Anna Minard claims to “know nothing about music.” For this column, we force her to listen to random records by artists considered to be important by music nerds.
They Say I’m Different
(Just Sunshine; reissued by Light in the Attic)
I know I get paid to write this column, so I hope I don’t get fired for this, but: PUT THE MOTHERFUCKING PAPER DOWN RIGHT NOW! What are you doing?! Stop reading these words—STOP! If you are doing anything other than running to the store this second to get a copy of this album, you are doing life wrong. Fix it! I promise, your ears are going to get such a boner! And you won’t be the same after. Go, go, go!
Phew, okay, so now we’re on the same page. You’re listening to Betty Davis, I’m listening to Betty Davis, we’re both entering another dimension, all the pain in the world is slowly receding from our minds. Maybe, like me, you can’t help laughing out loud with utter happiness and appreciation. Hey, ears, say all the instruments in their best sex voices. Just relax. This is going to be spectacular. Then Betty Davis and her fierce, hoarse growl or her glowing croon comes in and says stuff like “I’m gonna shoo-b-doop all night” and screams, “He was a biiiiiig freak! Flim flam floozy fantasy” and “They say I’m different ’cause I’m a piece of sugar cane.” And then the warm funk washes over or the backup singers come in to shoop-shoop you to your happy place.
This is the precursor to every bit of more contemporary sex-positive feminist music that makes me stand a little straighter and dare people with my eyes to just try some shit. I’m sure Salt-N-Pepa rapping, “‘Cause every time I hear the noise comin’ from your lips/You’re gonna feel the rotation in my hips” and Alanis Morissette wailing, “Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?” owe every bit of their existence to this explosion of grace and grandeur and warm horns and musical groans. No one can ever top Betty Davis’s sing-song, “I used to say all kinds of dirty thi-ings…”
Also, can we talk about the album art, here? Holy shit, this outfit! And I don’t know what she’s holding, but at first glance they read as weapons. Which, I mean, she doesn’t need weapons to kick your ass; they’re just for decoration. I’m not sure this album art can be topped, either.
When I heard about this assignment, you can imagine: I thought I’d be getting some recording of 1930s film star Bette Davis, who is also a badass, but not when I imagined her singing jazz standards on some cheesy celebrity crossover record. This Betty Davis, who happened to be Miles Davis’s ex-wife, just makes me explode with joy. It actually makes me get a lump in my throat, with a sort of pride in all womankind. Dudes of the world: You could never make anything as tough as this.
I give this a “seriously, you guys, I’m tearing up here” out of 10. 