 Grace Jones performed at a hotel near Cairns earlier this
year. Reports say she behaved as she always does; that is, like a drag queen
from Mars. But the story got me thinking about her album, Slave to the Rhythm.
There are perfect albums for particular moments and Slave to the Rhythm is one of them. It’s
meditative, repetitive, hypnotic. Apart from the music, Jones is interviewed
about her behaviour and her appeal; an actor reads from her biography. It’s
completely self-absorbed, but it works because the title track and its many
permutations draw you into Jones’ cold, cocaine world. Even the silence on the
record sounds like 1985: AIDS is hitting hard, the party’s over. You can dance
if you want to, but you should listen, too.
After writing the first part of this, I found some Depeche Mode albums on my lap top. I dumped a whole lot of stuff there once
off a friend's hard drive and still discover things cached away.
Depeche Mode are right up there
with Grace Jones in the self-reflective/narcissistic stakes. Their seventh
album, Violator, is about personal struggle – giving up to temptation, resisting temptation – the struggle of lead singer
Dave Gahan (pronounced ‘gone’) with drug addiction and his growing fame. Unlike Jones, Gahan can sing, and his vocal in ‘Waiting for the Night’ is sublimely sad, despite being washed with oceans of reverb. I was hung-overly feeling sorry for myself when I
listened to Violator, and I think my condition fed into my appreciation. The day was freezing, it had rained then stopped and the sun was non-committal. It alternately glazed the window with light, struggled, and greyed out: light to dark, dark to light. Violator was the perfect album for
that moment.
I know someone who once organised her CD collection under the influence, doing it by colour. She
told me you can remember the colour of CDs. I said I can remember the colour of CDs I like. Another way to categorise music would be mood.
Perhaps I’ll give it a go, filing under ‘Mild Depression’, ‘Cautiously Optimistic’,
‘Nobody Loves Me’, 'I Need A Fuck', ‘Things Are Fantastic’, etc.
Or you try it.
I just finished alphabetising mine. It took me two hours and by the end of it my back was breaking, my hands were grimy and I was squinting from trying to read CD spine micro-print. Talk about slave to the rhythm.
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