FEATURE:
Pull Up to the Bumper
Grace Jones’ Nightclubbing at Forty
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EVEN though it is difficult to find…
Grace Jones’ Nightclubbing on streaming services, I wanted to mark an album that turns forty on 11th May. I would recommend people listen to songs from the album on YouTube. Go and get a copy of a hugely iconic and influential album on vinyl. As Rough Trade rightly observe, the album is one of the greatest of all-time:
“In a career of myriad highlights 'Nightclubbing' remains the high water mark of Grace Jones's imperial years with Island Records. It is indisputably the album on which her musical legacy rests, and rightly considered one of the greatest albums of all time. A sophisticated melee of sound, blending post-punk cool with a hot Caribbean vibe and a catwalk Studio 54 sensibility, it's a perfect example of artist and musicians working in complete accord. It contains the all-time Grace classics in 'Pull Up To The Bumper', 'Walking In The Rain', 'Demolition Man' (written by Sting) and of course the Bowie / Iggy Pop-penned title track. There is magic in its every groove. In keeping with its reputation as one of the best sonically sounding albums of the '80s and for the first time since its debut on CD in 1987, 'Nightclubbing' has been comprehensively remastered using the latest studio technology”.
I am going to round things off by dropping in some information regarding the legacy of an album that transformed Grace Jones’ career – and helped to change the face of music in the process. It is hard to overstate the importance and brilliance of Nightclubbing – let’s hope that it makes its way to streaming services very soon!
Before then, I want to throw back five years and source an article from Albuism. They marked thirty-five years of an album that remains so enormously evocative, powerful and vital:
“Nightclubbing is the fifth studio album by Grace Jones. This is the album that perfectly defines the Grace Jones sound. Her previous LP Warm Leatherette was a subtle introduction to her new sound. It was the insanely yummy appetizer leading you into the decadent tasty meal that is Nightclubbing.
Up until this effort, Jones was primarily known for her covers. This time around, she didn’t merely do cover songs. She deconstructed the songs and made them her own. Jones established herself as an excellent interpreter of other people's music. Nightclubbing features covers of songs by an array of diverse artists such as Flash & The Pan (“Walking In The Rain”), Bill Withers (“Use Me”), and Astor Piazolla (“I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)”). She even gives us a reggaefied version of Iggy Pop’s “Nightclubbing” with great results.
Jones’ first three albums were heavily influenced by disco and cemented her presence in the club scene. If you were to judge her by her first three albums alone, you would come to the conclusion that she was little more than a campy disco star. Let's be honest, during this period between 1977 and 1980, everyone and their mother went disco. Rock legends like Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones experimented with the disco sound. Hell, even Ethel Merman put out a disco record. I found the "disco sucks" phenomenon to be rooted in some unspoken hatred of other cultures, but that's another story for another day. The mass appropriation of the genre made it into a joke and luckily for Grace Jones, she shifted gears just at the right time.
With help from producers Chris Blackwell and Alex Sadkin, and the musical backing of The Compass Point All-Stars (featuring Sly Dunbar & Robbie Shakespeare), the tracks on Nightclubbing have a reggae-tinged, alternative style that set her apart from many artists of the day. Three of Nightclubbing’s songs were co-written by Jones, including the hit “Pull Up to the Bumper.” Many critics loved the playful double entendre, but if you were listening carefully, you could tell that it was a pretty blunt statement. She was not pulling any punches. It was a song that could've been ripped out of the pages of the Penthouse forum set to an infectious, funky beat: "Pull up to my bumper baby / In your long black limousine / Pull up to my bumper baby / And drive it in between”.
It is unspringing that Nightclubbing has picked up a string of impassioned and praise-filled reviews through the years. It is an album that took Grace Jones’ career to new levels and marked her out as an icon! In their review, this is what AllMusic observed:
“By all means a phenomenal pop album that hit number nine on the black albums chart and crossed over to penetrate the pop charts at number 32, Nightclubbing saw Grace Jones working once again with Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, and the remainder of the Compass Point team. Nightclubbing also continues Jones' tradition of picking excellent songs to reinterpret. This time out, the Police's "Demolition Man," Bill Withers' "Use Me," and Iggy Pop's "Nightclubbing" receive radical reinterpretations; "Nightclubbing" is glacial in both tempo and lack of warmth, while both "Use Me" and "Demolition Man" fit perfectly into Jones' lyrical scheme. Speaking of a lyrical scheme, "Pull Up to the Bumper" (number five black singles, number two club play) is so riddled with naughty double entendres -- or is it just about parallel parking? -- that it renders Musique's "In the Bush" as daring as Paul Anka's "Puppy Love." Drive it in between what, Grace? It's not just lyrics that make the song stick out; jingling spirals of rhythm guitar and a simplistic, squelching, mid-tempo rhythm make the song effective, even without considering Jones' presence. Sly & Robbie provide ideal backdrops for Jones yet again, casting a brisk but not bristly sheen over buoyant structures. Never before and never since has a precisely chipped block of ore been so seductive”.
