Nightclubbing (Grace Jones album)

Jones was a popular fashion model and Studio 54 habituée before starting her recording career. Her first three albums "were heavily influenced by disco and cemented her presence in the club scene." These records "operated around the camper end of the spectrum," and built a large gay cult following around the singer. When her 1977 rendition of Edith Piaf's "La Vie en rose" was an international hit, she caught the interest of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. He sought to "treat her not as a model, but to involve her as a musician", and wanted "her to feel as though she were a member of a band, and record her the way bands used to make albums, with the singer and the players doing their thing all at once." Blackwell had been impressed by Black Uhuru's 1980 album Sinsemilla and, along with engineer Alex Sadkin, decided that Jones' new sound should take elements from that record's sonority. The recording sessions "moved with disarming speed and ease"; Blackwell recounts: "If Grace or the group hadn't nailed a song by the third take, it was dropped and they'd move to the next number." Although the band was initially called upon in early 1980 to work on a single album, they ended up recording far more material than could fit one LP. As a result, these sessions resulted in two studio albums: Warm Leatherette – released in 1980 – and Nightclubbing. Final overdubs and additional songs were recorded during 1981. Wally Badarou has recognised Jones' active role in the sessions, stating: "Grace was there even during most instrumental overdubbing sessions. She was a part of the sound and the spirit that came out almost from nowhere. We all knew we were in for something quite experimental." ==Composition==

Style Continuing the orientation of Jones' previous release Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing is a pop album that forays into new wave and dance. A post-disco album, It features a distinct sound that also incorporates rock, funk and post-punk music. The Style Con's Erich Kessel felt the album was an influential exponent of art-pop. The influence of David Bowie (who co-wrote the title track) was also noted by Joe Muggs of Fact. Two of the album's tracks, "I've Done It Again" and "Demolition Man" were written specifically for Jones to record on Nightclubbing. The latter song was written by Sting and would also be recorded in a more uptempo style by his band the Police for their album Ghost in the Machine, released six months after Nightclubbing. The remaining three new compositions on the record were all co-written by Jones. "Pull Up to the Bumper" began as an instrumental track by the Compass Point Allstars rhythm section Sly and Robbie (credited on the track under their collective alias "Koo Koo Baya"), and provisionally called "Pour Yourself Over Me Like Peanut Butter". Jones's friend, singer Dana Mano, came up with the song's new title, which inspired the two women to write a set of suggestive lyrics for the track. Despite this, Jones denied that the lyrics were explicitly sexual, insisting that she felt the words were just written to suit the music, but stated that she was happy to accept whatever interpretation someone might put on the lyrics, saying, "I don't want to sing sweet things, though I don't mind sweetness so long as it has a little sour meaning underneath". Jones admitted that "Art Groupie" was highly autobiographical as many of her boyfriends had been artists and she was attracted to the whole art scene. ==Artwork==

