Customer Reviews

Warm Leatherette (Reis)

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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!

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.

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.

WARM LEATHERETTE is Grace Jones career defining moment. This one album single-handly transformed her into ICON status. No other album since the 26 years it has been released combined effortlessly R&B, Rock, Funk and Reggae that was rounded off with a splash of New Wave. From the intense energy of LOVE IS THE DRUG (MY FAVORITE GJ TRACK), to the Caribbean-Parisian flavor of PARS, the conviction of songs PRIVATE LIFE and the title track WARM LEATHERETTE, this album proves that image and music do go hand in hand. We are so right now dying for a Grace Jones truimph return! We need her more than ever now in today's boring-one dimensional popular music landscape.

Warm Leatherette caused a stir when released in 1980 as Grace Jones had been a disco singer since her 1977 debut Portfolio through the albums Fame and Muse. The change was drastic as the Jamaican musicians Sly Dunbar & Robbie Shakespeare gave her an innovative blend of rock, dub & reggae on songs by inter alia Chrissie Hynde, Bryan Ferry, Tom Petty, Daniel Miller and Barry Reynolds. It worked; Jones earned the respect of the rock critics whilst retaining her disco devotees.

The disturbing title track, a cover of an obscure single by The Normal, climaxes with the phrase "let's make LUURVE/before we die." Unlike the synth-pop original, Grace's vocal is filled with drama and accentuated by crashing cymbals. This contrasts markedly with her controlled version of The Pretenders' Private Life which bobs by on a bouncy reggae beat over which Ms Jones sings or talks in a scornful tone. The tempo picks up for Roxy Music's Love Is The Drug that gets an almost throwaway treatment with a lengthy, meandering exit.

No Grace Jones album is complete without the ballads. Smokey Robinson's The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game occasionally encounters twittering birdsong as it languidly lilts along. Then the mood changes first to anger on BullXcrement, a forceful protest song shot through with cynicism and dissonant guitars, and then to icy aloofness on the Tom Petty composition Breakdown. The album ends on a tuneful & romantic note with Pars, in keeping with the Jones tradition of a French chanson on every album.

The songs on Warm Leatherette fit her menacing, aloof or romantic delivery like boxing gloves. Grace deserved the acclaim for transcending the club scene and creating this appealing hybrid of New Wave & Jamaican sounds. She would work with Sly & Robbie on two more albums, Nightclubbing & Living My Life, before pursuing the soulful pop found on 1986's Inside Story and Bulletproof Heart of 1989. After a hiatus of nineteen years, Hurricane was released last year on which the dynamic duo once again added magic to the music of Grace.

This is Grace at her BEST! Every song is a treat! She runs the full gamut from one POWERFUL song to the next! From the drama & heavy beat of 'Warm Leatherette' (the title song) to the full rock energy & drive of 'Breakdown' to the sly, wicked, & domineering snarl of 'Private Life' - Grace is AWESOME! There's no one like Grace & these featured songs from other performers quickly become Grace's own! Heeeeere's Grace at her finest! ...

A truly exceptional album, and one that sounds as relevant to the world today as it did then. The songs are a great mixture of rock and reggae, and have an almost magical effect. Love is the Drug at high volume proves this point! Although the later albums Nightclubbing and Livin My Life are good, this album remains the best work of an original gay icon! Buy it: you won't be disappointed.

I have had this album since it was first released. It has never grown old. This is Miss Jones at her best! My favorite is Love is the Drug. What a great tune!

In the late 1970's Grace Jones became something of a Disco Diva as she burst onto New Yorks club scenes with Disco hits such as I Need A Man and Do Or Die. However in 1980 following a new record deal with Island Records, home to various Reggae acts, Jones achieved further mainstream recognition with the superb Warm Leatherette album.

Grace Jones shifted musical direction for the Warm Leatherette (1980) project, divulging into a diverse blend of sounds and styles ranging from Reggae, Rock, New Wave, Funk and Soul. The finished results were some of Jones most compelling recording work.

This album was not least aided by the excellent production skills of Chris Blackwell and Alex Sadkin as well as the startling muscians behind her with Sly Dunbar on drums, Robbie Shakespeare on bass guirtars, Barry Reynolds and Michael Chung alternating on guirtars, Wally Badarou assuming keyboard duties and Uzziah Thompson jamming away on that pounding percussion. Jones inserts effectively through all eight of these inventive recordings as well as providing her own backing vocals.

The title track Warm Leatherette is an electric affair combining a striking mixture of Rock, New Wave and Reggae. Jones sounds even a little playful on the tracks chrous consisting of thrashing guirtar riffages.

Jones fantastic cover version of The Pretenders, Private Life is given a more definitive and unique working over where Jones seemingly scowls through the duration of each verse whilst then singing gently in that raw (though narrow) vocal style she became accustomed to on her next pair of albums. Private Life, encapsulating Reggae and New Wave vibes, deservedly became one of Jones' biggest hit singles in the U.K where it climbed its way to No.17 on the main U.K Top 40 Charts.

The bouncy, Funk-driven A Rolling Stone (which Jones co-wrote) featured Jones delivering a surprisingly more soulful performance whilst her rocking interpretation of Bryan Ferrys' Love Is The Drug is masterful with Jones delivery strong and assertive.

Jones' cover of an old Motown track The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game is instantly infectious with a sturdy lead by Jones and contagious musical arrangements that makes this one of the projects highlights.

Bulls*** is a little bland and silly and is the only real let down of the album though Jones does manage to slightly redeem it by delivering a spirited performance though of far stronger musical merit was the mellower tone of Breakdown, where Jones delivery is seemingly cradled with mixed emotions shifting from shining self-assurance to points of dispair and moments of vulnreability.

Pars conveys the more breathy, seamless quality in Jones voice that rarely surfaced on a lot of her earlier work at Island Records. The mood is more mellow and atmospheric with Jones becoming immersed into the swirling orchestrations.

Warm Leatherette (1980) alongside her subsequent release Nightclubbing (1981) contains some of her the very best tracks Jones ever recorded in her relatively short and somewhat erratic recording career and incidentally also became one of her biggest sellers. Without doubt, essential Grace Jones to fans of this extraordinary and off-the-wall Diva.


Ian Phillips

...this and the "Nightclubbing" CD are from the infamous Compass Point, Nassau sessions..engineered by the great Alex Sadkin. I'd say forget about the so-called debauchery Gracie is supposed to be associated with and like George Micheal sez, listen without prejudice. It is more of a Bahamas romp with rock guitars and without the patois (some reggae purists may have a problem with that, I think)...and it is jamming. Well ahead of it's time and unjustly underrated.