Grace Jones - Force Of Nature (2001)

Following the release of Grace Jones' 1989 album 'Bulletproof Heart', she made several comeback attempts throughout the 1990's, including the aborted 'Black Marilyn' project in 1994, but her next full-length record would not appear until almost two decades later. In 1996 she released the 'Love Bites' single, which was taken from the Sci-Fi channel's Vampire Week special, and in 1997 she started a collaboration with trip-hop producer Tricky and his Durban Poison label, recording tracks for an album to be called 'Force Of Nature', with a proposed release date of 1998. The first results of the partnership were 'Cradle To The Grave' and 'Clandestine Affair', but due to heavy disagreements between Jones and Tricky, the album was never completed, and only a scarce white label 12" single featuring two DJ Emily mixes of 'Cradle To The Grave' slipped out. To date, these are the only tracks to ever have surfaced of the three or four that they had apparently finished (Jones once said three, Tricky reportedly alleged four) from their sessions, and 'Cradle To The Grave' was later to be re-recorded as the title track to her 2008 album 'Hurricane'. Tricky himself had also previewed another version – one which he had remixed himself on a radio show that he hosted in September 1999. Despite the apparent demise of her partnership with Tricky, there still seems to have been some resurgent interest in Jones' career at the turn of the millennium, as she appeared with Lil' Kim on 'Revolution' from her album 'Notorious K.I.M', while a remix of 'Pull Up To The Bumper' by Funkstar De Luxe became a top 5 hit on the Billboard Club Charts in November 2000. In 1998 she'd re-recorded the classic 'Walking In The Rain' from her 'Nightclubbing' album, but of all the one offs she did during this time, her finest would have to have been 'Storm' from the soundtrack of the ill-received 1998 'Avengers' movie. With its epic orchestration and Jones' larger-than-life cinematic presence, 'Storm' sounded like the the Bond theme that she had never been given. Having signed a record deal in 2000 with an emerging web-based company, MCY.com (with planned distribution by EMI), things seemed to be looking hopeful once again. A prominent press interview with The Independent gave hints to an imminent album release, with appearances being cited by the likes of Roni Size, Stevie Wonder, and P. Diddy (or Puff Daddy, as he was known then). Around mid-2001, there were also some reports mentioning that 'Storm' producer, Marius De Vries had been enlisted as a co-producer on the project, but not long afterwards hopes of an album release seemed to be dashed with the project appearing to be all but scrapped. She did issue the single 'The Perfect Crime' in 2000, which was featured in the Danish crime thriller 'Rejseholdet', and in 2001 two performances from her character Christoph/Christine were included on the soundtrack to the TV film 'Wolf Girl' (a.k.a. 'Blood Moon'), but it was to be another seven years before she released the 'Hurricane' album, to generally positive reviews. Much of her music which was recorded during this fairly quiet period of her career is too good to be forgotten, and so by taking the best of her singles, collaborations, lost sessions and soundtrack offerings, we can piece together a pretty good album from just before to just after the millennium, with another earlier soundtrack contribution tagged on the end as it seemed to fit the loose 'vampire' concept.    

Track listing 

01 Cradle To The Grave (from the 'Force Of Nature' sessions 1997)
02 Love Bites (from Sci-Fi Channel's 'Vampire Week' 1996)
03 World Of Wonders (from the soundtrack of the film 'Wolf Girl/Blood Moon' 2001)
04 Revolution (from 'Notorious K.I.M.' by Lil' Kim 2000)
06 Storm (from the soundtrack to the film 'The Avengers' 1998)
06 Clandestine Affair (from the 'Force Of Nature' sessions 1997)
07 Walking In The Rain 1998 (re-recording 1998)
08 The Perfect Crime (from the Danish TV show 'Rejseholdet' 2000)
09 Two Sides To Every Story (from the soundtrack of the film 'Wolf Girl/Blood Moon' 2001)
10 Vamp (from the soundtrack of the film 'Vamp' 1986)

Grace Jones - Black Marilyn (1994)

In 1993 Grace Jones released her #1 Billboard Club Hit 'Sex Drive', which was a cover of Industrial duo Sheep on Drugs' 'Track X'. It was produced by Mark Pistel and Philip Steir, two-thirds of activist rap/industrial group Consolidated, and was a blistering, snarling return to form, especially after her largely disappointing major label liaison in the late 80's with Capitol Records. A return to Island Records seemed to re-invigorate her, and the b-side to the single was equally as good, with 'Typical Male' being a cover of a track which Consolidated originally did themselves, and which was a searing feminist indictment of patriarchy, and who better to deliver such a statement than one of the most feared women in pop culture. Despite the positive reception to the 'Sex Drive' single, the 1994 album project that was to supposed to follow, which was to have been called 'Black Marilyn', with cover art drawn from the title, encountered problems which preventing it ever seeing the light of day. The album had been completed, with Consolidated coming in to produce the whole record, but Jones found that she couldn't stand listening to it, and she then started taking drugs, mixing downers and uppers just to kill the pain of the process. After the aborted 'Black Marilyn' project, she seemed set to return once again with her much touted collaboration with Tricky and his Durban Poison label, reported in 1996 and plugged further a couple of years later by Brian Chin, yet by the end of the 90's that collaboration seems to have effectively collapsed amid rumours of creative differences and irreconcilable demands. Of the tracks recorded for the 'Black Marilyn' sessions, only one survives alongside the two single sides, and although we have titles for others, such as 'Freak Show', 'On Your Knees', 'The Key To Funky', and 'The Flight Of The Doves', they all seem to be lost. However, despite only releasing two singles in 1993, Jones still kept very busy, recording songs for film soundtracks and collaborations, and so an enterprising fan has collected together all the songs that were recorded around the same time as the 'Black Marilyn' sessions, to make up for us being unable to hear the actual record.  

Track listing

01 Sex Drive (from the 'Sex Drive' maxi single)
02 Evilmainya (from the 'Freddie as F.R.O.7.' soundtrack)
03 7 Day Weekend (from the 'Boomerang' soundtrack)
04 Typical Male (from the 'Sex Drive' maxi single)
05 Still Life (from 1991's Sanremo Music Festival)
06 Volunteer (leaked track from the 'Black Marilyn' sessions)
07 Let Joy And Innocence Prevail (from the 'Toys' soundtrack)
08 Victim (from the disco sessions recorded with Tom Moulton)

Grace Jones - In Dub (1986)

In 2011 Grace Jones issued a dub version of her return-to-form 2008 album 'Hurricane', but this was not the first time that she'd gone down the dub route with her music. The 12" version of her 1982 single 'My Jamaican Guy' featured a dub take titled 'J.A. Guys', and a promo sampler of 1998's 'Private Life' included an exclusive dub mix as well, while 'She's Lost Control', which was one of the b-sides of 'Private Life', was also given an extended dub version. The 12" version of 1986's 'Crush' included both an extended remix and a dub take, and while not strictly speaking dub versions, 1985's 'Slave To The Rhythm' was given en extended Hot-Blooded remix, and her 1980 single 'Love Is The Drug' was given an extended re-issue in 1985. As all of these takes clock in at around the eight-minute mark, you only need half a dozen of them to be mixed together to make a great 46-minute album, which is exactly what I've done, and as some of these versions are now quite hard to track down then I think the album stands up as a tribute to the superb musicianship from such luminaries as Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar on the Compass Point recordings, and the remixing skills of Trevor Horn, Steve Thompson and Alex Sadkin.      

Track listing

01 In Dub (featuring Slave To The Rhythm / J.A. Guys / Private Life / She's Lost Control /

                                                                                                           Love Is The Drug / Crush)