Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: zapp

  • Jheri Curl June: Four Tops (feat. The Temptations)’ “Hang”

    Four Tops teamed up with labelmates the Temptations for this toe dip into the pool of Jheri curl juice, 1983’s “Hang.”

    With lyrics about working hard to get by in a difficult world, “Hang” belongs alongside Zapp‘s “Playin’ Kinda Ruff” on any Jheri curl playlist. If you too feel like your life is an endless cycle of working and paying bills as your social life, youth, hopes and dreams slip through your fingers and time continues its relentless march, well, this is the song for you. “Hang” doesn’t really provide any solutions for life’s difficulties, except not to give up and give it all you’ve got. Otherwise, the message is a bit buried in the fun-time horns, synth and ambient party noises. But, hey, between a global pandemic and just plain old exhaustion, this might be the closest thing to fun that you’ve had in over a year!

    We’re taking a quick break for the weekend, but we’ll be back on Monday with more Jheri curl goodness! Playlists, as always, are below.

  • Podcast: Dystopian Book Club vs. George Clinton’s Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?

    Zach and Callie reconvene in (by our standards) record time for another Dystopian Book Club Official Selection: Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You? by Parliament–Funkadelic maestro George Clinton. Enjoy as we discuss our love of P-Funk and the book’s disappointing lack of hot deets on the Super Mario Bros. movie.

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  • Introduction: Jheri Curl June VIbe

    It’s a little hard to believe that we’ve reached our sixth consecutive Jheri Curl June, our annual celebration of all things wet and silky in ’80s post-disco R&B; yet here we are, kicking off Jheri Curl June 6–which, since we’re using Zapp naming conventions, we’re calling Jheri Curl June VIbe.

    Our criteria for what qualifies a song for Jheri Curl June are, for us, a little like what qualifies a work of art as pornography: we know it when we see (/hear) it. Basically, if the song calls to mind a big ol’ luscious J.C., then it makes the cut. But since not everyone shares our specifically hairstyle-based form of synaesthesia, we’ve laid out some ground rules in our original introduction post from 2014, our 2016 video, and our podcast from last year. The short version is, if it sounds like it was recorded in Minneapolis in the first half of the ’80s, then it’s in the Jheri Curl Music wheelhouse.

    Today’s song doesn’t come from Minneapolis at all, however, but from New York’s garage/boogie scene. “This Beat is Mine” was released in 1981 by the enigmatic Vicky “D”, a collaboration between producer Gary R. Turnier, formerly of pop-disco group Gary’s Gang, and songwriter Andre Booth, who would later emerge as a collaborator with hip-hop artists like MC Shan, Big Daddy Kane, and Lords of the Underground. Like many groups from this era, they weren’t exactly built to last: Vicky “D” released only one other single, the reggae-flavored ballad “Mystery Lover,” before disappearing in 1982.

    But what they lacked in longevity, they made up for with pure jheri curl juice, which drips plentifully off every one of “This Beat is Mine”’s 358 seconds: from the mewling synth line to the rapped interlude leading into a funky bass and rhythm guitar breakdown. And if the groove didn’t make it clear enough, the lyrics are here to spell it out for you: “It’s party music, so we all can freak / And do that dance / Oh, clap your hands now to this beat.” Don’t have to tell us twice.

    As always, we’ll be posting every weekday for the rest of this month with more silky-smooth classics from the jheri curl area. Watch the Spotify playlist grow:

    https://open.spotify.com/user/dystopiandanceparty/playlist/37nM5CZk77bC5rGY75gtIZ?si=xoEdD4ELQJmZ4iWO_ndyvw

  • Jheri Curl June Special: André Cymone

    It’s a poetic fluke of the cosmos that so many Jheri Curl Music innovators’ birthdays fall in June, the genre’s holiest month. So far, we’ve highlighted Prince (June 7), Jimmy Jam (June 6), L.A. Reid (also June 7), and Jesse Johnson (June 1)–as well as Michael Jackson, who passed away on June 25, 2009. Now, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, it’s finally time to induct André Cymone into the JCM Hall of Fame.

    As Prince’s earliest musical collaborator, André Cymone played an integral, but regrettably overshadowed part in the creation of the Jheri Curl Music strain more popularly known as the Minneapolis Sound. On our Prince associates podcast from a couple of years ago, I described Cymone as the twin Prince (figuratively, of course) consumed in utero. So many of the more famous artist’s stylistic choices in the first three years of his career–from his embrace of New Wave sounds and fashions to the whole song “Do Me, Baby”–can be more accurately interpreted as a collaborative effort between himself and his one-time surrogate brother. By the time André, understandably fed up with the lack of credit for his work, went solo in early 1981, the persona known as “Prince” had been more or less fully formed; this inevitably did his longtime partner a disservice by making his solo career look like an imitation.

    But today we celebrate André Cymone not as an imitator, but as the innovator he was. While he may not have scaled the critical or commercial heights of his musical other half, his efforts–both behind the scenes and in the spotlight–left an indelible mark on Jheri Curl Music, and on the last 30 years of pop and R&B in general.

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  • 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: Pennye Ford’s “Change Your Wicked Ways”

    Penny Ford (a.k.a. Pennye Ford, for reasons unknown) began her musical career as a backup singer for Zapp in 1979 and went on to become a session singer at Motown in Los Angeles before signing to Total Experience Records, home of Gap Band and Yarbrough & Peoples. So, needless to say, her Jheri Curl credentials were set when she embarked on her solo career in 1984. But, holy shit people… not even a résumé like that could prepare us for this video:

    If anyone ever asks me what Jheri Curl June is all about, this is the video I will show them. The mirrors, the outfits, Penny’s unfaithful boyfriend is a blatant ripoff of the Kid in Purple Rain... But, most importantly, look at this fucking curl.

