Hurricane Grace 

If your freak flag needs an emblem, you’d do no better than the iconic head of Grace Jones. At 60, Jones remains the ferocious dominatrix who gave the hedonistic ‘80s nightlife both its voice and its androgynous look.

Her first album in 19 years, Hurricane (import out now) builds on the angular club-dub she brought to the masses. Her champion rhythm section of Sly and Robbie anchors “Williams Blood,” which quotes — what else? — “Amazing Grace” before the drums haul Jamaican skank to a soaring gospel chorus. And “Corporate Cannibal” — with its eerie video — locates Jones firmly in the new millennium. It’s trip-hop morphed through an S&M reverie of soullessness.  And a few electronica artists acknowledge her influence by collaborating — Massive Attack on “Devil in My Life” and Tricky on the title track.

Jones set the bar for diva behavior in the late ‘70s, and she’s still going strong. When a stranger accidentally stepped on her coat at the recent London premiere of Quantum of Solace, her tantrum not only terrified the poor man, it made news around the world. Hurricane might be an understatement from a woman who remains a tempestuous force of nature.


Hurricane is available now as an import from Wall of Sound Records.