Episode 61: Grace Jones's "Nightclubbing"

Not a woman. Not a man. A revolution. Music’s long history is littered with larger-than-life characters whose mythology shapes reality for the masses — and few loom larger than the mighty Grace Jones.
“Nightclubbing” without context is a tremendous body of songs worth anyone’s time, but after a deep dive into Grace’s time at Compass Point, you’ll agree that it’s a vital work.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, or Mastodon (@tunedig) for daily listening recommendations, and check out more episodes at tunedig.com.

Episode Transcript

Kyle (00:00):
Today we're talking about Nightclubbing by Grace Jones.

Cliff (00:02):
Every now and then in our episodes, we managed to hit
an album that, uh, immediatelyconfronts me with absolute panic.
Uh, Oh, so we agreed ahead of time withfull intention and knowledge and with all
of our faculties to cover a record thatis, culturally much more important than

(00:25):
I am, knowledgeable or important aboutaspects of society that are important
that I, while supporting them fully,am not personally a part of at all.

Kyle (00:38):
Or we'll, or we'll ever touch very directly.

Cliff (00:41):
right.
you know, if you put 10, 000 peoplein a stadium who knew me personally
and you said, Alright everyone, Iwant you to write down 100 people
that come to mind when you thinkof Cliff and his musical taste.
Not a single one of those pieces ofpaper are going to list Grace Jones.

(01:04):
As much as I might want oneto, at least, maybe one out
of all of those many options.
and I just like, Never in my life haveI been so aware of that going into a
record and like started to get a littlesweaty listening to it like, but I got
to figure this one out and it's got toclick in, uh, or it's not going to work

(01:24):
out well for me and I'm going to feelreal nervous and overcompensate about it.
but.
Probably the story of usdoing this podcast anyway.
It's like, oh shit, being disciplinedabout music actually teaches you how to
listen to things that you're otherwiseterrified to listen to or understand.
And like, I'm delighted to reportthat like, I feel very comfortable

(01:45):
talking about the one million thingsthat are cool about this record.
And that I, like, have relieved myselfof the weight of responsibility.
To try to say everythingthat needs to be said.
And it's like, no matter how many ofthese episodes that we do, I still have
to come back to that on a ton of theserecords and just like, okay, deep breath.
We're going to have fun aboutthis and it's going to be fine.

(02:08):
And I've, I've enjoyed gettingto that point with this one.

Kyle (02:11):
I love that so much.
one, I think the headline is.
is one of the coolest, likecapital C coolest records and
artists and human beings we'vecovered like cool as the headline.
this is a way to like touch the,you know, the little lightning bolt

(02:31):
things that they had in the nineties.
Like you touch it with your

Cliff (02:34):
Like it's sidetrack.
Yeah, of course I do.

Kyle (02:38):
This is like that, but the lightning in it is cool.

Cliff (02:41):
Totally.

Kyle (02:42):
but I also like you've touched on a little underappreciated part of
the behind the scenes, which is alsolike a key part of being friends with
me for a long time, where we see arecord on paper and I think we think of
like two or three contours around it.
When we're picking what's going to be thelineup of episodes for the year and we're

(03:05):
like, yep, you know, it's not like theseother things it's from these decades.
Like vaguely know a few things aboutGrace Jones or, you know, X, Y, Z
artist and yeah, that, that feels good.
That feels right.
So you pick it and you set itaway and then you go just like a
public speaking, you go to be like.
Oh, what am I going to say about this?

(03:26):
Oh God.
Oh, actually.
And you realize how bigthe gap is between yep.
I want to talk about it and ohmy God, I have to talk about it.
And then the pain starts and then whenyou finish the episode and the healing
starts and I'm not ashamed to admitthat, uh, uh, I am on a bash at that.
I'm going to make this album andthings that I've learned part of my

(03:47):
personality moving forward, but like,I just know what I'm calling it now.

Cliff (03:51):
Definitely one of the, at least for me, and we'll talk
through this in detail, I'm sure.
But for me, probably now, uh, a standoutexample of the idea of trusting our
ability to like music before we likeit enough to, like, get something
out of it and then wait around for itto click into place because you keep

(04:12):
trying it in different contexts and,you know, there have been a handful,
I'm sure, where it's like, okay,well, I can walk away from this with.
Yeah.
Appreciation, for sure.
Uh, you know, I've maybedeepened my level of insight,
understanding, whatever, you know.
A few things catch me off guard ina positive way and it gets filed
under, yeah, I know about that album.

(04:34):
This one is like, against my ownconscious will, I now like almost
all of these songs, like, directly.
They're Earworms across the board.
I ended up liking songs.
I did not expect I ended up like hearingand finding things in the album on
the like fifth and sixth listen that Inever would have expected like and we've

(04:58):
talked about this probably as well withthe king w record, but probably one of
the most affected by medium or deliveryalbums I've listened to in a while.
If you listen to this record and you can'thear the bass, you cannot hear the record.
It will not make sense.

Kyle (05:17):
for sure.
This is not a like hold up toyour hold your phone speaker
up to your ear type record.

Cliff (05:23):
Yep.
And it reminded me of the years ofpanic that we all had of like, it's
really cool that we can download musicnow, but everyone's playing it through
their fucking ThinkPad speakers.
And this is the end ofeverything, you know,

Kyle (05:38):
So I'm cheating it a little but did you Cold cold
listen didn't get you right away.
It sounds like you hadto warm up to this record

Cliff (05:47):
it's a little bit of that and that.
That, that honest feeling of I'msupposed to be understanding this
pretty quickly and I feel like I'mnot, and part of it, I, I, more, more
delight I'll get to pull out during thisepisode, but like, I went in as cold
as I could while knowing enough, um,it's, it's hard not to know Grace Jones

(06:11):
in general or have a, a visual pretty

Kyle (06:14):
or the yeah the image of Grace Jones.

Cliff (06:16):
Yeah yeah.
But I decided as much as I could to tryto go in devoid of extra research beyond
that and just get into it and maybeunderclocked it a little bit because I
it didn't even occur to me how many ofthese songs were covers and one thing
that we'll talk about for sure is likeonce I Understood what was being covered

(06:40):
here and who she was covering includinga ton of surprises uh it It really
changed the way this album could hit me.
I mean, it clicked into place in away that I'm not sure if it would have
otherwise because now I had something tocontrast the ideas to, uh, and whether
that's, you know, nightclubbing itselfor, you know, the, the difference in

(07:07):
Use Me and what happens when you take aBill Withers song and do this with it.
Like, I didn't know that was aBill Withers song that I did.
Even if I didn't know thatpreviously, it definitely didn't
connect the first however many times.

Kyle (07:20):
It all sounds like Grace Jones, for sure.
Yeah, it sounds so cohesive.
that's so interesting because I likeit gripped me from the first listen,
and I was surprised that I had neverreally listened to it before because
you see it pop up on lists and like,obviously, the cover art is so iconic.
It's maybe like 80s bias or somethingfor me or something like to Avant.

(07:44):
You know, the Warhol says, I don'tknow what it, I don't know what it was.
So it was something sort oflike unconscious bias, but I'd
never really listened to it.
And from go walking in the rainon a good set of speakers, just
immediately like, Oh, okay.
And just kept it on goodspeakers kind of the whole time.
And it makes sure house feellike an art party immediately.

(08:05):
You know, just like the space,the physical space you're in.
Becomes cooler and you're like I got toget people in here I got to get like chips
and dips and drinks and some conversationgoing I gotta hang some stuff on the
walls and Occupy this with I got to getoutside of my body bill like cool thoughts
and energies that are inside of my bodyNow, like I gotta make shit happen.
I'm alive in the world.

(08:25):
like, I'm 100 percent positive this isthe most I have repeat alt a record.
It in the lead up just full days ofnothing but this record and maybe it's
january and you know It's kind of adearth of new releases time Even though
interestingly in 2025 a lot of peopleseem to be releasing january records.
I don't I don't know what the vibeis but maybe the ground was prepped

(08:48):
for it in some way but like I havelistened to this record for days
straight and normally it's you know10, 15, 20 full attentive listens.
I've listened to this recordeasily 50 times through
in the past month.
And I probably won't do like, I cansay with confidence, I probably won't
listen to any other record that wecover this year that much in the

(09:09):
lead up, maybe not after either.
I don't know.

Cliff (09:12):
Yep, this is gonna be another one of those where the,
uh, Spotify rapt at the end ofthe year is like, Oh, I get you.
I get you, baby.
I know what you like.
We're gonna feed youGrace Jones all day long.
Okay.

Kyle (09:24):
I'm going to take your Grace Jones money and feed the military
industrial complex with that

Cliff (09:29):
think one interesting place to start, of many, which I'm going to
keep verbally relieving myself of theduty to try to cover every possible
important facet of this person and artist.
Again, especially someone who meansso much to very important kind of
subcultures, uh, and especially peoplein this country who, once again, in

(09:50):
fucking 2025, are up against some ofthe most exactly same shit that they
were up against at the same time thatthis record was coming out, and I'm
sure we'll talk about some of that, butanyway, point being, I think one thing
that Surprised me in a really positiveway from a sort of factual or contextual

(10:11):
standpoint is Grace Jones herself andhow the kind of collections of first
she had disco records with a particularproducer and then we'll talk about this
in more detail but like nightclubbingwas one of another series of three
records that took a sharp You genre turn,

Kyle (10:31):
Mm hmm

Cliff (10:31):
and through through her production partners, musical partners,
and specifically the literal locationof Jamaica, there was an infusion of
something significantly different inthis record, which helps you, like,
draw a lot of stuff back out of it whenyou see and understand that it's there.

(10:52):
So point being, like, I found myselfsurprised, because if I, if you
otherwise described to me someonewho was effectively, not effectively,
literally, a fashion model, whothen became a musical artist, that
does not Give you the best taste inyour mouth most of the time, right?

(11:12):
That's not usually something that turnsout super artistic or interesting.
and, uh, you know, I should have knownthat this was coming in particular,
but like, don't, you dare try toput Grace Jones in a box, it doesn't
really matter what period of herlife you're trying to do that in.
Uh, that will be a failedeffort no matter what,
so.

Kyle (11:31):
She will kill you

Cliff (11:32):
Yes, I'm terrified of her in the most respectful way humanly possible.
but to that end, like, I think theSo I think it's worth mentioning, As
a brief lead up to connect the dotsbetween what you were just saying
there, uh, where Grace Jones comesfrom and then the eventual return back
into this Compass Point era of albumsand the genre that we got out of here.

(11:55):
I think it's helpful just to mentionreally briefly then in the lead up, uh,
how her modeling career had progressed.
Because.
Again, this is, this feels like a weirdkind of like, needle to thread, like,
we give a shit about music on thispodcast, it doesn't imply inherently
that we don't give a shit about otherforms of art, but it does imply that

(12:18):
we're like, I don't know, less thoroughlyequipped to discuss it, I guess?

