‘Nina’s Back’: When Nina Simone embraced electronica
Nina Simone was typically considered a jazz artist, but even by that very label, the title was misleading. In its very essence, jazz is all about reinvention and constant experimentation, which Simone did by the bucketload. In many cases, when artists speak about innovation the true changes enacted are not always that seismic, but in the singer’s case, by the time the 1980s rolled around, a complete pivot was on the horizon.
Having already spent the better part of three decades treading the boards of the business, the constant wheel of experimentation and greatness had somewhat worn thin for Simone. In fairness, it was a tall order to be on the pulse of improvisation constantly – releasing more or less two albums per year throughout the course of the 1960s, and continuing a similar prolific trajectory into the 1970s, she must have spent more time in the studio than in the real world.
As such, the monotony of life and music was bound to kick in, as Simone pushed herself into early semi-retirement, for a bit of breathing space if nothing else. Subsequently, upon her return to recording in 1985, a total change of direction was required to reignite her passion – and this is precisely where the crux of the album Nina’s Back was born.
A shift from jazz, soul, and protest anthems to electronica may not necessarily have been the most popular move, but as Simone put it herself in an interview from the same year the album was released: “I’m tired of begging for it. I’m too old to keep asking for love from the industry.” Her answer to this cry was the complete and utter departure from her typical sound on Nina’s Back. While it may not have been her most critically prolific album, it certainly proved that she was willing to turn her hand to any genre and make it seem effortless.
Of course, the standard popularised sound of the ‘80s was one of shiny synths and the glittery beats of the new wave, and it would be admittedly difficult to imagine Simone fulfilling this ideal. But with deeply layered mixes and a shot of electronica injected into the Nina’s Back cocktail, suddenly it was hard to tell if the imagined setting for the album was a jazz club or a nightclub, such were the dance rhythms through the selection of tunes palpating a whole new beat.
More than this, the genre of music the musician chose to explore was a steadfast declaration of exactly what she stood for, even if it wasn’t truly obvious at the time. She was no cash cow, being reeled out every time the charts cried out for a slice of so-called ‘innovation’. Instead, she was a real artist – and that meant never following expectations or orders, even if it ruffled a few feathers along the way.
“I serve God with my music, and I’m very, very, very happy to be given these gifts. But as far as I’m concerned, my being a human being – and an imperfect human being – has made me ill-equipped to deal with the talent that God gave me,” Simone reflected in 1987, two years after the album’s release. Perhaps more than anything else, this gave the deepest insight into the singer’s inner mind, because the experience of producing her music was a spiritual one, that needed to be a calling rather than a chore. Maybe Nina’s Back wasn’t so much a conscious change of course, but a divine intervention from the heavens above.