Cover Nightclubbings famous artwork is a 1981 painted photograph titled Blue-Black in Black on Brown, created in New York by Goude. This was the singular image that accompanied the original LP, as it "was concealed in a plain, black inner sleeve, no lyrics and with no photo on the back cover." Composed by right angles, the photograph shows Jones cut to waist, bare chested, and dressed in an Armani man's wide shouldered suit, with an unlit cigarette aiming downward from her lip. She is shot with her signature flat top haircut and her chest bones showing; her dark skin confers upon the image a violet, blue-black colour. The image is noted for its androgyny, with Jones not only "[unpicking] some of the boundaries of unconventionality, but [choosing] to confuse such boundaries." Piers Martin of Uncut felt the cover was "arresting", and wrote: "the indigo mood, cool gaze and cigarette suggested Marlene Dietrich, the gender-bending a touch of Bowie." Writing for DIY, Simon Russell Beale listed the album cover as one of the greatest of all time, highlighting Jones' "smouldering noir-bisexuality". Graphic designer Storm Thorgerson included the picture in his 1999 book, 100 Best Album Covers. Moreover, American Photo placed it in its list of The 30 Best Album Covers. NME included it in its list of 20 Original Album Covers That Are Actually Works of Art, with the entry reading: "Can any other artist boast as many iconic album covers? Grace is a work of art herself, as are the covers for Island Life, Slave to the Rhythm and Living My Life, but best of all is the louche image of Nightclubbing by Jean-Paul Goude, part Tretchikoff's Green Lady, part the best advert for smoking you've ever seen." Time Out listed the image as one of the "sexiest album covers of all time", with Brent DiCrescenzo writing: "[Grace Jones] was a work of art, a statue." According to i-D, "it was a series of consistently stellar album artwork that helped propel [the singer] from musician to icon." The artwork was held in display at the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Italy, as part of the 2016 So Far So Goude exhibition, focused on the French artist. Video According to Barry Waters of The Pitchfork Review, "Jones' singular appearance and meticulously crafted presentation made her a natural fit for the burgeoning music video medium, especially in its early, experimental days." Nelson George, reviewing the release for Billboard in early 1983, called it "one of the more fascinating and defiantly visual concert videos yet produced." According to Ernest Hardy of CraveOnline, the film "seamlessly blends cabaret, performance art and underground nightclub cool." ==Release==

Nightclubbing became Jones' chart breakthrough and remains one of the greatest commercial triumphs of her entire career. It entered the top five in no less than four countries, and became the singer's highest-charting record on the US Billboard mainstream albums and R&B charts. The album brought Jones from being a former disco diva with a loyal cult following but dropping sales figures to an international star with mainstream chart success. It later formed the basis of her groundbreaking concept tour A One Man Show. Universal Music Group re-released the album on vinyl in 2009. Release of a two-disc deluxe set, containing most of the 12" single versions of singles, plus two unreleased tracks from the Nightclubbing sessions, occurred on 28 April 2014, and Jones enjoyed a UK top 50 chart placing the following week – her first since 2008. To promote the album, Jones appeared on various TV shows in 1981, including the French Palmarès, the Spanish Esta noche, and Aktuelle Schaubude in West Germany. ==Singles==

The lead single from the album was "Demolition Man". The single was not a commercial success and did not chart, although would later become one of Jones' signature songs. "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)" was released as the second single and became one of the most commercially successful songs in Jones' repertoire. It secured top 20 positions in several European countries and became another signature song for Jones. The R&B-dance track "Pull Up to the Bumper" was a quick follow-up to "Libertango". It met with a great success on the US club market, but turned out a modest hit in Europe upon original release. The song would re-emerge in Europe in 1985 as a major success, especially in the UK, where backed with "La Vie en rose" it became one of Jones' highest-charting singles in that country. "Use Me" and "Feel Up" were then released as singles, but were unsuccessful in the charts. The final single off Nightclubbing, "Walking in the Rain", was a minor chart success. ==Critical reception==