Kyle (12:25):
Yeah.

Cliff (12:25):
so,

Kyle (12:26):
For anyone who's ever seen me in public, they'd understand
why I never would be the personto be on a fashion podcast.

Cliff (12:33):
Yeah, that, you and I have that in common.
No one's ever accused us of beingespecially well dressed on purpose.

Kyle (12:40):
Yeah.
Toon digs never getting a GQ spread.

Cliff (12:42):
No, we do the best we can with the simple dress that we have
and we look good while we do it.
Yes, sir. Uh, that said, okay, so Ithink seeing the progress then of the
modeling career and then kind of howthat resulted in Musical attempts is
helpful because one thing that needsto be especially clear across the

(13:03):
board that has been true Apparentlythe whole time She's a fucking badass
and everything that she chooses to do.
She does extraordinarily well and inNontraditional and highly subversive ways

Kyle (13:19):
Yeah.
She's sort of groundbreakingjust by existing.

Cliff (13:22):
Yep,

Kyle (13:23):
Yeah.

Cliff (13:24):
so She was a signed model in New York by the time
she was 18, well on her way.
and then at 22 was in Paris,you know, in 1970 at that time.
And effectively just like spun up ahighly successful modeling career,
um, both in New York and thenParis there in the early seventies.

(13:46):
Which then would lead to, I think thisis kind of cool to see, like, to me the,
the trajectory of how the music shaped isitself a really fascinating aspect of this
album because of where it, where it existschronologically in her musical journey.
Grace Jones released a series ofsingles throughout the mid seventies.
So 75 and 76, um, and basicallynone of them really caught traction.

(14:10):
And then she grabbed a recorddeal from Island records in 1977.
Uh, and then would go on to startfinding wider recognition through
her debut album on Island portfolio.
And those three, the first threerecords there, so Portfolio, Fame,
and Muse, uh, were, so Functionally,those are the disco records.

(14:35):
That is how she became known, asquote, Queen of the gay discos.
Like this, this is verystraightforward and successful.
There were three really specific albums.
They were with legendarydisco producer, Tom Moulton.
And I think it's just worth pointingout because this helped me personally
to click into nightclubbing as an album.

(14:57):
Those first three records.
So a lot of people love them.
This is not a criticism of those records.
I haven't done the work to knowone way or the other, but they
were not like especially wellreceived, critically speaking.

Kyle (15:10):
Right.

Cliff (15:11):
And I think there's two aspects of that we'll probably touch on.
One of which is, well, okay, she wasa fashion model who was, you know,
trying to start up a music career.
Disco worked.
She worked with a legendary producer.

Kyle (15:28):
And she was a fixture at Studio 54, so it was sort of like, I want to, you
know, be able to play the records thatare, that are at the place I'm at a lot.
Like, I want to feed back intothe culture that I'm a part of.

Cliff (15:43):
Yep.
And so, to kind of contextualize thisshift in genre after the first three
albums, like, again, on one hand, youknow, becoming Queen of the Gay Discos
and Studio 54 royalty, basically, andbuilding all of that up in the 70s, only
was she clearly well suited for it andpeople enjoyed it, but there are her.

(16:07):
Kind of two almost complementaryways of seeing the shifts away
from disco because one of them inHonestly, this will probably be the
tone we take with a lot of this musicWell, it fucking rips and it's good.
So we'll talk about that and how cool itis that there's a great record That's so

(16:27):
heavily based in this wild combinationof reggae and funk and new wave and
whatever else like that's cool but thereis also a Historically uncanny moment in
history that happened around this time,uh, where, white groups of entitled
white people are wont to do throughoutour history, create a backlash against

(16:52):
a thing, uh, that non white peopleenjoy, uh, which, is, concentrated and
labeled in the late 70s as disco, andthat there was this whole, Quote unquote
backlash against disco, and I think that.
Even as an adult who gives a shitabout music history and, wants to

(17:13):
actually understand, as much as youand I talk about it, how music and
history intertwine, like, I think
I knew that there was like a responseto Saturday night fever that had
something to do with like peoplewho like Rolling Stone and rock and
roll a little too much at this time.
And like, you know, as somebodywho really likes Led Zeppelin, I'm

(17:33):
also hyper aware of the type ofpeople who liked Led Zeppelin in the
late seventies and all that stuff.
Right.
But I. I had definitely made a cartoonout of this backlash in my head and
researching this album reminded slashtaught me once again the bar is much
lower, things were much stupider andworse and just through trying to

(18:01):
understand what caused the culturalshift that then caused, you know, genres
of music to shift from disco to funk.
I learn about things like DiscoDemolition Night, and like, other
historical moments of Intense, wayoverdone backlash to certain groups

(18:25):
of people enjoying being around eachother and liking certain types of music.
And how like, you know, things likeDisco Demolition Night, this is
just one example of terrible, welllike a million terrible ones, right?
But Disco Demolition Night was a promotionat a Major League Baseball game in 1979.
Uh, where the, the promotion was thatthey were gonna literally blow up.

(18:47):
A crate of disco records on thefield, like, I, I'm trying to
give myself a little bit of gracefor cartoonizing it because that
sounds stupid, like, that soundsridiculous, but that's what happened

Kyle (19:03):
mean, it's a shade away from like, bring a book to the
Braves game and we'll burn it.
We'll just have a, we'll havea big ol book burning during
the seventh inning stretch.

Cliff (19:14):
well, and not only was that stupid symbolically in this one really particular
moment, but also, you know, it immediatelydevolved into a riot just the most 1970
thing, 1979 thing to, to possibly happen,

Kyle (19:28):
Is it just that decade?

Cliff (19:29):
And, well, so,
we are gonna leave the focus of thisepisode on album night clubbing, but
like, we can never drive down theseroads, so to speak, and not at least
point out the window a few times andbe like, I need you to look at this.
Okay?
So, like, so, there's plenty to look upabout Disco Demolition Night in general,

(19:53):
but the quotes from, I guess this isironically, a Rolling Stone critic named
Dave Marsh, the quotes from him areso, once again, historically uncanny.
I think it'll give you the sensation thatI got when I started connecting these
dots and gives you at least a littlebit of extra weight that you put into

(20:14):
every time you listen to this record.
so Dave Marsh, expressed, uh, in,in a year end 1979 feature where he
spoke about Disco Demolition Night.
He said, you know, White males, 18 to34, are the most likely to see disco
as the product of homosexuals, blacks,and latins and therefore they're the

(20:37):
most likely to respond to appeals towipe out such threats to their security
it goes almost without saying thatsuch appeals are racist and sexist
but broadcasting has never been anespecially civil libertarian medium
he also said quote your most paranoidfantasy about where the ethnic cleansing
of the rock radio could ultimatelylead is found disco demolition night

Kyle (21:02):
Well, I'm so glad that doesn't remind me about
anything about the present day.
Good to know we moved past all that.

Cliff (21:09):
In the sweetest, least alarming way possible to everyone
listening, It makes me wanna die.
Like, it makes me wanna die.
Oh my god, yeah.
but, while Certainly you and I couldspin off this whole conversation and
mostly talk about this particularthing, It's important here because

(21:30):
it really helped me to listen againto something that I Because of Grace
Jones being a fashion model, therewas an amount of trivialness to the
music that she was making in my head.
And I'm not saying it's all self serious.
It's not like revolutionspeak or whatever.

(21:50):
But getting, getting a real or a betteridea and contextual understanding of like,
not only why Musical genre shifted awayfrom disco, but like what it must have
felt like to like disco and like GraceJones and then just like be a part of
a backlash for fucking liking somethingand then having to watch those same

(22:13):
artists, you know, take a shift into anew genre because basically your entire
social scene and musical scene has becomeuntenable to the larger white population.
yeah, we.

Kyle (22:28):
to to a privileged class, like oppression.
You know, it's interesting.
You use the word trivializeand thinking about.
Modeling it's easier to trivialize orother that because it's just about you
know, image and and whatever It's maybenot easy for everyone but it's always
been easy for me like that's my own
bias I copy that but grace jonesrepresents something dangerous, you know,

(22:53):
johnny cornfield can't relate doesn'tknow anyone who is like amused for Eve
st laurent and helmet newton who Ooh.
Like I learned just recently Debbie Harryand Andy Warhol through Grace Jones's
baby shower, you know So it's likerunning in this crazy social circle of

(23:13):
people Producing this sort of avant gardeCulture pushing all together and like
of course they they all hang out, youknow, so if you're Steve from Nebraska,
that's a party that scares the shit outof you To walk through the threshold
of and then you couple that with youwalk in and the coolest person at that

(23:37):
party is described as And I think thisyou know getting back to nightclubbing.
I think This was like, boom, ifyou're going to describe it in
a sentence, it's this distinctlook and fearless personality.
That's Grace Jones andthat's nightclubbing.
And that same descriptor wentfurther saying her image has been
described as neo cubist, i. e.sharp angular lines and geometric

(24:00):
shapes synonymous with her style.
So like, other than maybeblah or amoeba or whatever,
you're not describing a shape.
Of a person like a person can't bereduced minimum minimalistically to
a shape being associated with that inyour mind shapes and angles and stuff.
That's an avant garde way to thinkand talk about the perception.

(24:25):
Your rods and cones fire to yourbrain about a person, right?
That's not like regular people talk.
So I can see where all that adds up tobeing dangerous and like pushing you over
a line of your comfort in interactingwith human beings regardless of race or
gender or whatever that's just that's likean entirely different way of hanging out

(24:45):
almost it's very cool to me but probablyonce upon a time when i was just some
shithead listening to butt rock i don'tremember much about what that young person
was like but i'm gonna say there wasthere probably would have been some of
those same fears to walk into that party

Cliff (25:00):
Yeah, and to your point, I'm sure we'll mention several times here,
the strength of her visuals not onlyaren't trivial in the way that we
talked about them, but are specificallyimpactful in that, the way that she
used video, and the way that sheused live performance, were stark and

Kyle (25:23):
Yeah, yeah.

Cliff (25:25):
I, I, to this day, we're, you know, nearly 45 years on
from this, and I watched a liveperformance from around this time.
And I, we've been to afew shows in our lifetime.
I don't think I've seenanything like that.
Like, just the
I've seen some performances, I've seenpeople go real theatrical, I've seen

(25:49):
cool light shows, I don't think I'veseen a coherent visual aesthetic that,
like, captures your attention in theway that she inherently knew how to do.
It wouldn't have worked if sheonly looked the way that she
looked and were simply genericallyiconic and lucky to look that cool.
She like knew what to do with it.

(26:11):
And, you know, we we've talked aboutthat so many times, like so many of the
standout records of history are justpeople who were one tremendously blessed
to tremendously disciplined in threetremendously gifted in knowing how to
apply both of those things all at once.
And just, uh, yeah, you, you feelin the presence of greatness with.

