I think the people at the late, much lamented BlairMag (linked above) summed up best what was so damn appealing about a trio of barely-talented girls in their underwear, dancing slightly out of time. While Vanity 6 (renamed from their original moniker The Hookers in a rare case of Princely restraint) were ostensibly built around Vanity aka Denise Matthews, it was white trash dynamo Brenda who stole the show, along with your wallet. And your heart!
Poor Susan didn't get much play, thanks to her razor-thin "singing" voice, which was basically her talking in a "sexy" whisper. Even in her one spotlight tune, "Drive Me Wild", watch Brenda in all her gum-snapping glory steal the show, literally from behind Susan's back:
Brenda, however, got the straight-ahead New Wave treatment for her lead vocal tune, "Bite the Beat". A real Flying Lizards meets The Nails "88 Lines About 44 Women" vibe permeates the song, showcasing Prince's obvious love for New Wave at the time. Bite the beat, indeed.
Meanwhile, all the coke must have gone to poor Denise/Vanity's head, because she split from the Paisley camp, turning down the female lead in Purple Rain, instead choosing to sign to Motown and star in The Last Dragon, which gave us this mess:
Oooh, Vanity must'a done bumped her head. Speaking of messes, Motown was able to give Vanity something that Prince couldn't, namely a single that actually charted, the not-subtle-at-all "Pretty Mess", a song that interestingly enough, never surfaced during all the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky brouhaha.
Brenda and Susan soldiered on with Vanity-Lite Apollonia, who, despite being purified in the waters of Lake Minnetonka, was a little short on the charisma meter. One album and gone. Now if BRENDA had gotten a solo album, we'd all be writing blog posts to this day dissecting her influence on an entire generation of bastard-bearing, Cheetos-eating, barefoot-bathroom-going-in-7-11s girls. Hey, Britney! Remake "Nasty Girl!" There's your comeback advice.
You're welcome. Can ya dig it? Click.
"Pretty Mess" peaked at #75 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at #13 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play Chart in 1984. None of the other songs charted.
Vanity 6 or the Jill Jones 1987 CD are pretty much the Holy Grails of out-of-print Prince items. You can find Vanity 6 on Amazon, but you're gonna pay.
Hey, did you know Sunday, August 12th is Vinyl Record Day? Me neither, until I was invited by the lovely jb over at The Hits Just Keep On Comin' to participate in a "blogswarm" to mark the occasion. Any regular reader of this site knows the amount of time I spend getting my fingers nice and dirty flipping thru old, musty album covers at a variety of used record shops nationwide, so how could I resist? (By the way, always bring Purell when record shopping.)
So, where do you find the good vinyl? Depends on what you're looking for...if you have a specific want list, you can't go wrong with good 'ol eBay or GEMM, but it's gonna cost ya. If you're patient and you enjoy the thrill of the hunt, there's a used record shop or thrift store in just about every town. Since I'm lucky(?) enough to live near Los Angeles, trips to Amoeba Records are a regular monthly thing for me.
As you can see from this shot taken from the DVD-centric second floor, Amoeba LA is huge. Huge. This very hugeness also results in huge crowds, competing for the same scarce vinyl goodies. While the selection here is immense (and is just as big at their Berkeley and San Francisco/Haight locations), it does tend to be much of the same stuff, mostly mainstream, not too tough to find things like, say, the original 12" of Bronski Beat's "Hit That Perfect Beat" as opposed to a 12" of "Why". That said, I don't think I've ever paid more than $3.00 for a single album from Amoeba, so they definitely beat auctions for value.
Plus, you can find things like the second English-language Nena album:
...or a classic from Homo Picnic (I dunno, either):
I prefer to treasure hunt in more obscure Mom & Pop record stores, which seem not only to have survived this post-Napster/file-sharing music biz, but are thriving. Some are pretty shoddy - records filed any which way with no rhyme nor reason, lazy clerks who glare at you for interrupting their texting session, etc. But there are some gems, like Dizzy on Vinyl in Long Beach (my hood!), where the owner, whom I know only as "Hey, guy!" keeps a snappy, well-organized shop, complete with separate "80s" and "80s 12-inches" sections. Talk about playing to the crowd. I'd link to his site, but he doesn't have one, he's so old school!
It's at Dizzy on Vinyl where I can get lost for hours, flipping thru bin after bin of vinyl, wearing my knees out from squatting down to flip thru milk crates of records on the floor. And it's in these less-traveled locales, you'll find unparalled treasures like the electro-hip-hop classic from 1986, "Vanity, I Want To Be Your Bodyguard":
Yes. Oh, yes. Find THAT anywhere else. And yes, it's exactly what the title says it's about. A guy (credited as Fabulous Freddie Star on the label) with a hard-on for Vanity. It may be safe to assume that will never make it to CD. Viva vinyl!
Speaking of never making it to CD, Dizzy on Vinyl is where I also found this little diamond:
That's right, Garrett Morris' 1980 debut LP, Saturday Night SuiteSweet. I say "debut" jokingly, since there was never a follow-up. One listen reveals why. On this coke-y, freebase-driven trainwreck Garrett "sings" over a variety of already-dated disco, lame-ass funk and even reggae with fucking BURNING SPEAR (seriously) as his backing band. The coup de grace is a "funny" song called "I Wanna Be A Cowboy (But I'm Too Short)" that's about...well, wanting to be a cowboy, but being too short. Take that, Boys Don't Cry! It's essentially Garrett rambling about the song's premise repeatedly for seven minutes and forty-one seconds. I dare you to get through it. It's sad and hilarious all at once. What's sad is the one song that Garrett has writing credit on, "Secret Place", a jazzy torch number, isn't bad at all. You have to wonder why he didn't write more of the LP, as it barely edges out Chevy Chase's LP from the same year in overall awfulness (which I own as well...it will have its time here, trust me). The entire second side is taken up with something called "The Saturday Night Suite (In Four Movements)", where Garrett is scarcely present amongst the instrumentals. I would have been careful with the using of the word "movement" when referring to this stinker.
I can't tell you about Saturday Night SuiteSweet without sharing it in its entirety. I believe suffering is lessened by numbers:
All those deaf people offended by Garrett's "News For the Hard of Hearing" bit on SNL were thanking their lucky stars for their affliction when this was released.
Other blogs participating in Vinyl Record Day include:
* All songs are for sampling purposes only. If the album is currently in print, you'll see an Amazon link to purchase it. Supporting artists is a good thing, since labels are run by soulless whores. I KEED! Sorta. Look, if you like it, and it's in print, support 'em. If you're the artist or copyright holder, a quick e-mail to me will bring the song down ASAP. But compliment my writing first.
* Don't e-mail me asking me to repost dead links or to send you a song you can't find. Believe it or not, I have a life outside my blogging. I KEED! But don't do it.
* One more, and this is a biggie -- do NOT hotlink directly to my audio files and post them on your site, big shot. That's just disrespectful, rude, and a theft of my hard-earned bandwith.
Now, get readin', get downloadiN', and play nice. I loves me some comments. Bring it!
I think the people at the late, much lamented BlairMag (linked above) summed up best what was so damn appealing about a trio of barely-talented girls in their underwear, dancing slightly out of time. While Vanity 6 (renamed from their original moniker The Hookers in a rare case of Princely restraint) were ostensibly built around Vanity aka Denise Matthews, it was white trash dynamo Brenda who stole the show, along with your wallet. And your heart!
, but you're gonna pay.
