Just as the Grammy Awards started this year, Twitter exploded with news that Denise Matthews passed away way too soon at the age of 57. While Denise hasn’t been a pop star since 1995, anyone with love for the peak era of Prince mourned hard for the woman they once knew as Vanity. Vanity teamed up with Prince (who wanted to name her Vagina) for the first half of the ’80s as the leader of Vanity 6. After leaving him part way into the production of Purple Rain (to be replaced by Apollonia Kotero in film and in studio), Vanity went on to record two great, but flawed, solo releases for Motown. This week, we look at the music career of Ms. Matthews for the beginner and the fan. She remains one of the most undersung of the ’80s divas, going on to influence the careers and styles (in singing and fashion) of Rihanna, Beyoncé, Ciara, Peaches and countless others.
Her first and most popular release was the landmark Vanity 6 album with singers Brenda Bennett and Susan Moonsie (originally called The Hookers, with Jamie Shoup on lead) and containing the hit song “Nasty Girl,” the logical starting point on this journey. “Nasty Girl,” with its scandalous I need seven inches or more, is the ultimate grind track for a house party or just a private dancer. While you’re checking out this classic album, as diverse as any Prince CD of the era (since he’s basically the producer, writer and band), stop by “Make Up” and the Susan-fronted “Drive Me Wild,” both oddball New Wave standouts in an R&B world, and The Time-influenced “If A Girl Answers,” featuring early work by Janet Jackson collaborator Terry Lewis.
Before her exit, Vanity was said to be working on a new Vanity 6 album that would have included her version of Apollonia 6’s hit “Sex Shooter,” Jill Jones’ “G-Spot,” plus the amazing complete, yet unreleased, “Vibrator.” Complete with hilarious skits from a ‘toy shop’ at the beginning and end of the jam, Vibrator might have ended up being too dirty for radio, but is one of the most loved bootlegs from Prince’s vault.
After Vanity 6, she left for Motown and recorded the uneven but well received Wild Animal album. While she had zero help from her former boyfriend/boss, she made a surprisingly strong go of writing all her lyrics and producing a few classic pop hits like the seductive “Pretty Mess,” and a duet with The Time’s Morris Day, with amazing interplay between these two Minneapolis geniuses.
Her follow-up, Skin on Skin, felt much less rushed and is by far her most grown-up album. Finally sounding like a full-fledged vocalist in charge of her instrument, her work on the lead single, “Under the Influence,” is probably her finest moment, and it should have been a bigger hit. The sound and look at the time rivaled Madonna and Janet, but she was with a broken Motown that didn’t know what to do with her.
She did go on to start recording a third album (one song, “Nature Boy,” made it out there), and released a few tracks on compilations and soundtracks, such as the seductive “7th Heaven” for The Last Dragon, in which she was also the female lead, but Vanity never again focused on her singing career. Crack cocaine and some poor choices in men lead the singer out of the dark and into a life of serving God, only to discuss “Vanity” in her book.
While sadly everything mentioned above is out of print, for years fans have stuck by her three albums and singles with voracious fervor, hoping they’d be reissued and remastered along with the two rumored unreleased albums. Instead, they have had to pay over $100 for used copies and bad bootlegs. With Prince being reflective lately about his lost love in concert, taking back his Warner Brothers’ masters and announcing a 2017 memoir, Lake Minnetonka might be thawing. For now, Vanity lives on YouTube and in the hearts of millions of original Nasty Girls.