Vanity: 4 January 1959 – 15 February 2016

Prince may be an undisputed genius of music and style with charisma coming out the hoohah, but for Loverboy it is the women he worked with that were always that bit more fascinating and compelling. Lez lovers Wendy and Lisa, Sheila E, Apollonia, sexed up Sheena Easton, the glory that is Loverboy Issue 2 star Carmen Electra. Our heart belongs to the paisley ladies. In the main, Prince’s pop girl creations were always pretty much in the purple shadows, a side note in music history. That’s not how it should be! As is usual, it has been left to us queers to continue to champion and remember these wondrous women.

Vanity 6 were an underrated 80s pop dream and it was Denise Matthews aka Vanity –  strutting her stuff at the front in lingerie, leather and big big hair – who should have been a much bigger star than she was. She was captivating and beautiful but always in the shadows of the men in her life. As well as Prince she dated Adam Ant, Billy Idol and Nikki Sixx. Boy, just the thought of all that hairspray is making our eyes water.

Denise Matthews died on February 15^th (of kidney failure, the result of years of drug use) and it is of course her Prince connections that most people know her for. She released a couple of solo albums that didn’t really hit and also acted in a string of wonderful B movies (The Last Dragon being a particular highlight).

Vanity 6 had one album and are known for their hit Nasty Girl. Oh but what a song. Typical Prince sex lyrics giving the women who sang them sexual agency long before the Pussycat Dolls gyrated their Donchas. As often happens in show business, Denise later eschewed the sex for Jesus, saying she’d been possessed by demons and becoming an evangelical Christian. To be fair, this happened on the back of a near-fatal overdose of crack that ruined her kidneys for the rest of her life.

It warms Loverboy’s heart that with her passing Denise Vanity Matthews is being mourned across the Webosphere, quite rightly. People are getting to hear Nasty Girl all over again and we can only hope that it will lead to an outbreak of high-legged lingerie and tuxedo jacket wearing fabulousness across the land.

Fallon Gold