(26:35):
The especially the visuals andthe confidence in approach, that.
starts to come through in themusic when you listen for it too.

Kyle (26:43):
I agree with that.

Cliff (26:45):
Great.
Podcast over.
I'd love then to talk specificallyabout the kind of three album phase
that I've been setting up a little bit.
So starting with Warm Leatherette in1980, and then obviously Nightclubbing,
which we're talking about here, andthen also Living My Life that followed
this in 1982, uh, we, like, this isnow the era post disco for Grace Jones,

Kyle (27:09):
By the way, for the, for the listeners at home, that's
six records in six years,
including a huge, two trilogieswith a huge pivot in them.
So no big deal on that front either.
Just like a total stylistic reinvention, at least one uniformly
regarded as classic album.
Oh, by the way, all the other shitshe was doing that wasn't music

Cliff (27:32):
and

Kyle (27:33):
of we're talking about on that merit alone.
You know what I

Cliff (27:35):
for sure, And yes, many of her songs on records were covers, but
I, mentally speaking, I very quicklycompleted the loop of, Oh, she did
a lot of covers, that's probably howshe was able to do a bunch of music
really quickly, because it probablydoesn't take that much work to do
it, and that thought lasted a halfof a second, before I really, like,

(28:00):
that was the, to me, the rubric.
Of this record was seeing not only Notjust oh some of these songs are covers
and I didn't appreciate or maybe evenrecognize that they were covers but doing
covers for a chunk of the record was atactic that she was using which Continued

(28:22):
into this new phase, but I think made itlike this is really highlighting to me
when I think about this phase of recordsand what it meant to start working with
like compass point studios in Nassauto work with Sly and Robbie, not only.
Oh, okay.
These records were with these peopleand they sound different, but these

(28:43):
records are with these people.
They sound different and they'recovering really specific things
that aren't in this genre.
And like once I could dial into that andstart listening to what they were doing
especially Sly and Robbie in the musicto channel and bring forward or iterate
on the cover itself that like It shifted.

(29:06):
I can't go back to the waythat I heard this record
before that clicked into place.

Kyle (29:11):
think a good counterpoint for understanding sort of the
the profound approach withcovers here is country music.
Like you think about so much 60s and 70scountry music set aside blues But like
I think about country specifically wherethey're all picking up stuff that other
people have written and just trying todo a good version of it But like very

(29:35):
rarely in country and I feel confidentin saying this is a very well versed
deep Longtime fan of country music.
It's the music of my peopleVery rarely, if ever, does it
approach a signature sound.
Like even Waylon Jennings is my favoritecountry artist, uh, Waylon and Willie,
they can bring it into their style, butit still doesn't amount to a singular

(30:00):
sound that you're like, yep, that's book,you know, other than maybe their voice
or something they're, they're puttingon costumes and chameleoning a little,
this is a sound that you could associatewith Grace Jones and with this band.
Forever, you know, and, and evenif it's not about the associating
part, the other, I guess, qualifierfilter is, is it groundbreaking?

(30:24):
And again, I would use the countrything of, no, it's iterative.
Like it's cool.
It's a good, like I'll pick up alick or whatever from it, or I'll
do it a little heavier in thispart, or, you know, take out the
pedal seal on this one or whatever.
I'll, I'll pick and choose thingsand we'll, we'll iterate and
we'll get to incrementally newversions and that'll be cool.
Very rarely does taking on a bunchof covers, especially from disparate

(30:47):
sources, like you're saying,amount to such a singular document.
So, a bit like sampling, it's afeat to make it its own thing that
I think should be recognized equallyon the level of Dolly Parton being
able to write Jolene and I WillAlways Love You on the same day.
it's like Herculean todo a thing like this.
It is a feat of creative craft, and Ithink it should be respected as such.

Cliff (31:12):
let's talk specifically about two things.
Let's talk about Sly and Robbieand their contributions and
then let's start touching onthose, those covers themselves.
To really put a fine point on whatyou're starting to bring up, I
think one little preview of whatwe're, we'll talk about here.
not only is then the music and theinterpolation of the singles themselves

(31:32):
or of the covers themselves interestingand good with a capital G, but the
selection of song is so good that Ibet if you asked a hundred people who
knew Grace Jones and you asked themabout that line feeling like a woman
looking like a man, most of those peoplewould think that's a Grace Jones lyric,

Kyle (31:56):
Yeah, like,

Cliff (31:57):
it.

Kyle (31:58):
you wrote that.

Cliff (31:59):
it fits,
uh, and I, even that is just onereally quick, easy glanceable example
of like, nah, there was some artistrythat was going on here and it clicked
in a really cool way on this record.

Kyle (32:12):
Yeah.
And in that sense, maybe not, you know,specifically with the walking in the
rain example, but a little bit morebroadly, you gotta give get up, give it
up for Chris Blackwell of Island Recordsand I'm not trying to insinuate this
is a man behind the woman situation.
You know, they're like, there'ssome other genius you should know.
Grace Jones said, has said he is my bet.

(32:35):
One of my best friends as a personand one of my closest collaborators.
so like John Paul Goad, who did the coverand was a visual collaborator with her
and helped her bring out her own best.
she had these people aroundher that she really trusted.
In ways that reminded me of theSoulquarians there's a lot for me
around the power of collective and whenwe talk about Compass Point Studios,

(32:57):
I was thinking about how they holedup in electric lady and were able
to make so many records because theywere just all living and breathing
it all day and night, uh, and theyhad really good musical chemistry.
and I. enjoy drawing that parallelthinking about a group of people kicking
ass individually and coming togetherand being in flow in a physical place.

(33:18):
That's the apex of creativity to meand the thing that you hope every
person who wants to make things andexpress themselves can be part of.
you know, we love a lonewolf creative story.
It's the rugged American individualistin us, but there's something
about the power of collectivethat's so much more powerful.
So anyway, Chris Blackwell.
Known as quote a byword for uncompromisedartistry and era shaping acts, which

(33:41):
includes the band free and Paul Rogers.
It includes Bob Marley to an extent andthe whalers, uh, it includes the B 52s.
So quite a spread just in those three.
In addition to music, he was kind of aventures man, hotels, real estate resorts,
another record company, a rum brand.

(34:01):
Uh, but he also had Islandfilms, which released Jimmy
Cliffs, the harder they come.
And another callback to theParamore episode, Stop Making Sense.
The iconic Talking Heads filmwas distributed by, Island
Films and one other company.
Chris Blackwell also described as themost interesting man in the world because
he was the longtime owner of Goldeneye,the residence in Arakabessa, uh,

(34:26):
previously the home of Ian Fleming, wherehe wrote most of the James Bond books.
So, we're the studio.
Is, it's like an iconic destination.
It is a Shangri La forJamaica in a lot of ways.
I guess I'll also quickly say, you know,when asked about the coherence and the
tightness of the record, if there was amaster plan behind that, You know, someone

(34:48):
said Chris Blackwell's plant plan startedwith the black Uhuru album called since
Amelia He'd listened to it and he heardit and was knocked out by the sound of it
so he took it to the engineer at compasspoint Alex Sadkin and said listen to this
album and take some of these sounds andLet this be the Grace Jones sound because
this is that good and then from thereEverything was set for the sound of grace.
So he called up Sly and Ravi, MikeyChung on guitar, Sticky Thompson

(35:12):
on percussion, all from Jamaica.
He got Wally Bataru from France,Barry Reynolds, who's the guitarist
for Mary, and Faithful from England.
And we said, what are we going to play?
And Blackwell said, I don'tknow, but he had the engineer in.
So they went and got a groovegoing again, like voodoo, just
start like getting on a groove.
or like, I want you reminded me of,I want you with Leon where as well.

(35:34):
Uh, let's just record whatwe do instead of wasting time
going in and out of the studio.
So the first song they did was warmleatherette, which was the cover of
the normals, became the title trackof the album before Nightclubbing.
As you mentioned, secondone was private life.
And they were just like, wow,but this is the part that I like.
so you think there was moreleft on the cutting room floor?
Maybe that you wish had been completed.
And Sly said, if it was anything likethat, I'm glad to be reminded of it.

(35:58):
I really don't have a clue, but wouldn'tbe surprised if there was some, this
was over 30 years ago after all.
And I don't even know if Chrisever wrote down the list of songs
he suggested we had to go at.
He would come to the studio witha pile of home recorded cassettes.
Play the purse of 'em andlet us try a couple times.
If we didn't have it cooked by thethird or fourth attempt, we would
simply forget about it and he wouldplay the next cassette in the pile.

(36:18):
It was as basic as that, so exactlylike electric lady, where it was
like, let's get cooking on thisprince thing, or this Fah thing, or
this public enemy thing, or whatever.
But it was way morediverse than that even.
and so I love that it was just kindof a mixtape until we mutate it into
our own thing, but it was opposite ofVoodoo where they like did it until

(36:39):
it got them into a translate stateand then it morphed over hundreds and
hundreds of plays and hours and whatever.
This is like, if we can't turn it intoour own thing in three or four takes,
it's not meant to be our own thing.
So there's like a stone coldness toeverybody's a bad motherfucker on this.
You know what I mean?

Cliff (36:57):
I'm doing that thing where I realized there's.
A lot that I want to talk about andI'm having the little meta mental
conversation with myself aboutthe time limits of podcasting.
So, I want to do maybe two quick things.
First before we go super indepth on the individual songs,
talking a little bit about.
First listens and fresh listens here andwhat stood out to us, because I think

(37:22):
the what did you notice about it is ahelpful component of some of the details
we'll talk about in the songs themselves.
and I want to immediately mentionone thing that, uh, you hinted
at kind of right up at the top.
There is something very physical aboutthis music and about Grace Jones in

(37:46):
general, but like, than Almost any recordI can really think of there is a visceral
physicality to so much of the rhythmhere to the degree that it's even, you
know, I mean, we'll talk about this too,but like, you know, in, in nightclub
and like you can, you can feel yourselfwalking there's so much there to it.

(38:06):
and so first of all, if you are, freshon this record and especially if you're
fresh on Grace Jones in general I thinkyou can expect a surprising crossover of
kind of passive versus active listeningbecause Kyle, you said putting it on
in the house and it basically madeyou want to like do a social thing,

Kyle (38:28):
Right.

Cliff (38:29):
I may not have the experience of I have hit play and now I want to do a
social, um, but But viscerally, I connectexactly with what you're saying there.
Like, there were ways and times that Itried to play this record that didn't
click, and it, couldn't make it work inscenarios where I didn't have some sense

(38:50):
of, like, movement, or couldn't kind ofuse my body in whatever way I wanted to.
And yes, you know, like, youmentioned putting it on repeat.
I put it on repeat a bunch, and like,it can become kind of work in music.
But, it's the dangerous kind of workin music that I have to file in the
box where it's like, Yeah, but if Ilisten to this, or say, Converge, I

(39:15):
can go a little bit during the day,and then eventually I'll just catch
myself not doing the other thing andlistening to the music only instead.
but, I just want to kind ofcome right out with that part.
Like there is a differentlevel of involvement with
feeling and physical sensation.
I think on this record that helped meto start connecting with it and hearing

(39:37):
it in new ways pretty immediately.

