Trivia / Grace Jones

• Approval of God: The Pretenders' frontwoman, Chrissie Hydne, openly praised Jones' Cover Version of "Private Life", considering it superior to the original.
• Creator Couple: Jean-Paul Goude, who designed several of Jones' album covers, directed many of her music videos and the Citroën CX ad she starred in, and conducted a number of her most iconic photoshoots, was briefly her boyfriend; the two continued working together after the relationship ended, up to Goude designing the cover for Hurricane - Dub.
• Referenced by...: The Police recorded a Cover Version of "Demolition Man" on Ghost in the Machine; Sting, who wrote the song, was also the vocalist for the band. He would later record a solo version for the film of the same name, itself a reference to Jones as a result of being Titled After the Song.
• Refitted for Sequel: The Title Track to "Hurricane" was originally recorded for a cancelled collaborative album between Jones and Tricky; it was re-recorded for the 2008 album.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Due to rights issues with photographer Jean-Paul Goude, the streaming releases of Nightclubbing, Living My Life, Slave to the Rhythm, and Island Life were forced to replace the original covers with generic designs styled after cassette J-cards in 2021. Despite also being designed by Goude, Warm Leatherette was unaffected.
• Similarly Named Works: Slave to the Rhythm and its Title Track(s) share names with a Michael Jackson song.
• Sequel Gap: Hurricane came out nearly two decades after its immediate predecessor, Bulletproof Heart, thanks to Jones' repeated attempts at making a new album in the 90's coming up empty handed, motivating her to temporarily retire from recording albums for a while.
• Vaporware: Jones made two attempts at making a follow-up to Bulletproof Heart in The '90s; the cancellation of both of them led to her retiring from recording albums until 2008.
  • The first, Black Marylin, would've marked a shift to an electro-house style and was reportedly completed and scheduled for a 1994 release, only to get shelved after Jones became dissatisfied with its production. Only one single made it out of the sessions: a Cover Version of Sheep on Drugs' "Track X", retitled "Sex Drive."
  • The second was Force of Nature, a collaboration with Trip Hop artist Tricky scheduled for release in 1998. This time, Creative Differences between the two led to the album being cancelled midway through production. Two versions of the track "Hurricane" surfaced on a white label release shortly after, and Jones would re-record the song as the Title Track for her eventual tenth album in 2008.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original single version of "Slave to the Rhythm" (also known as "Ladies and Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones" on the Slave to the Rhythm album) was originally written for another Island Records-affiliated act, Frankie Goes to Hollywood; producer Trevor Horn envisioned it as a follow-up to "Relax". After Frankie recorded a demo, the song was ultimately given to Jones, and what started as a single song ballooned into the entire Slave to the Rhythm album.
  • Alternative Dance band A Certain Ratio's cover of "Houses in Motion" by Talking Heads was originally planned to be a collaboration with Jones, with the band rapping the verses and Jones singing the choruses. However, Jones was ultimately never able to record her parts. Decades later, A Certain Ratio simply released what was already completed on the ACR:BOX compilation, with the vocoded guide vocals taking her place.
  • Grace was once set to make a cameo in the Jamaica scenes of No Time to Die, which would have marked her return to the James Bond series over 35 years after A View to a Kill, but she quit the film within minutes after arriving in Jamaica. She was reportedly furious upon seeing how small her part was.

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