Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
best!!, January 2, 2001
grace jones is one of the best ,most underrated vocalists in the music industry.i was only a teenager when i bought this as i stumbled upon "private life" in some b-movie and fell in love with it. this album is her best hands down!! "the hunter gets captured by the game" the smokey robinson song she blows away and her cover of the normal's "warm leatherette" was no small feat either.the band is the same as the other island releases.one cannot help but wonder when listening to this why grace hasn't come back with such a mindblowing return and released an album in so long! all of her albums are good but this one forever remains special due to the vocals and the musicians accompanying her.rock,soul,reggae, and some lounge as well---what else is there?!! a great cd to start with for all curious about the one and only GRACE!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grace !!, September 2, 2004
Grace Jones is one of the most under rated performers I can think of. Perhaps due to her beginings as a "disco" singer, perhaps because she started her career as a model. Who knows....
I personally didn't care for her first three albums ( the disco ones ) , I found them lightweight and forgetable. But when she came back with the Warm Leatherette album, WOW did she ever come back. Her music style drastically changed. This one is all over the place. Rock, dance, reggae, pop, funk. It's got it all. But it flows very nicely. A great party record, even over 20 years after its release, the music still sounds fresh, the vocals are full of passion and fire. One odd thing I have found - the times listed for the tracks on the inner sleeve of the cd list what I think are the original lengths of the songs, and most of the ones on the cd I have are much longer. A minor gripe, to be sure.
Give this cd a try, if you are familiar with Grace Jones you will like it. I see it is currently listed as "out of stock" I hope it's not been deleted by the record company. It is a classic.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best albums of 1980, June 30, 2006
What great albums were released in 1980? This and maybe Pink Floyd's The Wall (and that isn't even the best of Pink Floyd).
This CD is 46 minutes long (I have seen reports that the original LP and CD were shorter, but I don't think that is true). The sound quality is very good to excellent.
Before this, Grace Jones was doing disco and lavish pop songs. (Unlike what someone said, her first 3 albums have been available on CD). These did not suit her voice well at all and were not very successful.....except amoung the Gay community where she became known as the Queen of the Gay Discos.
On Warm Leatherette, Grace transforms to a electronica/new wave style. At the time it was released, it was underground, edgy and subversive. It was at the forefront of the video rock era, being supported with music videos on "underground" TV programs, about a year before MTV was launched. I think that the music still holds up today.
She covers a lot of hits from the day. Her versions are much better than the orignals, and the originals are pretty good. Her version of Love Is A Drug is much better than Roxy Music, which could get to be tedious. She also greatly improves on Tom Petty's Breakout. I am even amazed that she could make Private Life into an even better song than what the Pretenders did with it.
This CD was coproduced by Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare who were big in the raggae scene, along with Chris Blackwell who cofounded Virgin and was big in Progressive and early New Wave
Sound. The music comes off as an electronic hybrid, with lush sounds of progressive rock along with staccato rhythms of raggae. But the music sounds like neither.
There are some lesser parts, like Rolling Stone and Hunter, where the music trends more to her pop days. But, these songs are still fairly good.
As good as the covers are, the really powerhouse is the title track, Warm Leatherette. At the time, 26 years ago, it was so shocking it may have offended some. Today, it may seem tame, but I still think the music and rhythm are explosive.
After this, Jones would continue putting on several very good New Wave/disco dance type albums. But, I still think this is her best.
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by Grace Jones 
