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Grace Jones music biography continued...

Spanish Town, Jamaica, and raised in Syracuse, New York, Jones started out as a successful New York City model before securing a record contract with Island Records in 1977. Her debut album was 1977's Portfolio, which featured pop tunes set a disco beat, and was a major hit with dance club goers, and particularly with gay audiences. Fame (1978), and Muse (1979) generated several more hit singles including, "All on a Summer's Night," "Do or Die," and such standards as "What I Did for Love," "Autumn Leaves," and "Send in the Clowns." Toward the end of the 1970s, Jones adapted the emerging New Wave music to create a different style for herself, releasing the acclaimed albums Warm Leatherette (1980) and Nightclubbing (1981). These included re-imaginings of songs by Sting, Iggy Pop, The Pretenders, Roxy Music, and other music stars of the 80s. Along with her new sound came a dramatic new look created with stylist Jean-Paul Goude, with whom she had a son. Jones adopted a severe, androgynous persona, with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes. The iconic cover photographs of Nightclubbing and, subsequently, Slave to the Rhythm (1985) exemplified this new identity, and made Jones herself an icon of the 80s.



In 1986, Jones released Inside Story, which featured the Billboard Hot 100 hit "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)." Bulletproof Heart (1989) spawned the #1 U.S. Hot Dance Club Play hit "Love on Top of Love" / "Killer Kiss." Jones recorded two albums during the 1990s, but they remain unreleased thus far—in 1994, she was due to release an electro album titled Black Marilyn with artwork featuring the singer as Marilyn Monroe; in 1998, she was scheduled to release an album entitled Force of Nature., but that never materialized. Although she never became a truly mainstream recording artist in the U.S. much of Jones' musical output is still popular on the Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance Airplay charts, and many of her songs are regarded as classics to this day. She also continues to record and perform new material, capitalizing on a cult following that has never waned.