"Private Life," Grace Jones (1980)

This is peak disco, in its way. I like the original but Jones' disco Dominatrix gives the song an anthemic kick. Sly & Robbie are crucial too. After they burned disco records in 1979 at a White Sox baseball game in Chicago and disco was canceled by Top 40, Jones, like everybody else, had to market their music as something other than disco but Jones' cold and bitchy vocal performance here is pure disco. Make no mistake, Grace Jones' was an original Disco Diva, and a slave to the rhythm for life. The video looks like a screen test for a James Bond movie, too campy by half but I remember her being okay in A View To Kill. As good as Dylan in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; or Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, anyway. Pop stars have set a low bar so far but seem to do best in films when they just try to have fun. Apparently, serious acting is hard to do. In my memory Jones has a sly robotic humor, not unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies. Grace Jones is an iconic figure in pop culture and a product of '70s disco. Thank God It's Disco Friday.