In the UK Adrian Thrills of NME said, "I spent an otherwise-miserable weekend afternoon with the sound of Grace swirling around my little earphones, grooving on songs effortlessly sung but put together with a jeweller's eye for detail", and stated that the musicians "combine to etch out a shifting, soulful surface, an exotic ice-water backdrop for Grace's vocal veneer", noting that "the only times Grace seems ill-at-ease are as she swops Trenchtown patois with, presumably, the sharp-lipped Sly and then tries to rock out on Sting's 'Demolition Man. Deanne Pearson of Smash Hits said that Jones' voice has "neither range nor power", but "the arrangements and production almost make up for this." Record Mirror critic Simon Ludgate found that Jones transcends her vocal limitations through "her character and sense of the surreal". Andy Kellman of AllMusic praised the album in a retrospective review, stating: "Sly & Robbie provide ideal backdrops for Jones yet again, casting a brisk but not bristly sheen over buoyant structures. Never before and never since has a precisely chipped block of ore been so seductive." Mark Coleman wrote in The Rolling Stone Album Guide that Sly and Robbie's introduction of new wave rock to Jones and the "throbbing polyrhythmic" covers of rock songs suited her better than the Edith Piaf-meets-Barry White routines" of her records. Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic. He was unmoved by Jones' own songs and said while the covers on Warm Leatherette were superior to the originals simply because of her "weird force of personality", she could not match "Use Me" and the title track. Nightclubbing continued to gather favorable reviews with the release of the deluxe edition in 2014. Andy Beta from Pitchfork labeled the album's reissue as "Best New Reissue", describing the album as "the record that further cemented her iconic status in pop culture". He also stated: "She treats each cover not as a singer tackling a song, but as an actor inhabiting the skin of a role". Mojo called it "probably the greatest of Grace Jones' Compass Point trio". Uncuts Piers Martin called Nightclubbing "the album that came to define Jones as the complete performer, in her own way, as singer, muse, actress, alien and androgyne. Its sound, a sublime mix of reggae, funk, new wave and disco, was as arresting as its cover image... No one had seen or heard anything quite like this". In Record Collector Kris Needs said that "Nightclubbing still sounds like nothing else released during the 80s, though its colossal influence repeatedly reveals itself". John Harris of Q wrote that "the music on Nightclubbing is as stripped-down and full of space as Jones's froideur demanded. Then again, when it evokes more emotional qualities, it also triumphs." ==Legacy==

, 2011. Nightclubbing distinctive amalgamation of rock, funk, post-punk, pop and reggae set Jones apart from other musical acts of the 1980s. It is considered one of the early convergences of "fashion, art, and music". According to Pitchforks Andy Beta, it "altered the face of modern pop". He further argued that the album's musical and visual influence is easily palpable in the musical landscape of the 21st century, specially among female musicians such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Grimes and FKA Twigs, among others. Miriam Kershaw positioned Jones "not as a singer or a diva, but as a piece of art", and argued that she "worked to destabilise racist and sexist clichés as she charted a dynamic course through the history of the Black diaspora, to celebrate its vibrant contemporary form." It also appeared in the year-end lists of Sounds, Rockerilla, OOR, The Face, Melody Maker and NME – the latter considering it the best album of 1981. Slant Magazine listed Nightclubbing as the 40th best album of the 1980s, with Henderson writing it "performs double duty, building up the singer's legend even as it makes attempts at deconstructing it." NME included the album in its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, with its entry stating: "A glimpse into the sordid disco depravities behind the velvet rope at Studio 54, Nightclubbing and its standout smash "Pull Up to the Bumper" shunted new wave, reggae and disco firmly into the seductive neon '80s with a single arse/car metaphor." The Guardian listed Nightclubbing as one of the "1000 albums to hear before you die". Accolades ==Track listing==

Notes • The two-disc deluxe remastered version states that the writer(s) of "If You Wanna Be My Lover" is unknown. • Tracks 11 and 12 on the deluxe edition's second disc are previously unreleased. • Track 10 on disc two is an instrumental version of "Pull Up to the Bumper" performed by the Compass Point All-Stars. • Track 13 on disc two is a Spanish version of "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)". ==Personnel==

Credits adapted from Nightclubbing's liner notes. Musicians • Grace Jones – vocals, backing vocals • Jess Roden – vocals • Masai Delon – vocals • Tyrone Downie – keyboards, vocals • Wally Badarou – keyboards • Jack Emblow – accordion • Monte Browne – rhythm guitar • Mikey Chung – guitar • Barry Reynolds – guitar • Robbie Shakespeare – bass guitar • Sly Dunbar – drums, syndrums • Mel Speller – percussion, vocals • Uziah "Sticky" Thompson – percussion Production • Chris Blackwell, Alex Sadkin – production • Ted Jensen – mastering ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications and sales==