Not only did Jones’ unique sound impact the next generation of artists. Her changing and fabulous aesthetic and looks also made a huge impression. I feel Nightclubbing is an album people will be examining generations from now! I want to quote from Pitchfork’s review of 2014. I think Nightclubbing sounds so fresh and timeless today. It has not dated like other albums from the early-1980s:
“On the album’s opener, a cover of Flash and the Pan’s “Walking in the Rain”, Jones growls in her contralto about “Feeling like a woman/ Looking like a man.” Noirish, foreboding, sounding rain-slicked, the beat crafted by Sly Dunbar with percussionist Uzziah (Sticky) Thompson is undeniable across its four minutes. But it’s on the second disc, where many of the album tracks' running times are extended towards the sublime, that the now seven-minute song soars even higher. It also doubles as a showcase for keyboard wizard and the Nassau band’s secret weapon, Wally Badarou, a classically-trained synth session man who’s C.V. includes M’s “Pop Music” and Level 42’s “Something About You.” Badarou's extended solo evokes a tone not unlike Miles Davis' muted trumpet: gorgeous, weightless, it's as brooding and wistful as a midnight walk in the rain can be. On Grace Jones’s take on the tango “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango),” Badarou mimics both Argentinean tango master Astor Piazzolla’s bandoneon and that eerie organ tone of “Runaway”.
But of course, Grace Jones is the star here. Five of the original album’s nine songs are covers, though rather than fealty to the source material, Jones sounds as if she’s shredding the songbook with her bare teeth. She treats each cover not as a singer tackling a song, but as an actor inhabiting the skin of a role. She sneers the Police’s “Demolition Man” as if she's a villainess leveling a hospital, inverting the gender and notions of sexual dominance in her lascivious take on Bill Withers’ “Use Me.” Dubbing out the zombiefied pacing of “Nightclubbing”, Jones intones Iggy Pop’s lines with the detachment of a dominatrix contemplating her cat o’nine tails, while a previously unreleased cover of Tubeway Army’s “Me! I Disconnect From You” sets it in a sleek reggae setting.
Another bonus track is labeled “Peanut Butter,” which some disco fans will recognize as the title of another Sly & Robbie & Wally track (as remixed by Larry Levan), made for Gwen Guthrie on her 1985 mini-album Padlock. But here, “Peanut Butter” is the beat that Grace Jones turned into her Top 10 single and Paradise Garage anthem, “Pull Up to the Bumper.” Originally deemed “too R&B” by Chris Blackwell, Jones finally got her hands on the pistoning riddim and turned it into one of the most profane singles in pop/dance music history. Long black limousines, commands to “pull up” and coos of “let me lubricate it” make it one of the finest parallel parking metaphors for butt-fucking. At a time wherein a song about a "gigantic" interracial lover can soundtrack a tech giant's new promotional ad campaign, one hopes that soon a car company will do the same for Grace Jones' most wanton pop moment on a record that further cemented her iconic status in pop culture”.
I want to finish up by sourcing from Wikipedia. Their article discusses the impact and legacy of one of the all-time great albums:
“Nightclubbing's distinctive amalgamation of rock, funk, post-punk, pop and reggae set Jones apart from other musical acts of the 1980s. It is considered one of the early convergences of "fashion, art, and music". According to Pitchfork's Andy Beta, it "altered the face of modern pop". He further argued that the album's musical and visual influence is easily palpable in the musical landscape of the 21st century, specially among female musicians such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Grimes and FKA Twigs, among others. Other acts influenced by the record include Róisín Murphy, Janelle Monáe, Azealia Banks and Adam Lambert. Beyond pop music, the template set by Jones and her Compass Point backing band was also influential to alternative music, including Massive Attack, Todd Terje, Gorillaz, Hot Chip, and LCD Soundsystem – who "emulate those rubbery yet taut grooves of Sly & Robbie and cohorts". In Q, John Harris wrote: "The fact that this music was first released 33 years ago beggars belief: it showcases great minds alighting on the future, and points the way to Madonna, Björk, Lady Gaga, Gorillaz, M.I.A. and more." According to Molly Beauchemin, Jones "pioneered the way for Shamir, Stromae, and countless other dance mavericks of today – not just with her bewitching candor but through her use of androgynous innuendo". Polari Magazine considered Nightclubbing to be "a defining moment in the history of pop music".
The album further cemented Jones' pop icon status. According to Erich Kessel, "[the singer's] performances were a source of rich critiques on race, gender, and blackness." Her pioneering androgynous aesthetic – conceived alongside Jean-Paul Goude – had a strong impact on the pop culture of the 1980s; for example, it was a precursor to Annie Lennox's persona. According to Abigail Gardner, "Jones was an androgynous audiovisual experience, one who sat comfortably within the context of early 1980s pop, where image had become even more central to pop performance through the emergence of MTV." She further argued that the singer "problematises ideas of black feminine in performance art that contributed to a reconceptualisation of Afrocentric culture and identity." Miriam Kershaw positioned Jones "not as a singer or a diva, but as a piece of art", and argued that she "worked to destabilise racist and sexist clichés as she charted a dynamic course through the history of the Black diaspora, to celebrate its vibrant contemporary form." The singer's gender-bending and unrestrained sexuality also won the acclaim of the gay community, being included in Out's "The 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time" and Attitude's "Top 50 Gay Albums of All Time". i-D writes: "Jones transcended definition in almost every realm of her life. She is often referred to as a queer icon. [...] She rejects all labels of sexuality, and her musical output is similarly fluid, switching from pop and disco to dub and reggae without hesitation”.
On 11th May, so many people around the world will mark forty years of Grace Jones’ fifth studio album, Nightclubbing. It was a seismic album that cemented her Pop icon status. In terms of its importance, quality and reputation, there have been few albums since Nightclubbing that…
HAVE matched its genius!