Adventures in Vinyl: Inside Story - Grace Jones

For over a year now we’ve been bona fide vinyl listeners, a hobby spurred on by the dual forces of a more refined, nostalgic form of music appreciation and the ever-present desire to uphold fundamental hipster values. We’ve accomplished quite an impressive joint collection, helped by eBay, charity shops and the few record shops still operating in the world. Most recently, we found ourselves in Amoeba Records on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a store which proudly professes to be the largest independent record store in the world. We’d probably believe that, as the photos below don’t even begin to show a quarter of the space – it can be best described as a warehouse of vinyl. Among the gems we found was Inside Story, a 1986 album from Ms. Grace Jones. The only material of hers we’d previously been familiar with were the greatest hits, Island Life, and her 2008 masterpiece Hurricane, so it was interesting to hear stuff from an era we were completely unfamiliar with. Finding brand new albums through vinyl is something remarkably easy to do once you have a player, mostly because of how cheap they are due to the lack of mainstream appeal the format now holds. For example, Inside Story was perhaps $5?

So ladies and gents, we’d like to welcome you to a new Shiny & New feature. Tentatively titled Adventures in Vinyl (we’ll change it as soon as we think of a less cheesy/clichéd name), we’ll use it as a way of writing about exciting albums we’ve discovered exclusively through vinyl. It’s becoming increasingly exciting to happen upon an album, whether it’s one from an artist we were already fans of, or simply because the artwork was fabulous, and then to take home and play in the background. When our ears prick up and our feet start to move, well then we know we’ve struck gold.

Inside Story at first glance seems to be one of those vanity albums produced by fading stars eager to try out a different genre or stick rigidly to a particular style in the hope that they’ll have a Diana Ross diana moment. The LP was produced solely by Nile Rogers off-of Chic, Rose Royce and Like a Virgin and sticks Grace firmly in 80s pop synth glory. We’d not previously heard of any of the tracks, Grace having not performed them live recently or featured them on compilations, but the listening experience was a pleasurable one. The lyrics are varyingly substandard, with repetition being the most trusted technique, but the music is electrifying (thanks Nile) and the final product ends up as one of those albums you could play in a club start to finish. While the pace slows down considerably for mid-tempo tracks like "Victor Should Have Been a Jazz Musician" the fire and fury in opener "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)" is pure Jones - the definition of assertive sexual intimidation. Even the cover is Grace in the electronic 80s but not budging with that icy glare.

We’ve got a few more vinyl discoveries coming up – Cyndi’s True Colors and Prince’s 1999 for starters – but in the mean time, we couldn’t stress enough how enjoyable the listening experience is of putting a plastic disc in a box and hearing the warm, soothing soundwaves come from something far more inviting than your garden variety tinny laptop speakers. People rave for a reason!