Digging Our Own Crates: Grace Jones – Slave to the Rhythm
Slave To The Rhythm album on ZTT – one of my favourite albums ever and probably the peak of Trevor Horn’s production work. There are actually two versions of this record with different mixes on each, you can tell by the colour of the titles on the front cover. Great sleeve image too by Jean-Paul Goude. – Kevin Foakes
The first thing you think of when you hear “Grace Jones” may not be music. It’s more likely to recall her androgynous look, distinct fashion, or maybe even her sporadic acting choices. But that is precisely what makes Grace Jones so iconic—she occupies so many spaces and does all of them without flaw. In her 1985 album, Slave to the Rhythm, she makes this iconography clear and challenges this, turning herself into something near mythological by incorporating narrated bits describing Jones’ life and grandiose persona. In one song, she has actor Ian McKaye recite a passage from Jean-Paul Goude’s autobiography, her occasional lover and photographer. He describes Jones as a fantasy muse, admitting, “I am no longer sure what I fell in love with, Grace or my idea of what Grace should be.” This album is her way of acknowledging this severance of identity.
Previous Dust & Grooves collector Kevin Foakes noted two mixes of the record, which furthers this notion of multiplicity alongside the iconic cover of her face cut and elongated. When voice-overs aren’t present, the music is upbeat and danceable, expertly produced by Trevor Horn to incorporate jazz sensibilities with the titular song and stretched into different tracks colored with constant lyrics about rhythm annihilation throughout. In fact, the sung parts of this album are almost entirely about the “rhythm,” with little reflection on anything else. It is as though Jones is trying to directly compare herself with the interworking of the songs, from the bass to the snare. A rhythm, after all, is full of layers and intricacies. At the album’s closing, journalist Paul Morley asks, “Are you the center of the universe?” Jones laughs, “Yes, yes, I’d say so. And you?”
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