Kyle (39:40):
Yeah, passive here doesn't mean sit and do spreadsheets.
Passive is like, you know, you don'thave to be listening on headphones,
but it's going to pretty automaticallytouch whatever reflex in your body is
the same thing that it's like, you'regoing to do a bit of the Christopher

(40:00):
Walken and the fat boy slim video.
thing.
It's gonna, it's gonna start marionettingyou a little, even if you're not a dancer.
It just, it has a littlebit of propulsiveness.
and I don't even really know what itis about it because it's so mid range,
even when you have the bass, maybe it isthe bass and then the rest of your body

(40:22):
doesn't know what to do with the restof the sonic range, so it just kind of
does scarecrow dance shit or something.
but it makes you want todo something, for sure.
so that, that's the context.
The context is that itaffects the context.
So, you have to enjoy it in some sortof elastic or appreciable context.
So, like.
Once the context is set, what standsout when your senses are heightened?

Cliff (40:46):
So a few things that hit incredibly hard, uh, kinda smack
you in the forehead a little bit.
They do not do a pump fakegenre wise on this record.
the very first sounds of the veryfirst song tell you pretty much
exactly what you can expect if you aregenerally familiar with reggae music.

(41:07):
Because they are going to lead you inwith that and then they start layering
back in the elements of Disco, of newwave, and then the main thing that stood
out to me then as a means of like atrajectory from thinking about the genres
of music is how steeped this is in funk.

(41:30):
Without inherently being a funkrecord, once I heard it, and like,
I was glad to hear you mentionthe Soulquarians thing, too.
I mean, on the calendar, the D'Angelorecord was just up in January, so
that's a relatively fresh listen.
And like, listening to these two recordsnear each other, oh, you hear it.
Like, you, you hear the, as youwere describing it, right, the

(41:52):
group cohesion, the, Oh, I'm justgonna do a little thing here once.
And it sounds good, and now it's done.
And, so, paying closer and closerattention then to those little moments
reminded me of funk, and then also, Ican't believe I'm drawing this picture,
uh, mentally, it also really reminded meof the Good, Bad, and the Ugly soundtrack.

(42:18):
And the way that they would pull outthe, like, noises meant something.

Kyle (42:25):
Yes.

Cliff (42:26):
And it blows you away when you start noticing how many
distinct sounds are on this record.
There has to be a hundred differentsounds, uh, across all of these songs,
and they will, like, take you by surprise.

Kyle (42:39):
And you, you can, it's one of those records that you could go see
them play it live and 40 percent ofall that shit is stripped out and it
would not affect your experience at all.
you know, whereas like when you go see.
a rock band where they've playedfour guitar parts on the song and
there's only two guitarists You'relike no And that's not to say it's

(43:03):
superfluous Or it doesn't matter becauselike it does we're touching on it.
We're excited about it.
I'm thinking about there's a like boingnoise in Libertango that's like kind of
silly but it takes some of the edge ofthe darkness off It sands the corners
a little, but then what is the song?

(43:25):
I want to say it's feel up where there'slike grace and a guy are having an
argument or a conversation or something.
It's maybe that's just the way she talks.
But there's like dogs barking in surround.
Uh, it's like a movie scene almost thatthey've inserted in the bridge and you're
like, what, this is so chaotic, but.

(43:45):
that's an instance where the Jamaica ofit all really really informed it for me.
There's a scene in the documentarywhere she's hanging out with her family,
eating dinner at her mom's house, andthere's a lot of cross talk and stuff.
It was like, oh, they're just tryingto capture some of that vibe, just
some of the realness of her world.

(44:08):
and I think that's really importantbecause so much of early Grace Jones
was about, Artifice, modeling, fashion,pop art, whatever, and this is not in
the traditional sense like a back tomy roots, get real moment, whatever.
They are trying to constructsomething, but it is informed
by the reality of who she is.
And so I think the like warm,chaotic good of Jamaica, the noises

(44:33):
I think are doing sort of likean ambient sounds of home thing.
Almost for there and for studio54 and all the places that like
construct her emotional landscapes.

Cliff (44:44):
Yeah, and I think, I think you put it nicely there, where the sounds Will
sometimes take the edge of seriousnessoff, and I think that's where it felt
like a spiritual descendant of funk.
In that same way that they wouldjust be, like, if you got too hard
and grooved too much in a funksong, they'd just be like, BOOTY!
And then you'd be like, ohyeah, that's right, that's

(45:06):
what we were talking about, I

Kyle (45:07):
Or, or if you listen to a live James Brown cut, you know, minute 13, when he
yells away from the mic and he's like,and they just, that's how they know to
cut away from whatever shit they're doing.
You know, it's there, there's a coolagain, power of the collective, It's
impossible for people to connect just withtheir words and hanging out and whatever.
And that's why relationships are so crazy.

(45:29):
But that's the magic of music thatwould just silly shit like that.
You can cut on a dime in yourconnection with other human beings.
and so you see a lot of like asort of fireworky version of that
happening here and all the songs.
So you could do a listen through justfor, it's almost like the director's
commentary track, just like all theother stuff that's not the base element.

Cliff (45:51):
100 percent sort of play in license plate bingo or
whatever with the music instead.
Just like, listen toall these crazy shits.
You're going to hear for thenext, however many tracks.

Kyle (46:02):
I just, it never would have occurred to me until you said that
to connect it to good, bad, and ugly.
And I would pay like a thousand dollarsfor an experience of sitting with a
Neo Morricone listening to this record.

Cliff (46:13):
I think it was the whip sound on pull up to the bumper.
Something was just like, oh, oh,in both of these cases, people are
in a room somewhere having fun.
Just smacking shit with a stickand going, have that sound.
Yep.
Nope.
Nope.
That's not it.
Yep.
That one's it.
That felt forceful.

Kyle (46:34):
That's a super straight up funk song.
The baseline on that songis wild, Bootsy quality.
Well, I don't, I don't, I don't know.

Cliff (46:45):
If the bass doesn't surprise you on the first listen through,
you're listening on shitty headphones.
so do something about that.
but I think even what you're mentioningthere and pull it to the bumper,
that'll, that'll provide us a nicelittle segue to, I think into talking
more deeply about the songs because.
think you alluded to this earlier, but,a lot of the instrumentation under these

(47:06):
songs were progressions of old ideas orthings that are being retried and are
retried or, or put to different use.
And so pull up to the bumper waseffectively an instrumental that sounds,
I mean, pretty identical, uh, released inJamaica called peanut butter previously.

(47:26):
And so like.
just knowing that little bit ofinformation, I think, again, on
FreshListens, uh, listening to the varietyof sounds is one really interesting way
to go about it and be surprised by it.
But the other bit is just like,having the light context a Jamaican
instrumental rhythmic duo have cometo this record and they are bringing

(47:51):
their best ideas and putting theminto really interesting covers of
songs that are, for the most part,definitely not Jamaican or reggae music.
And so there's a lot ofintentionality taking place there.
And I think.
As well, we'll talk some moreabout the bass in particular, but I

(48:13):
think it's just worth calling out.
We're sort of implying this throughmaking sure that you hear it,
but, grace Jones's vocal deliverystyle, and how the accompanying
instrumentation works on this record.
The bass is often giving you the melody.
So if you can't hear it, it just kindof sounds like a fella cootie song

(48:36):
has gone on for 30 minutes too long.
Which, that's what feel up sounds liketo me anyway, uh, and now I need to
listen to all those together when Ihear them, but, Like, I think those are
a couple of ways to take it in freshand try to get blown away by this in
the way in the In one of the many waysthat we did, and how we ended up really
liking this record, uh, despite notnecessarily having the intention to.

Kyle (49:00):
pull up to the bumper is really instructive.
And, you know, thinking aboutthe instrumental existing
before it, like I really wantto show love to Sly and Robbie.
But there are if you do the thoughtexercise of what would any of
these elements in this song soundlike in other people's hands?
The synth, the guitar line, the bass,like we mentioned, and then shit like the

(49:21):
would be pushed way more to the front.
Or they would be sort of crystallized asa pop element or a novelty, a little bit
of confectionary at the front of the mix.
everything is pulled back probably like10 or 20 percent from what it could be
and pulled into kind of a cohesive whole.

(49:43):
And I think that is informedby the disco and punk.
It sounds, it's, it's mixedlike a post punk song.
To me, and everything is in serviceof like a really tight sort of corded,
feel, but if you try to isolate thoseelements, you're like, a lot of that
shit's kind of silly, but it, it adds upinto a mix that is decidedly not that,

(50:04):
and there's some like flying Robbie'sits own rabbit hole, like they invented
or helped popularize whole beats andmovements They made the rockers beat,
which was sort of the, like, it's harder.
It was like grunge goingaway from hair metal.
one drop was sort of the popular thingand they made the rocker style popular

(50:26):
and then they introduced the rub a dubstyle, like sort of a slower, groovier
mid tempo thing in the early eighties andthey helped push toward computer assisted
music and programming in the eighties.
I was hearing things likethe slang tang rhythm.
in some of the songs that I waslistening to I was hearing clear
predecessors to what I fell in lovewith as a kid that like loved sublime

(50:50):
in the nineties and knew that theywere pulling from way deeper wells of
reggae than I had ever been exposed to.
so you can kind of just go down aslide and Robbie rabbit hole and
find a lot about the reggae partsto appreciate and how they like
sort of blew the form wide open.
And this is a perfect document to seeall the places they kind of took it.

Cliff (51:09):
Yep, I think one thing we can also discuss through these individual
songs is, uh, which you really helpfullyhighlighted already these melody
lines, rhythms, production ideas inthe hands of an idiot would have made
for a really shitty set of 80 songs.
Um, one thing that kind of made melaugh on early listens, was this.

(51:32):
how adjacent some of these songs wereto the The biggest 80s tropes you can
think of, and the most, just like,unbearably stupid 80s synth moves and
how, especially on, like, songs like ArtGroupie, like, the, I mean, it's like
an exact cross section of the types ofthings on paper that would annoy me about

(51:56):
a song and yet, Two things are true.
One, it's more interestingthan any of that.
Uh, and second, because this is1981, none of this stuff would
have been annoyingly redundant yet.
And so I, I kind of try to rememberthat and then how interesting that is.
And we'll, and as we'll talk about herelike, The idea of intentionally moving

(52:21):
towards computer generated music and stillas an underlying foundation of it falling
back to earlier forms of rhythm and howwell that works here, uh, and how well I
can imagine that it wouldn't have workedif they didn't do something like that.
Not

Kyle (52:40):
Groupie always makes me think it's going to be Electric
Avenue when it first comes on.
So like there's a goodcontrast of what it could be.
No knock to Electric Avenuebecause I love that song.

