Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: sos band

  • Jheri Curl June: Blood Orange’s “You’re Not Good Enough”

    Jheri Curl June: Blood Orange’s “You’re Not Good Enough”

    One of the things that has always endeared me to J.C.M. is its ability to mix an extremely fun, funky sound with a certain melancholy. Songs like René and Angela’s “I’ll Be Good,” anything off of Prince’s 1999 album or most of the SOS Band’s discography, have a way of expressing heartbreak and longing in a way you can dance to.

    Dev Hynes, also known as Blood Orange, built a career off of this very sound, which is clearly rooted in the synthesized heartbreak of ’80s R&B, but with modern pop sensibilities. With its warm synthesizers, chirpy guitar, and shuffling beat, “You’re Not Good Enough” has many of the hallmarks of early J.C.M., particularly from Prince’s first few albums. It has that muted, almost hazy feeling that J.C.M. had until about 1983, when big glossy synthesized horns and harder beats took over. Even the music video (below) has a look similar to Prince’s 1981 performance on SNL.

    We’ll be back tomorrow to highlight more post-Jheri Curl jams; in the meantime, playlists are below:

  • Jheri Curl June: Surface’s “Falling in Love”

    Jheri Curl June: Surface’s “Falling in Love”

    For the past nine years, we’ve harped on a lot about the sonic signifiers that make Jheri Curl Music what it is: your clean bass and rhythm guitar, your programmed drums, your layered synths, and so on. But one sound we’ve never had cause to mention is the flute… that is, at least, until now.

    “Falling in Love” was the debut single by the New Jersey-based group Surface: a vehicle for EMI Records staff songwriters David “Pic” Conley and David Townsend, with Conley’s girlfriend, Karen Copeland, on vocals. It is, at first glance, little more than a pleasantly chill midtempo J.C.M. trifle–imagine an S.O.S. Band album track, and you’ve basically got the picture. But then, the flute enters the mix–just a taste at first, then gradually growing in prominence, until all the sudden we’re treated to a full-blown solo. And you know what? It fuckin’ rules.

    I’ll admit, we’re not exactly unbiased when it comes to flute in pop songs. Callie’s other podcast dedicated a whole episode to flute jams; I spent a not-insignificant part of my youth listening to a cassette compilation called Funky Flutes and Sexy Sitars; at least one of us (I won’t say who) spent actual U.S. currency to see Jethro Tull in concert. But the flute adds so much to “Falling in Love,” it kind of begs the question why it wasn’t a more common sound in songs of its genre. Clearly, at least someone at Surface’s record label Salsoul agreed, because the single’s European picture sleeve prominently featured Conley serenading a bemused-looking Copeland with the instrument (see above).

    Unfortunately, “Falling in Love” didn’t kick off a whole new era of woodwind-mania in ’80s R&B. The single made it into the lower reaches of the Billboard R&B chart, peaking at Number 84 in summer 1983; the following year, electro-lite follow-up single “When Your Ex Wants You Back” reached the same position, after which Conley and Copeland broke up, marking the end of the group’s original lineup. Surface would eventually (ahem) resurface in 1986 with a new singer, Bernard Jackson, and a smoother sound heavily indebted to the likes of Babyface. It’s fine–we may even write about Surface Mark II in a future Jheri Curl June–but I think we all know what’s missing. Luckily, the version of “Falling in Love” on streaming services is an extra-long remix by Shep Pettibone, so you can wet your whistle and then some.

    Speaking of streaming, here are those playlists again:

  • 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, and listen all the way to the end, because we also announce the winners of our two free copies of Dystopian Dance Party Issue 1!

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  • Jheri Curl June Special: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis

    The main reason we celebrate Jheri Curl June in June is because, let’s face it, we are only human, and are as susceptible to the siren song of alliteration as the next group of hack Internet writers. But there’s also a pretty good justification for the timing, because the birthdays of two of jheri curl music’s most important innovators fall in the first week of June. We covered the first of those innovators, Prince, in last year’s inaugural Jheri Curl June Special.  So this time around, we’ll be discussing the other one: James “Jimmy Jam” Harris, born June 6, 1959.

    If Prince was jheri curl music’s architect, then Jimmy Jam and his longtime musical partner Terry Lewis were the brilliant engineers who shaped the structure to its fullest potential. Their take on the “Minneapolis Sound” developed by their former mentor added a new level of polish and sophistication; and when Prince shifted his own music away from traditional jheri-curl and toward neo-psychedelia in the mid-’80s, Jam and Lewis went in the opposite direction, crafting ever-more-flawless pop-friendly tracks that kept JCM in the top of the charts and, ultimately, evolved into the next dominant R&B sound, New Jack Swing.

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  • Jheri Curl June: The S.O.S. Band’s “Tell Me If You Still Care”

    Friday was the 55th birthday of James Samuel “Jimmy Jam” Harris III: former keyboardist for The Time and, with partner Terry Lewis, one of the main architects of the “Minneapolis Sound”–or, as we call it in these parts, good old-fashioned jheri curl. As usual, though, Mr. Jam was overshadowed by his almost-birthmate and former boss Prince, who turned 56 on Saturday and was the subject of Friday’s Jheri Curl June special article. But I wanted to make amends, so to make up for last week’s snub, we’re kicking off Week Two of Jheri Curl June with one of the earliest projects by Jam and Lewis’ Flyte Tyme Productions: “Tell Me If You Still Care,” a classic cut from the S.O.S. Band’s 1983 album On the Rise, and a shining example of the jheri-curl ballad.

    The S.O.S. Band originates from Atlanta, not Minneapolis; though you’d never know from the song, a Jam/Lewis original that brings the same smooth, pristine, soulful yet eminently radio-friendly sound that would soon drive bigger hits by the likes of Janet Jackson and the Human League. Unlike those later hits, though, “Tell Me If You Still Care” is still fully rooted in the R&B sound: it’s basically quiet storm with a nice, slick, dreamy sheen, and singer Mary Davis’ vocals are the perfect combination of soulful and ethereal. Plus, there’s that bizarre slow-motion video, which is so pop-surreal I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me it was directed by a moonlighting David Lynch. And the male lead sports a rare example of the white man’s jheri curl–what more could you ask?

    Apparently, though, not everyone was pleased by Flyte Tyme’ work with The S.O.S. Band: during work on the album, Jam and Lewis were grounded in Atlanta by a blizzard, which caused them to miss a Time concert in San Antonio and led to their being fined and then fired from the group by Prince. But look at it this way: their replacements, Mark Cardenas and “St. Paul” Peterson, went on to play with Jesse Johnson’s Revue and front The Family, respectively; Jam and Lewis proceeded to become one of the most successful musical production teams of the ’80s and ’90s. No disrespect to Jesse or The Family, but I think it’s pretty clear who got the short end of that stick.

    As always, the Jheri Curl June Spotify playlist can be found after the jump. And hey, since Callie is out of town until Wednesday, I decided to make an executive decision and deem this week of Jheri Curl June Ladies’ Week, since the S.O.S. Band is just the first of several female-fronted acts I plan to highlight. Who said jheri curls were just for men? See you tomorrow!

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