Crap Mondays: Not-So-Great Jones
"Wait, this was a single?" I said outloud (to myself, no doubt) when I saw the promo 12" for Grace Jones' "7 Day Weekend," while used-record shopping. After listening to the Ben "Hackmaster" Liebrand house mix of this, the very worst track on 1992's temporarily unstoppable Boomerang soundtrack, I was so tempted to buy the vinyl, impressed with its sheer awfulness. I didn't, which was totally shortsighted, since it would totally be the scourge of your ears today. Instead, I'm presenting the album version, which is better than the remix in the same way that having your fingers chopped off is better than having your fingernails pulled out.
Maybe there's some kind of desperation to appreciate in a 44-year-old sometime-model's foray into new jill swing (a musical form that was aging, itself), but Dallas Austin's production is so generic and the mastering is so murky (you're hearing direct-from-CD rip, if you can believe it) that it's just about impossible to discern anything except embarrassment (the cherry on ha! is the disclaimer on the back of the CD stating that the song doesn't even appear in the film!). "Let me show you how to ease my tension / Use your body and soul / Just how far will I go?" to which I say "Ew" and "I don't care," respectively. Grace clearly is channeling the Helen Strangé character she played in the film, but she isn't even allowed to get nasty as this necessitates (really, five minutes of "Pussy, pussy, pussy," would have been far more entertaining than this uncomfortable aspiring to a 168-hour orgasm). Sad and ugly, "7 Day Weekend" does nothing but show Jones' age, painting her as a new jack Blanche Devereaux. Gross.
if grace is forty-four now, then she was twelve when she took a fall at limelight - and ended up in a hip cast - while on tour with her brother christian. this was at least a year after her first florida tour, which means she must have been about nine or ten when in the european cast of 'hair'. um. i'm just sayin'.
Posted by: Baz | June 24, 2005 at 04:27 PM
yeah, ok. it's an old track.
Posted by: baz | June 24, 2005 at 04:32 PM
Grace jones was born in 1948
she is 58 now not 44
:P
Posted by: BLACK MUMBA | December 01, 2006 at 10:23 PM
I actually enjoyed that song... I mustve been liiike about 10 years old, but I thought it was cool and it Should have been in the movie... THis was definately an extension of the Helen Strange character... who was so cool.
Posted by: Amos | March 30, 2008 at 05:29 PM