Cliff (52:51):
at all.
There's a lot of whiffsof other songs in here.

Kyle (52:54):
Yeah,

Cliff (52:56):
as well, I think, start then with Very first track walking in the
rain because kind of like we've talkedabout When once you get some more detail
and context around this thing and startapplying to it when you're listening
I think your appreciation for it.
Yes as we've talked about can kind oflike blossom and grow which is cool but

(53:17):
like really specifically The knowledgethat there are covers on this album, and
then the ability to go listen to thosecovers first and then listen to these
songs right after that is especiallyhelpful exercise on this record, even,
even more so than other covers that maybe on albums we've talked about in the

(53:37):
past, because everything that me andyou just discussed around the rhythm
will unveil itself almost immediately.
If you just like listen to walking in therain from flashing the pan in 1978, and
then come listen to this version of it.
And you're just like, Oh,the, the base is in charge.

(53:59):
I understand now.
And that'll kind of become a rubric.
I think for a lot ofthe other songs as well.

Kyle (54:05):
Okay I, had you ever heard of Flash in the Pan?
Because I hadn't.

Cliff (54:08):
No,

Kyle (54:09):
So Australian new wave group I think it's worth digging in on this record one
because it's like it's mostly all covers.
So it's rabbit holes.
And you know what that does to me ButFlash in the Pan is a like sort of new
wave spin offy project of this songwritingduo, big songwriting duo in Australia

(54:30):
had some big hits, Vanda and Young.
The Young of Vanda and Youngis the older brother of Malcolm
and Angus Young from ACDC.
So you're like a couple ofclicks from Big Rock, but it's
the songwriter older brother.
But it's an Australian hit, so immediatelyvery cosmopolitan, geographically

(54:50):
far away choice, like Vanda and Youngwasn't like globally, commercially huge,
you know, big in the Western world.
So, shows immediately a bit of, uh,worldliness on Grace's part to like
pull something from down under.

Cliff (55:11):
I'm sorry.
I'm laughing at her pullingsomething from down under.
I would think myself childish wereit not for a song that would closely
follow this one in the track listing.
Oh yeah, so let's just say it out loud.
Yeah, then pull up to the bumper.

Kyle (55:26):
It's not about butt stuff, Cliff.
It's

Cliff (55:28):
It isn't!
Okay.
No, go ahead.
The floor is yours.
I

Kyle (55:38):
She said in an interview at some point in the 21st century,
like, It's not strictly about that.
I don't know what else it couldbe about, but I don't know.
Maybe it was like I didn't setout to make a butt stuff song.

Cliff (55:51):
It's not just the butt stuff.
It's butt plus.
Yeah.

Kyle (55:55):
what was the YouTube video song?
what, what in the butt?
Like this, this song ran,so that song could fly.

Cliff (56:03):
oh, yeah, you've called out this isn't video.
So I, this is another one of thosemoments where I do wish anyone hearing
this audio could, could see the

Kyle (56:12):
Color draining from your

Cliff (56:14):
Yeah.
But, okay.
We, we have a running semi accuratejoke about my general discomfort
as an adult, but growing comfortwith, uh, sexuality and sensuality.
And, listening to this song,it's like, okay, this is so

(56:36):
direct that I feel a little bitconflicted about how much I like it.
And become a little, like, and youbecome a little bit more aware of
like, do I have headphone bleedgoing on around anybody else?
Uh, and if someone recognized this,what would, what would that be like?
so, this song in particular,though, Is such a great example

(57:01):
of the, dead eye stare sensualitythat Grace Jones has, though.
Like, it is both funny and notfunny at the exact same time.
It's sincere and insincere.
And not to really overstate it here,but there's a lyric in there that
just says, I've got room for everyone.

(57:21):
And like, ha ha, and also, what apretty killer statement about her
existence, her contribution to art.
It's, silly and serious at the same time,and I think, like, kind of breaking myself
of, like, it having to be one or the otherand learning to embrace this song and

(57:44):
then what all that just meant, and lettingmyself just, like, enjoy this fucking
record, cause maybe it is, a littlebit more excitable than I'd normally
be myself, and yet, well, I love it.
And I don't have to, like,justify that to myself.
I can just dig theactual song and move on.
And, like, I don't know, maybe no oneelse feels the need to, like, verbalize

(58:07):
what I just did, but, like, betweenthis and no one listening to this knows
what record is coming after this, butbetween this and the next episode,
there's just a lot of me practicing vibesthat I'm not inherently predisposed to
entertain or to be representative of.
And, like, Man, just like learning tolove music and let go, and just let

(58:29):
things come to me, and not have to prefit myself into whether I'm allowed to
like it or not, is a real gift, and comesout by the second song on this record,

Kyle (58:40):
it expands your personhood and, and everyone can find a place
inside, I guess is what you're saying.

Cliff (58:47):
Not everyone, but

Kyle (58:50):
I love that you found the earnest after school special
message and pull up to the bumperlike classic, classic cliff seal,

Cliff (59:01):
you.

Kyle (59:02):
but it also works on the level.
I know I was telling you.
Right before the episode started,I had stumbled across a story
about her and Dolph Lundgren, withwhom she was famously associated.
She made him famous.
one of the cited reasons for theirsplit being Dolph saying he was, quote,
too physically exhausted from all ofhis and Grace's orgies to be able to

(59:22):
fully commit to his acting career.
So Try, try and keep up withGrace Jones on any level.
Try as you may, you will fail mortal man.

Cliff (59:34):
Anytime I call in sick to work, that's the message I send them.
I just let them knowthat's what's going on for
me today.

Kyle (59:40):
Indolf.

Cliff (59:43):
You know, I

Kyle (59:44):
All those nerds you work with already think you're the, the king man.
They already think you're thecoolest guy they've ever met.

Cliff (59:50):
The ones who

Kyle (59:51):
By the way, for the, the, the two people from your day
job that might listen to this.
He's never said anything to thateffect ever, and I think is deeply
mortified inside that that's evenimpliable from what I just said.
I'm picking up on thatfrom stories he's told me.
He would never center himself like that.
Ha ha

Cliff (01:00:12):
Anyone who knows me, and then comes to this podcast, and
then gets deep into an episode,you get what you fucking deserve.
Okay?
So hello, and welcome.
yeah, I knew that we would have a goodlaugh at my awkward sincerity about
this in general, but it's also justlike chronologically important in this

(01:00:33):
album listing because I needed pullup to the bumper so that I could fully
love Use Me, which might be now oneof my favorite songs, like the cover.

Kyle (01:00:45):
Mm.

Cliff (01:00:45):
first of all, I misspoke earlier when I was talking about that Whip song,
it's on Use Me, which has, you know,maybe I should have known this to begin
with, but like, it did not occur to methis was a Bill Withers song to start
with, which, Bill Withers is One, awesome.
Two, like, it's his own cool littlestory, cause like, you know, Use Me

(01:01:06):
would have been a 1972 song from him.
You know, in 1971 he releases a debutalbum and retains his day job, cause
he's like, I don't fucking trust this.
I'm gonna keep being a blue collarworker, even though he's got, you
know, Ain't No Sunshine out there.
And he's like, becoming Bill Withers.
So.
To, to have all this all wrapped up, andit's like, okay, this is a Bill Withers

(01:01:31):
song, where Grace Jones is not only doingsomething interesting musically, but also
doing something interesting, basically,lyrically, by being the person that she
is, singing this same song, which isotherwise from a, it's not the opposite or
the inverse perspective from Bill Withers,but it has, again, because of the, Because

(01:01:54):
of the vibe that has already been laid outon this record, it takes on this quality.
When you're hearing Use Me, and youhear it in the rhythm that you do,
and you hear whips in the background,and then, like, and then they're just
like, oh, here's a funk interlude.
Like, oh, cool.
to me, everything we've done aboutthis record, Is worth it for this song

(01:02:18):
alone and what this has done to mybrain Um because this is this has been
a standout to me And one I really didnot expect to love as much as I did
But once I started comparing it onceagain Once I started comparing it to
covers and trying to listen to what wasdifferent And then also letting myself
embrace the tone of this record man.
Things started opening up for me

Kyle (01:02:41):
Funk break you're referring to is like the synth solo, essentially.
They just groove it for a little bit.
Great synth sound on that.
What sticks in my head about Use Me, I dofeel like I collect it pretty fast because
Bill Withers is a staple in our family.
both of my brothers, oneof their favorite artists.
but when I think about the song, Ithink about the little stabs and the

(01:03:02):
turnaround, the duh, duh, duh, duh.

Cliff (01:03:04):
thank you.
Yes.
Oh my god Nintendo ass shitcoming out of nowhere at you.
I love it so

Kyle (01:03:13):
It's such, they do so many good, weird moves like that on the record that
are just, you know, talk about a lot.
One of my favorite guitarists, AdamTanboos, where like, there's so many
just little moments the turnaround atthe end of a long, like 12, 16 bar riff,
that that's the thing that I remember.

(01:03:34):
I'll just be like driving 40 miles from myhouse and I'll catch the end of something.
And those kinds of things are justconstantly fireworking in my brain.
Cause I can't, I've neverheard anything like them.
And there's a lot of singular soundmoments like that, but that little
one in use me as one of my favorites.
I liked it.
And then I was like, It's bill Withers.

(01:03:56):
Nobody should have touched this.
And then I did about two morelessons and was like, Nope, wait.
That's dope.

Cliff (01:04:01):
It do be like that that is for real what it's like

Kyle (01:04:05):
Bill Withers, not being a white boy aside, but like one of the big takeaways
for me, one of the first notes I madein my notes app was like, she's killing
these white boys on their own songs.

Cliff (01:04:17):
Uh huh.
So then tell me about the next one.

Kyle (01:04:21):
The next one is the title
track.

Cliff (01:04:22):
sir.

Kyle (01:04:23):
so again, uh, your fault if you've gotten deep into a bunch of
episodes, but it, certainly you'veheard at this point the Stooges are
like the punk band that changed my life.
Iggy is a. Iggy and like Prince, Princereally more because of this podcast, but
Iggy, since I was a teenager, like a heroof mine, just as a creative person and a

(01:04:47):
punk and a one of one human in the world.
the solo records that he did withBowie, the German records lust for life
and the idiot, are like huge for me.
And.
Apparently you didn't know thisuntil like the prep for this episode,
but my favorite song on either ofthose records is nightclubbing.
And he's talked about how he andBowie were like drunkenly going for

(01:05:10):
a hoagie Carmichael kind of thing,which is so interesting in that like
going all the way back to the style ofmusic that Grace Jones's grandfather
played and thinking about like weirdbig band influences that Like the DNA
of them got back into this somehow.
but this was a Bowie thing thathe worked with Iggy on in Berlin.
And I didn't catch it quite at first.

