There are certain Jheri Curl songs that just hit you in the solar plexus with their energy. “So Emotional,” the third single from Whitney Houston’s 1987 sophomore album Whitney, is just such a song. As soon as the powerful synths come in, I imagine jheri curls bursting into flames like Michael Jackson’s in the Pepsi commercial. Thankfully, “So Emotional” didn’t actually cause anyone’s hair to spontaneously combust, as it was a huge hit in dance clubs in 1988, and playing it would have been a liability for club owners.
Tag: whitney houston
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Jheri Curl June: Kashif’s “Ooh Love”
Last month, we recorded our annual Memorial Day podcast, a budding tradition in which we commemorate (and lightly mock) many of the important musical artists we’ve lost since the previous May. And this time, one of those artists was especially bittersweet: former B.T. Express keyboardist, producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and dope-moustache-haver Kashif. As I said on the podcast, he’s someone we’d wanted to spotlight for a long time–and we did, sort of, with our 2014 post on one of his finest productions, Evelyn “Champagne” King’s effervescent “Love Come Down.” But now that we’ve finally got around to covering his solo work, he’s no longer here to appreciate and/or be mildly offended by it.
Kashif’s music tends to lie on the smoother, more refined end of the JCM spectrum–call it sophisticurl. His 1984 album Send Me Your Love
, from which today’s selection is taken, features contributions by Whitney Houston and Kenny G (and Al Jarreau, another recent passing we commemorated in last month’s podcast). For our purposes, though, we’ll go with one of the more club-friendly tracks: “Ooh Love,” which combines everything we love about vintage Jheri Curl–programmed drums, ultra-wet guitar, bubbling synth-bass–with one of Kashif’s most passionate vocal performances. Granted, it still pairs better with a fine wine than, say, cognac, but that just makes it respectable. This is Jheri Curl Music for the grown and sexy set. As-salāmu ʿalaykum, Kashif.
We’ll be back next week with more Jheri Curl June–playlists below!