What should we expect from the inimitable Grace Jones after 19 years of waiting? Well, of course a bizarre head-trip with frightening visuals to boot, as always. The first single from the forthcoming album, Hurricane (out on Wall of Sound October 27), "Corporate Cannibal" is actually not as radical as I would have predicted Grace Jones circa 2008 to be. Sure, she's now reached 60 years of age but given her recent public appearances, she has never slowed or toned down her art.
Still a slave to the rhythm, Jones uses a sleek, mid-tempo beat, along with a slithering bass line and a crunching, almost industrial guitar riff, which sounds like leftover material from Massive Attack's brooding Mezzanine album, now a decade old. That's not to call her production dated, but it certainly doesn't live up to her groundbreaking work in the '80s or her label's reputation, which currently boasts the creative minds of Soulwax, Vitalic and Shy Child.
Lyrically and vocally, Grace is on point, as she wisely keeps her voice to a threatening whisper, which is effective in the opening salvo, where she tells her future meal: "Pleased to meet you/Pleased to have you on my plate/Your meat is sweet to me..." This leads into the predictably nonsensical chorus, which is bettered by the backing chant of "I'm a man-eating machine," which we always knew she was. And then there's the coda, which finds the beast in her forcing itself out as she begins to growl viciously.
As trippy and fucked as the skin-stretching video is, it does prevent us from getting a fine look at the gorgeous Amazonian starlet, who seems impossibly camera shy these days compared to her "bare it all, all the time" past. But still, the twisted, monochromatic facade is evidence that she's still looking to warp our minds.
Grace Jones "Corporate Cannibal"
Still a slave to the rhythm, Jones uses a sleek, mid-tempo beat, along with a slithering bass line and a crunching, almost industrial guitar riff, which sounds like leftover material from Massive Attack's brooding Mezzanine album, now a decade old. That's not to call her production dated, but it certainly doesn't live up to her groundbreaking work in the '80s or her label's reputation, which currently boasts the creative minds of Soulwax, Vitalic and Shy Child.
Lyrically and vocally, Grace is on point, as she wisely keeps her voice to a threatening whisper, which is effective in the opening salvo, where she tells her future meal: "Pleased to meet you/Pleased to have you on my plate/Your meat is sweet to me..." This leads into the predictably nonsensical chorus, which is bettered by the backing chant of "I'm a man-eating machine," which we always knew she was. And then there's the coda, which finds the beast in her forcing itself out as she begins to growl viciously.
As trippy and fucked as the skin-stretching video is, it does prevent us from getting a fine look at the gorgeous Amazonian starlet, who seems impossibly camera shy these days compared to her "bare it all, all the time" past. But still, the twisted, monochromatic facade is evidence that she's still looking to warp our minds.
Grace Jones "Corporate Cannibal"