    Just like we do every year, we’re dedicating one week this month to the women of Jheri Curl Music–see you tomorrow for more JCJ Ladies’ Week! Playlists below.

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  • Jheri Curl June: The Bar-Kays’ “She Talks to Me with Her Body”

    Few groups in the history of R&B have been as long-lived, or as chameleonic, as the Bar-Kays. The Memphis group got their start in the mid-’60s as a session band for Stax Records, with songs like 1967’s “Soul Finger” fitting squarely into the label’s signature sound. At the turn of the decade, like many other soul groups, they went psychedelic, backing Isaac Hayes on his epochal 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul, then recording their own Black Rock. In the ’70s, they were pure funk. So it should come as no surprise that the Bar-Kays were among the first groups of their vintage to recognize the wind change in the early ’80s and embrace the style we call Jheri Curl Music.

    https://youtu.be/3C8Wim_fJMg

    Like last year’s Jheri Curl June alums Ebonee Webb–who shared with the Bar-Kays a manager and producer, Allen A. Jones–the main frame of reference was Prince, with whining Minneapolis-style keyboards taking the place of traditional Memphis-soul horns (and no, that horn section miming in the Soul Train video above isn’t fooling anyone). But there’s also more than a touch of Zapp in the band’s 1982 single “She Talks to Me with Her Body,” from the short snatches of talkbox to that “More Bounce to the Ounce” bass. In fact–and ironically–the only thing that wasn’t Jheri Curl about the Bar-Kays in 1982 was lead singer Larry Dodson’s hair, which appears to be the same heavily-processed dome he wore to Wattstax in 1973, looking a little worse for wear. C’mon man, get some activator at least!

    We’ll be back tomorrow with more Jheri Curl June–Spotify and YouTube playlists are below!

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  • Jheri Curl June: One Way’s “Cutie Pie”

    This year, we’re kicking off Jheri Curl June with Detroit R&B group One Way, formerly known as the Soul Partners. Although not exactly a household name, One Way has made a significant impact on music. Between One Way and Zapp, you pretty much have the sound of West Coast G-funk down pat: Everyone from Too $hort and DJ Quik to the Game has sampled One Way’s heavy bass and whiny synthesizers.

    One Way’s Who’s Foolin’ Who album from 1982, which includes their biggest hit, “Cutie Pie”; © MCA Records.

    One Way had a consistent output of top-charting R&B singles throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s. “Cutie Pie,” their biggest hit, is the perfect music to listen to in your vintage Lincoln Continental while you cruise through the strip on Belle Isle.

    We’ll be back tomorrow with this year’s Jheri Curl June special, on the music of Jesse Johnson. In the meantime, check out our Spotify and YouTube playlists below!

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  • Jheri Curl June: Scritti Politti’s “Boom! There She Was”

    The last post of Jheri Curl June is always a bittersweet one to write. On the one hand, there’s the satisfaction of knowing we have another solid month’s worth of writing about classic 1980s R&B under our belts; but on the other, there’s the sense of emptiness that comes when we realize we have to wait another whole year before we can start the festivities again. Luckily, Scritti Politti’s ebullient 1988 single “Boom! There She Was” is here to take out some of the sting.

    Scritti Politti’s leader, Green Gartside, is a man after my own heart. Like many British art students in 1977, he was inspired to form a band after catching the Sex Pistols on their legendary “Anarchy” tour; the name “Scritti Politti” was chosen as a play on the political writings (“Scritti Politici”) of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, mixed with Little Richard‘s “Tutti Frutti.” So far, so cool, right? Well, in the early ’80s, Gartside went home to Caerleon, Wales, where he started listening to his sister’s R&B records; then, around the same time, he heard Black radio while visiting Florida. “[T]hat’s where I first heard ‘the funk,’” he later told The Quietus. “The System, Zapp… artists like that. There was a rapid change of influences combined with a disgust at big-I ‘Indie’ being born. It didn’t take long to say, ‘Fuck that, let’s do this instead.’” And by “this,” he of course meant this:

    https://youtu.be/6v-sCVhqG5Y

    I know what some of you are thinking: going from hip, underground post-punk rocker to goofball blue-eyed soul singer ain’t exactly everyone’s idea of an enviable career trajectory. But speaking as a fellow overeducated white boy who rejected the “indie” aesthetic in favor of slickly-produced schlock-R&B, I understand exactly where Gartside was coming from. And besides, “Boom! There She Was” has Roger Troutman on it. Roger! Who doesn’t love Roger?

    So yes, Jh3ri Curl Jun3 is over. But before we know it, boom! There June 2017 will be. I hope to see you again then. In the meantime…you know where to find the playlists.

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  • Jheri Curl June: Imaginary Genres – Jheri Curl Music

    It’s finally here! In case you weren’t aware, Jheri Curl June is our most sacred holiday season here at Dystopian Dance Party, and we wanted to do something special for its third annual observance (“Jh3ri Curl Jun3”). So, instead of resurrecting the same hoary old introductory post from 2014, we thought we’d offer a concise introduction to the genre we call Jheri Curl Music in the form of a short video. Please enjoy; transcript and video/audio credits are past the jump. And come back tomorrow for some more traditional Jheri Curl June fare!

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