Grace Jones ~ Warm Leatherette

Or: Gay culture, the significance of words, tangential philosophical musings, and Conan the Barbarian

Before I start down the rabbit hole of free-associated thought (or was it free-base associated thought?), I gotta toss out this caveat: bigotry is bad. Either you get this, or you don’t. If you disagree with me, that’s your right, but I’m afraid we just can’t be operating on the same plane of thought here.

Grace Jones has been called a “gay icon.” I’m honestly not sure what this means, and whether she’s even a lesbian or not. Maybe she is, or maybe this is just due to the fact that she is a rather intimidating art-androgynous looking chick, and that her music was huge in the 80s New York club scene, which makes it “gay” by default. I don’t really give a damn either way, but this was a good segue to the following thought: the word “faggot” is back with a vengeance.

Don’t get me wrong, any backwards douchebag who uses it as a tool of actual discrimination is not ok by me. But I maintain that it’s fun to use sometimes, since its current status as a maligned cultural taboo has given it a lot of comedic weight. Just remember back to that scene in Old School… Luke Wilson: “the seatbelt seems to be broken, what do you recommend I do?” Cabbie: “I recommend you stop being such a faggot, you’re in the back seat.” This is in the running for the funniest scene in the last decade of film, and it’s all due to that fantastic word. Another reason I dig the word: it’s easier to justify/excuse if anybody actually admonishes you for using it in public than is its cousin, the n-bomb. If I call somebody a fag and they start getting on my shit about me being prejudiced, I can just say that I’m gay, and hence have a right to use the word. On the other hand, on the rare instances where I see fit to drop “nigger” into the conversation, my “but I’m actually black” defense usually gets me into a lot of trouble.

So let’s get back to the music, which is what it’s all about anyway, right? I’ll make the transition easy: words --- music --- clubs --- gay culture --- people who lots of gay men would probably like to bone --- Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime --- Conan the Destroyer. And the transition has been made. Little known fact: that big intimidating black chick from Conan the Destroyer has actually had a phenomenal music career and wouldn’t be out of place in a discussion about the Talking Heads, Andy Warhol, and music performance as legitimate visual art. I’d be seriously surprised if Lady Gaga’s current attempts at “art” weren’t significantly inspired on a personal level by Grace Jones’ actual accomplishments of art.

I was first introduced to Grace Jones the musician by her cover of Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose (I like the original slowed down version better, but this video gives some pretty good visual examples of the freaky deakiness that this broad was into).

This song remains probably my favorite thing Jones has ever recorded, and it led to me digging into the rest of her stuff, which is something worth doing if you enjoy that clip, or the next thing that I’m going to recommend: Warm Leatherette - 1980, Island Records. This album saw her move from singer in the standard "disco" mold to new wavy freaked out art house shit. It’s a lot closer to Talking Heads’ Remain in Light or The Eurythmics than Gloria Gaynor, or Edith Piaf for that matter. Really funky, grooving, dance friendly stuff, but not in a The Cheat doing the light switch techno rave way that many have come to associate “dance friendly” with. Oh, and she covers Tom Petty!

Warm Leatherette

Closing Thoughts: I hate to say it, Grace, but Janelle Monae rocks that haircut better than you did. What can I say? She's just more boneable.

It's been a long long time, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Boomerang was a very underrated movie.

Attention: there are no links to music share files in this post. Also, I'm told by somebody that Grace's French accent is bullshit. Luckily I don't know French, so I still think her cover song up there is brilliant.