I’ve been away from the computer for a few days, so I’m putting this up on Sunday rather than the usual Friday. As always, from JPK at Can’t Explain.
Brighter Side of Darkness, “Love Jones” (1973)
This is one case where the parody, “Basketball Jones” by Cheech & Chong, turned out to be more popular than the original though barely, with “Basketball Jones” peaking at #15 and “Love Jones” at #16, both in the early ’70s. The parody may also be better remembered because of its ingenious use in Hal Ashby’s weird dark political film, Being There, which was pretty much Peter Sellers’s final signoff and remains worth seeing for sure. As far as I’m concerned, though, “Love Jones” is way better than “Basketball Jones,” a terrific example of the black pop music all over the airwaves at the time. A commenter at the YouTube page about says it all better than I could, so I leave it to her (or him): “Red light house parties, dancing the slow grind with the boy you like. We didn’t need drugs. This kind of music was our drugs.”