Grace Jones and Trevor Horn

Grace Jones, best known as a model for many worldwide luxurious fashion brands, created an album in 1985 known as ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ which mirrors her personality and authenticity of her boldness as a character. I assume that Jones had wanted to show the industry as well as the world that she was not just a pretty face to model, but that she has musical capabilities too. The song mainly fits into the genre of 80’s pop which follows along the likes of Whitney Houston etc. She worked with world renowned producer Trevor Horn, who had previously worked with artists such as Malcolm Mclaren and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. He had over a decade within the music industry to help him build connections and find ‘stars’ to work with. 

The song begins with an MC who introduces the audience to the artist, she who is ‘Grace Jones’, as well as the title of the song, making it known of her importance. Horn had done this to epitomize Jones and put her in the centre. Grace Jones does not shy away from boldness and eccentricity, rather she embraces it, which made her popular in that generation of influencers/celebrities. Now a days we have singers such as Lady Gaga who are praised for the same things; boldness and uniqueness.  

However, the song had taken a whopping 385,000 dollars to produce, with Grace entering the studio under Horn’s supervision. In the song ‘The Crossing’ we can see that Horn wanted to experiment with a different vibe as opposed to Jones’ upbeat and active vibe. Here it shows a solemn and tranquil energy almost heavenly and pure, which is very unlike Jones’ regular tracks. Again, here in ‘Operattack’, we see artists using Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer’s techniques on Musique Concrete, where Horn has used vocal slicing and echo machines to experiment with the spatial audio and how it would appear on tracks (Classic Album Sundays Benefactors, Unknown). 

Citations

Carlos, Caitlin Vaughn, et al. “Rewriting to Perfection: ‘Slave to the Rhythm.’” Produce Like A Pro, 9 Mar. 2022, producelikeapro.com/blog/slave-to-the-rhythm-grace-jones/.  

Griffiths, Daniel. “The Story of Grace Jones’ Slave to the Rhythm: Tempo Changes, Stacked Roland Synth Patches and Trevor Horn.” MusicRadar, MusicRadar, 20 May 2022, www.musicradar.com/news/slave-to-the-rhythm-song-stories.  

Kimber, Mark. “The Story of Grace Jones ‘Slave to the Rhythm’.” Classic Album Sundays, 3 Nov. 2021, classicalbumsundays.com/the-story-of-grace-jones-slave-to-the-rhythm/.