"[10] When her 1977 rendition of Edith Piaf's "La Vie en rose" was an international hit, she caught the interest of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records.

"[11] Blackwell assembled a sextet of studio ringers at his Nassau studio, Compass Point, pulling together a band that included Sly and Robbie (consisting of bass guitarist Robbie Shakespeare and drummer Sly Dunbar), French keyboardist Wally Badarou,[12] guitarists Mikey Chung and Barry Reynolds, and percussionist Uziah Thompson.

[13] Blackwell had been impressed by Black Uhuru's 1980 album Sinsemilla and, along with engineer Alex Sadkin, decided that Jones' new sound should take elements from that record's sonority.

Sly Dunbar said, "We loved dance music, we'd listen to everything, because we were always working and wanting the reggae we did to move a bit forward, so anything that we could drag to it, we would bring that – as ideas, or as musicians coming to play with us.

"[6] Ditching the camp quality of Jones' previous work, Blackwell realised new forms around the likes of The Pretenders' "Private Life", Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" and The Normal's "Warm Leatherette"; Ian Wade of The Quietus writes: "Nightclubbing was where all these ideas coalesced into perfection.

[13][2] The Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992) reads: "Leavening their sprung riddims with a salty dash of funk, Sly and Robbie hipped Jones to rock's new wave on Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing.

"[15] John Daniel Bull of The Line of Best Fit felt the album "[pinpointed] the peak of [Jones'] Jamaican influences, by way of reggae rhythms blended with R&B beats.

[6] According to John Doran of BBC Music, Nightclubbing is a "post-punk pop" album that, "delved into the worlds of disco, reggae and funk much more successfully than most of her 'alternative' contemporaries, while still retaining a blank-eyed alienation that was more reminiscent of David Bowie or Ian Curtis than most of her peers.

[3] This style of delivery has been likened to that of The Velvet Underground's Lou Reed, Blondie's Debbie Harry, the New York City punk scene, and Gil Scott-Heron in "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".

"[23] Composed by right angles, the photograph shows Jones cut to waist, bare chested, and dressed in an Armani man's wide shouldered suit, with an unlit cigarette aiming downward from her lip.

She is shot with her signature flat top haircut and her chest bones showing; her dark skin confers upon the image a violet, blue-black colour.

"[3] Rick Poynor writes: "Goude admired Jones for her mixture of beauty and threat, and the Nightclubbing portrait expresses this duality with absolute composure and no false histrionics.

"[25] Piers Martin of Uncut felt the cover was "arresting", and wrote: "the indigo mood, cool gaze and cigarette suggested Marlene Dietrich, the gender-bending a touch of Bowie.

Biju Belinky wrote: Although Armani became known for deconstructing the suit, removing the over-the-top padding and offering a relaxed option to formalwear in American Gigolo, the cover for Grace Jones' iconic 1981 album Nightclubbing plays up with the angles like nothing else before it.

Hailed as a pioneer of the androgynous look, with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and a flattop haircut, complemented by the padded shoulders of an Armani jacket, the avant-garde singer's album cover became known for years to come.

[26] Writing for DIY, Simon Russell Beale listed the album cover as one of the greatest of all time, highlighting Jones' "smouldering noir-bisexuality".

[33] According to Barry Waters of The Pitchfork Review, "Jones' singular appearance and meticulously crafted presentation made her a natural fit for the burgeoning music video medium, especially in its early, experimental days.

The album brought Jones from being a former disco diva with a loyal cult following but dropping sales figures to an international star with mainstream chart success.

To promote the album, Jones appeared on various TV shows in 1981, including the French Palmarès,[38] the Spanish Esta noche, [39] and Aktuelle Schaubude in West Germany.

The song would re-emerge in Europe in 1985 as a major success, especially in the UK, where backed with "La Vie en rose" it became one of Jones' highest-charting singles in that country.

[44] Andy Kellman of AllMusic praised the album in a retrospective review, stating: "Sly & Robbie provide ideal backdrops for Jones yet again, casting a brisk but not bristly sheen over buoyant structures.

He was unmoved by Jones' own songs and said while the covers on Warm Leatherette were superior to the originals simply because of her "weird force of personality", she could not match "Use Me" and the title track.

[42] Uncut's Piers Martin called Nightclubbing "the album that came to define Jones as the complete performer, in her own way, as singer, muse, actress, alien and androgyne.

[13] In Q, John Harris wrote: "The fact that this music was first released 33 years ago beggars belief: it showcases great minds alighting on the future, and points the way to Madonna, Björk, Lady Gaga, Gorillaz, M.I.A.

"[43] According to Molly Beauchemin, Jones "pioneered the way for Shamir, Stromae, and countless other dance mavericks of today – not just with her bewitching candor but through her use of androgynous innuendo".

"[16] Her pioneering androgynous aesthetic – conceived alongside Jean-Paul Goude – had a strong impact on the pop culture of the 1980s; for example, it was a precursor to Annie Lennox's persona.

"[47] Miriam Kershaw positioned Jones "not as a singer or a diva, but as a piece of art", and argued that she "worked to destabilise racist and sexist clichés as she charted a dynamic course through the history of the Black diaspora, to celebrate its vibrant contemporary form.

[50] Slant Magazine listed Nightclubbing as the 40th best album of the 1980s, with Henderson writing it "performs double duty, building up the singer's legend even as it makes attempts at deconstructing it.