(01:05:33):
And like, it's the fucking title track.
Like, of course I should have been like,Oh, any relation to the Iggy thing from
a couple of years earlier than this?
Cause of course there should have been.
but it doesn't clock immediatelybecause it's so her thing.
and I love it, man.
it's her version.
Now I was thinking about Otis and Aretha.
and I was telling you about anIggy performance where they did it

(01:05:53):
together and it was like, Oh, who's.
Who's arrangement are they going to do?
And then within five seconds, it waslike, of course they're doing graces
because she killed him on his song.
Like thinking about Otis, like,Oh, that's all along that girl now.
so it was very personal for me.
So I guess on the flip side, likewhat was, what was your takeaway?
What was your impressionof the title track?

(01:06:14):
Yeah.
But

Cliff (01:06:15):
Two main things.
One, I mentioned this earlier, butthis song feels like walking to me.
And

Kyle (01:06:23):
like in a jilted way.
Like Iggy Pop, like one of yourlegs is a lot longer than the

Cliff (01:06:29):
Exactly.
Which, uh, you can get a littlebeneficial head start if you just,
like, look at Iggy Pop in general.
If you haven't really seen him, like, justsort of like the way his body exists and
moves in the earth.
It

Kyle (01:06:41):
Another, another angular, another person that can be described in shapes.

Cliff (01:06:46):
Yes and maybe one of those people who you might wrongly think
is always intoxicated, uh, and mighthave instead might look that way by
being too sober, that said, like, GraceJones version of it, How do you take
the feeling of walking and add strutand like they did it with rhythm.

(01:07:10):
I'm annoyed at how good it is thatthey just did that little thing and
found a way to make it work and feelrhythmically like aligned with the
idea of what was happening before.
But now mapping it to once again,a very visceral and physical
person who has like a. A shape tothem, like you've talked about.

(01:07:33):
So, there's a lot to love and appreciateabout the music itself, but I also just
enjoyed pushing back into the history thatyou were probably more aware of to begin
with, and finding out things like, yeah,I sort of generically knew that Bowie
and Iggy worked together on these, but Ihadn't really dug into them very much, and

(01:07:55):
certainly wouldn't have found little, kindof, nuggets like, in the original song the
percussion was a drum machine which wasan unusual thing for Bowie to do to begin
with which they sort of used to createthis feeling that we're talking about of
that sort of like mechanical hypnotic paceof thing uh and the the feeling of it the

(01:08:19):
way it feels like it takes place at nightand having a new appreciation for not only
how that song was made then and soundedthen, but also layering in everything
we've talked about in this episode sofar, like how they distinctly took away
then that overly mechanical sensationof a drum machine and use their own

(01:08:41):
form of rhythm to do an iteration of it.
It's just like, To me,this is the coolest shit.
Like, this is when LedZeppelin covers a blues song.
this is just awesome people doingawesome things and leaving you a
hundred easter eggs for your earsto find if you give a shit about it.
And if you don't, fine.

(01:09:02):
It's cool and you'll move on.
So we've

Kyle (01:09:05):
You know, thinking about the struts between the two, I, the thing that I
really like about Bowie's nightclubbingis the sound of the program drums.
but it sounds like.
Walking on your tip toes, it swings.
And the Grace Jones version drags so hard.

(01:09:29):
So like you almost picture somebodyin a bit of a like 1920 suit
and a hat in the Bowie version.
You picture maybe Bowie himself, butthen you picture like somebody walking
like the Grateful Dead Doda man.
for the Grace Jonesversion, just like long.
Wolf cartoon steps justlike, Hey, how you doing?
You know, just inherently differentpostures, but both strutting

(01:09:53):
and, unusual, charismatic ways is

Cliff (01:10:02):
Keep walking into, I've seen that face before and what's interesting
about that one in particular,

Kyle (01:10:10):
that that's libertango.

Cliff (01:10:11):
yeah, which, again, is, I don't want to sound like I'm laying it on too
thick, but they're just several momentson this record on paper that sound real
stupid and like this is one of them likeokay so we are going to take that weird
sort of tango adjacent accordion ishEven though that's not exactly what it

(01:10:38):
is, we're going to sort of take that.
And that's going to sit in themiddle of this grace Jones record.
That's mostly reggae new wave, nothingabout it seems like it's going to click.
And then it 100 percent does.
I'm annoyed at how good the, underlyingsounds of this, uh, original song

(01:11:02):
from we talked about the right wayto pronounce this earlier, so let's
split the difference and see, uh,but tango composer and bandonian
player, Esther Piazzolla, who recordedthis in 1974 in Milan but like.
Man, another great example of somethingthat doesn't seem like it's gonna work,
and then it does, and then the more youlisten to it and try to understand how

(01:11:25):
it works, uh, the more frustrated youbecome at how good it actually works.

Kyle (01:11:30):
You're totally right about the track placement.
I remember a few episodes ago when wewere talking about Corpus Christi Carol on
grace, where it's like, why'd youthrow that on the middle of the record?
And the more you listen to it,you're like, it doesn't kill
it for me at all, actually.

Cliff (01:11:45):
And admittedly, I didn't dive as far into the videos themselves
because I was pretty enamored withthe way that this sounded on its own.
But, this is one of the oneswith real good video to it.

Kyle (01:11:58):
Yeah, there, it's like weird performance art where she's got the
construction paper origami headdress onand then, I don't want to spoil it, but
it is like a nice little performancepiece and you do have to watch all
the way to the end of the video.
Quite good.
couple of other tidbitsthat I loved about this one.

(01:12:19):
Piazzolla, like this is essentiallybordering on a standard, right?
It's and it's like beloved at acountry level and it's an instrumental
famously, and it is performed by likebands, classical groups, orchestras.
It's arranged for that.
So when Grace Jones put words to it.

(01:12:40):
It's probably a little bit of a stretchto say, you know, imagine if the Star
Spangled Banner were an instrumentaland then somebody put words to it.
You know, if Bjork made a songwhere she put words to the National
Anthem where they didn't have thempreviously and didn't just like
really sit in the middle of a record,it would make some people upset.
So Piazzolla apparently, as the legendgoes, was quite angry, and thought that

(01:13:05):
such an adaptation had quote, broken hismusic but then because it was so popular
And more importantly, because he receiveda lot of royalties, he then changed
his tune, found it wasn't that bad anduh, that he could make a lot of money
from it and became a supporter of it.
So that's fun.

Cliff (01:13:21):
to support something.
Not bad.
I make money.
Good.
Love it.

Kyle (01:13:27):
two musical aspects that I really love.
One, I doubt it's a bandonianor as the Migos fan in me
wants to call it a bandoneon.
Um, there's an accordion run.
about three and a half minutes that'sreally dexterous and like everybody

(01:13:48):
sort of under does it like you can'ttell quite how good everyone is as a
player on this record because it's allvery gentlemanly but the accordion run
is one really nice flourish so that'smy favorite musical bit of that song
and then interestingly the bits inFrench Lyrically are worth translating.
The main one translating to whatare you looking for, for death?

(01:14:11):
Who do you think you are?
Do you hate life too?
Which is just like some cool goth shit.
not written by Grace Joneswritten by Natalie Delon, who.
was like an actress and just generallyfamous person, uh, widely known as a, or

(01:14:31):
the muse to the Rolling Stones and thewife of Alan Dillon, one of the first mega
famous international sex symbol actors.
so again, think of this as Grace Jones'sStudio 54 crowd, like all these people
she brought into her orbit by being this.
extraordinary magnetic force.

(01:14:53):
It's not like I brought in abunch of invisible co writers
or whatever on this project.
I just have insanely cool people in myorbit and they contribute some weird
baroque Edgar Allen Poe stuff in Frenchthat I'm just going to casually throw
on as a lyric on top of a ItalianArgentinian tango standard thing.

(01:15:15):
Just Chachi P. T. Can't do shit like that.
Can't put those pieces together.
You know what I mean?
Beeeeeeet up!

Cliff (01:15:26):
One more request to skip since we're doing our rare
kind of track by track bit.
We mentioned feel up if ifthat song excites you i'm
And with exactly that noisein your brain if this cootie

(01:15:46):
go listen to fella cootie now

Kyle (01:15:49):
or if you like the song, drop it like it's hot.
Go listen to Fuel Up.

Cliff (01:15:54):
two very similar things, okay But uh, you know you were just mentioning as
well the the writing done by someone elsefor this record then for the last two
songs, these are both songs written byother people Uh, so demolition man, and
i've done it again both written by someoneelse demolition man written by Sting.

(01:16:17):
Uh, because the song would

Kyle (01:16:18):
The Wrestler?

Cliff (01:16:19):
Hahaha Oh, you've done a thing where now I'm thinking so much about
a Grace Jones WWE Code Orange record.
Anyway.

Kyle (01:16:29):
Or Grace Jones being a WWE superstar, which
would kick an equal amount

Cliff (01:16:34):
See?
Exactly, see now I'm thinkingabout all this I would get into

Kyle (01:16:37):
She'd go 160 and 0 like Goldberg or something.

Cliff (01:16:41):
My mind is a flutter with visuals at
this point.
So Demolition Man would goon to become an actual police
song, a song by the band Police.
And similarly, then, I've Done It Again,uh, was written by Marianne Faithfull.
So, I, I think worth, worth roundingout the sort of, uh, we've talked

(01:17:03):
a lot about shapes already, butthe, the shape of the tracklisting
here, we have a lot of covers.
We have some originals, and then of thoseoriginals, some of them are basically
entirely written by other people.
And so, this is on further reflection.
Like, it, it As much, or maybe muchmore a performance record of Grace Jones

(01:17:28):
interpolating so many things throughherself instead of necessarily, like,
Oh, Grace Jones rewrote covers of thesesongs and here's what they sounded like.
Instead, much more a collaborative effortdespite the iconoclasticness of Grace

(01:17:51):
Jones herself, which I think is a reallyimportant takeaway from a thoughtful,
researched listen to this album.
It is not just Grace Jones.
Copied and pasted insideof a few other contexts.
This was truly a collaborationto let her sort of channel these
things, uh, in her own way.

Kyle (01:18:13):
So Use Me, you said, is your favorite track on the album?
It's Demolition Man for me.
And in another nod to Otis Blue,it reminded me of Satisfaction,
where it was like, it was the Stonesong, but Otis got a hold of it and
like one came out before the other.

(01:18:34):
whoever is it actually wasfirst, didn't put it out first.
sting wrote demolition man forGrace Jones and then was like,
shit, this bangs too hard.
I actually would liketo perform it myself.
and they recorded it and put it onghost in the machine, which came out,
I think like four or five months beforethis, quickly gets eclipsed in my

(01:18:54):
opinion by the nightclubbing version.
but the police's version is.
worth listening to for StuartCopeland's drumming, which is a
propulsive and incredible thing.

