sprawling Prince Dynasty; she’s a part of jheri curl history on her own strengths. She got her start in the late 1970s as a dancer on Soul Train, where legendary host Don Cornelius chose her to join his in-house vocal group Shalamar (more on them next week). And Cymone wasn’t just a producer Watley nabbed for his Minneapolis-Sound cred; the pair were romantically involved, and would later marry for several years beginning in 1989, with a son, Arie, born in 1992.

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