Cliff (01:19:06):
To that end, I've given a couple of examples from my side about intentional
approaches to listening to this one.
Just quickly, the, the twoI've mentioned several times.
One is just the bass.
listening to the bass on purpose on everysong will guide you somewhere interesting.

(01:19:28):
And we've also talked about forme the Knowledge and then growing
appreciation of what is being donehere with covers provided me another
way to listen to this where, I mean,not to be too obvious here, but
literally listening back to back cover.
Then Grace Jones, or, you know, original,then cover original, then cover original,

(01:19:48):
then cover and really hearing what'sbeing drawn out on each song and then
thinking a little bit more about howthat contributes to the overall vibe
and what connects across these songs,even though they're so different.
So those are the things that sort ofmade a click for me for you, Kyle.
What are.
With, you know, with a different bed ofknowledge and appreciation going into

(01:20:12):
it, what are some other focuses, ways ofisolating things or ways of thinking about
this music that you'd recommend to folks?

Kyle (01:20:21):
I mean, I think you nailed them.
Absolutely bass.
I go back to Demolition Man.
There's a low, and I don't know if it'sactual bass with pedaling or synth bass.
My money would be on the latter,but it hits a really low.
Almost a Death Grips y thing, like, Rawr,
no no.

(01:20:42):
Uh, and that's another one ofmy favorite moves on the record.
Um, bass for sure.
I love the covers comparison thing.
I think I'm gonna go make theback to back playlists, like,
right after we finish recording.
but then production, which I considerreally, like, post punk y. And I almost

(01:21:03):
wonder, thinking back to Paramore,And how we talked about appreciating
the, the post punk dead drum, reallytight, no air in the mix type of
approach they took on that record.
and like talking heads who also I thinkworked at compass point at some point.
I think in a lot of ways, thatsound comes back a bit to compass

(01:21:28):
point and to records like this.
And I'm thinking all the wayback to Augustus Pablo, which was
not compass point, but it was.
you know, like iconically Jamaica andthinking about the appreciation that
like John Lydon had in his Sex Pistolsand Public Image limited days for,

(01:21:50):
Augustus Pablo and stuff like that.
So just the sonics, to me thisis as pristine a record as
like you're ever gonna hear.
in terms of what you can do withdynamic range, uh, and just like
making everything sound really crispwithout sucking all the life out
of it and pro tooling it to death.

(01:22:12):
I put this up against a Fleetwoodmax rumors for good speaker
check record any day of the week.
So go find the best possible placethat you can listen to this record
in full and appreciate the Sonicsof what compass point and Alex.
The engineer we're doing on this,like they were really in his own

(01:22:35):
musically, but, but sonicallyit's a really killer record too.

Cliff (01:22:38):
So I think.
On top of being.
Pleasantly surprised by how it, atleast for me, it didn't click, it didn't
click and then it definitely clickedand now this is really, really good.
I feel and have felt then a ability toreturn to that initial anxiety in the
sense of Grace Jones was really important.

Kyle (01:23:02):
Yeah,

Cliff (01:23:02):
important in the time, important today.
Uh, important to specific groups of peopleand people who identified in certain ways.
And so, in, as always, a truly sincereattempt to honor that, I think, One thing,
I mean, we always kind of talk aboutthis, uh, at the, the, the back part of

(01:23:24):
an episode anyway, but just dialing in onthe impact of this person, this record,
uh, and then generally, more generally.
Uh, their career, uh, and thingsthat happened before and after.
There is so much to discover andcare about here but I bet between

(01:23:47):
the two of us, we can at least hit ona number of important places to go.
If one of two things has happened, eitherone, you already liked Grace Jones and
have been listening to this in slightdisbelief that we weren't right there
with you the whole time or, on the otherhand, have come along a little bit more

(01:24:07):
on my side of the journey and been like,Yeah, I knew I would be cool with that,
but I didn't know how cool with it I wouldbe, and now I'm really surprised by it.
In any of those cases, thinkingabout what do I do now?
Like this has caughtmy spiritual attention.
Where do I go and what do I think about?
And what can I start looking for next tounearth more of this and appreciate it?

(01:24:31):
as much as any artists that we've covered,I think this will be just an important
next section of where do we go from hereto try to appreciate what's been done.

Kyle (01:24:42):
I agree.
And whereas normally I'll, youknow, hog the section listing a
thousand musical recommendations.
I don't really want totalk about musical stuff.
because as somebody, I saw somebodypoint out on a Reddit thread, like,
why don't we talk about her music more?
Cause it's such a small overallpercentage of the portfolio of

(01:25:02):
her influence, you know, fashion,visuals, artists that I call that.
So I'd love to hear your, you know,where your mind went rabbit hole
wise, but like mine, mine was all, Istarted getting preoccupied with all
the ways she's been influential thatI've never noticed or appreciated.
and like specifically, You can go toa, what seemed like an obvious place,

(01:25:23):
like a Lady Gaga, you know, somethinglike a Lady Gaga couldn't have existed
without a Grace Jones and I, itturns out Gaga feels the same way.
She said, there's nobody Ilove more than Grace Jones.
She's like my personal Jesus.
so that's what's up.
but you know, the, the thing I findreally compelling is the gender of it all?

(01:25:45):
Cause she has an energy that is like,truly, I mean, just Being straight up
non binary or or like fluid or whatever,you know, those words might be hot button
or make Some people feel uncomfortable,but fuck you turn the podcast off.
John, paul goad One of the collaboratorsI mentioned earlier who who shot the

(01:26:07):
photo that became this cover and andhelped define The visual aesthetic that
grace jones had for herself in her mindHelped kind of unlock the like actualized
grace jones that we now know today HeTold the Guardian, he said, I wanted to
focus on Grace's masculinity to use whatother people thought and embarrassment

(01:26:27):
and to turn it around to her advantage.
I wanted to create with her,of course, a new character.
It went beyond just a haircut.
It was an attitude.
It was new and strong and ambiguous.
You didn't know if it was a man trying tobe a girl or a girl trying to be a man.
It was a revolution.
and, Chris Blackwell also said when,like when he signed on to work with

(01:26:49):
her like he said this directly to her.
I thought that you were very strong, butthe music or disco records was getting
weaker and it wasn't who you were.
I thought, well, part of thetrip is that you are scary.
When people thought about you asa performer and your photographs,
the whole image they had ofyou, there's a shock feeling.
I thought, my God, you're Jamaican,whether people are know it or not.
So let's give you a rocksteady, Jamaican bass and drum.

(01:27:11):
Um, I didn't want to lose what TomMoulton had done, but I wanted to
move into what was happening to music.
now that punk and disco had becomemore sophisticated and knowing.
So like, as the world was moving on, Ifind it really interesting that the people
around her were like, no, no, no, no.
Stand in the fullness ofyour thing like you're scary.
Be scary.
You make scary cool.

(01:27:33):
and I like scary is feels likemaybe a reductive word, but I
think in Grace Jones, we see anembodiment of fear of change.
there's truly no one I've ever seenever who looks like Grace Jones, let
alone that carries that energy as well.
So, Like, the gender bit of it and movingbeyond the binary is just a small part of

(01:27:58):
Grace Jones embodies a thing that we'venever seen before in her full humanity,
and she has such a unique opportunity todo that, and whereas the other 99 people
would shy away from that, Grace made ither whole fucking thing, has stood in
it for 50 years of a career, and it'ssuper dope and like you could get into

(01:28:21):
the squishy like wow We're so lucky tohave Grace Jones as a role model as a
creative, you know Duh duh duh to allthese people but like she didn't do it
for that she just did it because what elsewould she have done and there's something
that I love so much about that energyLike not a girl not a man a revolution

Cliff (01:28:39):
Yeah, so now the next time you watch Black Panther and they
make a Grace Jones reference at thevery beginning of that movie, if you
didn't get it before, you will now.
You touched on that reallyeloquently, all of it.
The gender bit definitelycomes to mind for me.
If for no other reason than.
Art like this.

(01:29:00):
I mean, I already carry this opinionaround all the time of just like,
Who the fuck cares what kind ofgender someone else wants to be?
What the fuck is the matter with you?
Who cares?
Like, Just let me know howto say your name or whatever.
Like, cool, dude.
Or not, dude.
Who can whatever.
Uh, I just

Kyle (01:29:22):
Dude, dude, gender neutral.
Do you like cheeseburgers?
Do you want to go geta cheeseburger with me?
Okay, that's all, that'sall that I care about.
Can we, can we go sit andhave a milkshake and talk?

Cliff (01:29:30):
That always feels so ridiculous, but Grace Jones in particular, both
from a visual perspective and thenalso channeling that through the music
itself here, including some of the,you know, maybe lighthearted things we
talked about earlier that are in thelyrics or the vibes here, like Just
watching someone else exist in a statethat doesn't align to everyone else's

(01:29:57):
concepts of gender and then being, likeyou said, not only confident, but scary.
Like, no, no, no.
I'm so here that you could never chaseme away from this position that I'm in.
I'm fuckin Grace Jones.
And I think it's also okay to mention,even though maybe it's a little bit

(01:30:19):
negative you know, you said, you know,she wasn't doing it to be a role model.
Like, yeah, clearly not.
Uh, she really kind of enjoys calling outpeople who ape her in the, like, by name.
Just like, no, no, no, they didn't dothat, I did that, and then they copied me.
So like,

Kyle (01:30:35):
She slapped that guy on the press tour for not paying attention
to her during the group interview.
She doesn't give a fuck, dude.

Cliff (01:30:44):
I think if I got slapped by Grace Jones, I wouldn't get up.
I think that would just be the end.
Like, wha Where, where could I go?
That That That yeah, if anyone'sgonna reach in and rip the heart
right out of your chest, uh, GraceJones could probably be that person.

(01:31:05):
Um, But, just seeing and experiencingthis person's existence and understanding
that it's not all just like, feelgood, I want everybody else to
feel good all the time type stuff.
It's just strong, Scary intentionalityand willingness to be an individual
person, uh, in a way that's inspiring,but then like I'm trying to kind of

(01:31:28):
elucidate here, like just makes the wholegender conversation once again, feel.
Truly and deeply ridiculous, offensivelysilly, that it exists in general, that
anyone has anything to say about it.
Because 45 years ago, here is oneextraordinarily stark example of someone

(01:31:50):
who stands not in between two binaries,but just like, in a fucking field by
herself, that she just calls gender.

Kyle (01:31:58):
she's Jean Claude Van Damme splitting the two trucks.

Cliff (01:32:04):
And like, I, as a extraordinarily normal and boring, white, straight dude,
I Enjoy the opportunity to, like, surf thewave of these vibes when I get a chance
to participate in them, which listeningto this record gives me a chance to do.

(01:32:24):
so, that will continue to be a reflectionpoint, I think, no matter how much
and how I continue to love this recordmoving forward, but it's right there.

Kyle (01:32:34):
I appreciate you putting a finer point on what a waste of time the,
the gender binary conversation is, I'mgoing to start, you know, we've started
calling that Beatles conversations.
I'm going to really like trademark that asa, it's going to be like tune, big bingo,
like, oh, another Beatles conversation,meaning anytime we spend talking about
this would be better served spending timetalking about literally anything else.

Cliff (01:32:59):
huh.

Kyle (01:33:00):
Gender is a Beatles conversation.

Cliff (01:33:02):
yeah, that's going on brand new sentence on reddit

Kyle (01:33:05):
I got a song

Cliff (01:33:06):
conversation.
That's so good
Oh man, the octopus'sgarden has a new meaning.
I'll need to look into now muchless serious note though, another
reflection of her lasting impact isjust I mean, she was on Notorious K.

(01:33:28):
I. M. in 2000, she's been on aGorillaz track, she's been on Beyoncé's
Renaissance, uh, she was on JanelleMonáe's, you know, spiritual awakening
album, Age of Pleasure, on Ooh La La.
Like, she is not Not just cemented asa person like that Lady Gaga thinks is

(01:33:49):
their personal Jesus and not just cementedas, oh, someone who is very important
to modeling, or music, or the 80s, orwhatever, but someone who continues to
be able to, at will, Contribute to activeart, active current art, because other
people want her and she has the ability tojust step in and do that, kind of still

(01:34:10):
blows me away, um, that someone at thatage would still be this actively invited
into new and modern music and would be sohappily received, uh, and it's certainly
not like they're inviting her on to puther in a corner or in a box on the song,

Kyle (01:34:27):
Yeah.
She's still a challenger of modernculture, which is very cool.

Cliff (01:34:31):
so to me

Kyle (01:34:31):
I have no, I have no intention of being that at her age, uh,
nor, nor the capability that shehas, but all the power to her

Cliff (01:34:39):
don't worry I don't think that anyone thinks that me and you are
headed towards a Grace Jones like arcin our later years But yeah, I would
say that those, those were sort oflike the, the simultaneous deep and
consequential appreciation for whoshe was as a person and what she did.
And at the same time then the lighterhearted, I know that I impacted music and

(01:35:05):
I don't mind saying it and I don't mindpointing out when people are copying me
and I don't mind still participating init even though I critique it like those
two different kind of simultaneous viewson time have really helped me to come
to a deeper appreciation of, of GraceJones in general, but then just this
record in particular, uh, and all theways that it plays with the dynamics of

(01:35:30):
time and history and concept, uh, andjust mixes things up in a way that's
never a 50, 50 mixture of any two things.
Uh, it's always some.
Combination of things you really didn'tknow how to calculate before you heard it.

Kyle (01:35:46):
well said.

Cliff (01:35:47):
So you mentioned not necessarily listening out a list of , semi adjacent
artists to go chase down then just sort ofas a result of vibing with this musically.
But, What's another path to chase,like a banner to wave, uh, if I want
to go further into music, uh, and maybemusic and visuals or music videos,

(01:36:12):
if it needs to be that broad, butwhat's, what's sort of something that
I can have in mind as a mantra thatlets me chase a Grace Jones shaped
thing into art a little bit further?

Kyle (01:36:24):
Yeah, well put, because this is a rare instance where I'm a
little stumped saying, here's thenext record you should go listen
to, or here's a playlist of artists.
Like, of course you could go listen toBowie, of course you could chase the
originals of these covers, and thenfractal out from the solo Iggy records,
or, Marion Faithfull, who wrote I'veDone It Again, or, you know, Gary,

(01:36:49):
she covered Gary Newman on the Deluxe,like, Of course you could do that,
but it doesn't, it doesn't chase the,it's like a little too algorithmic.
So, the spirit of this thing is sosingular that I, I like borderline
wouldn't know what to tell people.
That wasn't a disservice.
It didn't feel like adisservice or cheap to me.
The feeling that did linger with methinking about this exercise is her life.

(01:37:12):
And this piece of art shouldbe a motivator to seek out.
More cool.
Like I said, capital C coolto start off this episode.
You should be like, I want thismore of this feeling in my veins.
there was a, great article written bywriter Isabella D'Souza that called
her muse and idol of the avant garde.

(01:37:35):
And I I don't really see peopletalking about avant garde or
invoking that term specifically.
In this day and age, but I think seekingout avant garde and by that, I mean,
things that really push your palate andthere are a few of them on this calendar.
I'm thinking about like Diamante Gallusor we talk about Sun a lot on this and

(01:37:56):
like Sun, Sun and Scott Walker's record,for instance, avant garde palate pushing.
It's a good time when people are allthe way back in their holes in 2025.
To like, be a pusher,be a person that moves.
the world around you forward.
If you give a shit at all about humancreativity, uh, as a vehicle for human

(01:38:18):
progress and flourishing, like you kind ofhave a responsibility to be a person that
pushes things forward and not be like anostalgia trapped fucker that re watches
friends DVD box set every year until youblow up into oblivion and space dust.
So like, Grace Jones is a greatvehicle for I'm going to move

(01:38:38):
forward, not backwards or try to staystill, which is a cosmic fallacy.
it also ties to that idea forme that we talked about with
Buckley about touching grass.
So much of this is about, yougot to go do it in person.
Grace's world, as we've mentioned time andtime again, was filled with personalities
and you've got to go see those.

(01:38:59):
Weird fuckers in person.
You got to go into the cities andyou've got to go to underground places.
Like start with one coolfriend and then Jim Carrey.
Yes, man.
Your way into experiences, algorithmbusting life experiences that you
couldn't have gotten otherwise, which at40 years old, we're only getting better
at, I think, and not slowing down, youknow, finding ourselves in a random

(01:39:23):
dive in Oaxaca with our friends or anyof those strange places in Scandinavia
you find yourself on work trips.
so like get out in person and geta little weird and uncomfortable
because community comes from that.
Just like a person you mightnot have talked to otherwise.
And you can get previews of it digitally.
Like I think I've talkedabout my analog journal.

(01:39:46):
You can watch boiler room sets, startwith Charlie XCXs or Zach Foxes.
If you need like a easy popculture y person as an inroad.
Uh, I also love NTS, Nuts to Soup, uh,one of the best like music discovery
platforms for my money, a DJ setthere, and just like chase after

(01:40:06):
the inner worlds of those people.
And then there's obvious stuff likego to art galleries, go to fashion
shows, just go, do stuff, man.
Just go fucking do stuff in the worldand see things that are like so outside
of your wheelhouse and I you know, ifyou were, if you and I were pushing
40 years old still only going to crosspunk shows, it would, it would be

(01:40:31):
depressing and it's stuff like this.
That's like, oh, thisis where I want to be.
I want to see Andre 3000 play andflute on the floor of a chapel.
I want to see Grace Jones infront of a bunch of weird random
vertical lights doing a monologueabout her upbringing in Jamaica.
I want to see you.
I want to see a person in acoffeehouse plugging a million plugs

(01:40:55):
into a thing, making weird sign wavenoises that are too, too physically
big and oppressive for the space.
it's all stories, man.
Like people like Grace Joneshave a million more stories
than they could ever tell.
And anyone who'd ever want to listen.
And if you want to have stories inyour life, be a person that like
people have interesting shit to sayabout when you die, then you can

(01:41:17):
chase after the feeling that GraceJones and Knight Clement gives you.

Cliff (01:41:20):
Man, I love that.
I want to say a little bit moreabout it because I love how you've
called out this idea of likecapital C cool and chasing that.
Like that, that's been a big takeawayfor me from this, although I hadn't,
you know, kind of conceptualized it theway you verbalized it, which is awesome.
But like capital C cool in thesame way that we, Toondig, Say

(01:41:43):
heavy with a capital H like there.
It is.
It is a feeling about a thing.
It is a sensation.
It's a way of seeing a thing.
And, you know, we've, we talkedabout heavy a lot, um, including in
like little spinoff podcasts and allkinds of stuff, but like heavy is
not just fast or punk or abrasiveor angular, like it's, Challenging.

(01:42:11):
Like, that's more of what we mean by it.
Like, heavy music envelops youand challenges you to listen to
something that might otherwisebe abrasive, uh, on the surface.
But if you can get through it orunderstand it differently, it hits you
in a way that no other form of music can.
And similarly, then, thinking about thisas chasing cool, with a capital C, and

(01:42:37):
going all the way back to my own personalanxieties about understanding this record.
Like, channel the energy andconfidence from Grace Jones.
Like, listen, we are not sendingwhite boys into non white boy spaces
without respects or appreciation.
But like, you also don't need toPre exclude yourself from something

(01:42:59):
that's cool, just because youdon't know if it's for you yet.
Like, learning how to identifywhat is capital C cool, and then
either being willing to appreciateit from the distance, or, in a
case like this, you could havegone to the disco in the late 70s.
You don't have to have somebig ass opinion about it.

(01:43:20):
The fact is, you were welcomein spaces where someone was
doing a capital C cool thing.
And like, to me, just one totally off thetop of the head example is like, Sun Ra.
If you don't know why Sun Ra iscool, This is a good moment to try
to figure out why the fuck Sun Rais cool because Sun Ra is cool in a

(01:43:41):
similar way that Grace Jones is cool.
They're doing something and invitingyou along with it and have tremendous
amounts of confidence about their placein the universe, even though your universe
doesn't really have a place for them yet.
And like, this record, I think is aninvitation for more and more people
to like, not to oversimplify it, butbranch out, you know, sort of like

(01:44:05):
you were mentioning Kyle, like, likebeing, being willing to see, appreciate,
and potentially participate incommunities that might not traditionally
be something you're a part of.
because you understand thatwhat they're doing is cool.
And like, honestly, that's thesecret handshake that you need to
get in the front door of anywherethat's doing anything cool.

(01:44:26):
Anyway, it's just an acknowledgement thatsomething cool is happening and you're
not going to be a huge dick about it.
And like you want to understandmore about it and go see it and
appreciate it for what it is.
And I think, man, Grace Jones.
Is maybe the singular way toget motivated in this regard.
Um, especially if you've neverallowed yourself to kind of

(01:44:47):
be hit by her art in that way.
Like this is somethingthat can truly move you.

Kyle (01:44:52):
Man, hell yeah.

Cliff (01:44:53):
Why don't we just end with this quote from her memoir?
Cause it got pulled out and Ithink it's, A nice little cap on
what we were just saying here.
but Grace Jones says, quote, If you'rea fan of doing the unexpected, and
I am, then it is an advantage to behighly skilled at changing your mind.
And if you do not want to limityourself, then be prepared

(01:45:15):
to change your mind often.
End quote.