Oh, hey there little purple guy. This isn’t Prince’s first album, but it is his first with The Revolution (most notable contributor is co-lead and backing vocalist Lisa Coleman). I wonder if Prince thought “This song will become a hit again in 17 years” when he wrote 1999? Although the concerns expressed in the song are nothing to do with the Millenium Bug, or even the arbitrary nature of the dating system, but the more timely existential threat in 1982 of nuclear war - “Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb?” asks a child-like voice at the fade-out of the song.
Little Red Corvette is one of the many Prince songs with either a shade of red or purple in the title, his break-out hit thanks in part to extensive airplay on MTV. Like a lot of Prince ‘s lyrics it’s barely disguised sexual innuendo - “I say the ride is so smooth, you must be a limousine”. Let’s Pretend We’re Married throws away any attempt at innuendo and leaps two-footed into simple hedonism - “My girl's gone, and she don't care at all . And if she did, I wouldn't care, let's ball”. This is the first track on the album, a 7-minute synth-driven bit of funk-pop to feature Prince’s characteristic screeches and other carefree vocalisations.
Some tracks feels like a cooler version of an Eno/Byrne track, such as All The Critics Love You In New York, a kind of electronica disco-beat punctuated by Fripp-esque electric guitar squeals by Prince himself (who plays, or programmes, everything on this track).
The blending of synthesiser and funky beats is not a new thing – Stevie Wonder was doing it back on Songs In The Key Of Life, but Prince does update it, not least thanks to the now ubiquitous Linn M1 drum machine, but also with more frankly sexual lyrics than Wonder would ever touch. The sound is very much definitional and unmistakeable, such as on the lengthy jam DMSR (not ASMR, it’s a little too lively for that). DMSR stands for “Dance, Music, Sex, Romance” as the chorus makes clear; it’s a great 8-minute floor filler. In fact this album has quite a few longer tracks on it, something we’ve not had for a while, and is a double album even though each side is relatively short (total run time around 70 minutes for the lot).
I don’t know if all of the tracks benefit from being strung out to 7-9 minutes long, some of them have pretty much done what they need to be 5-6 minutes but as with a lot of the electronica style albums, it does make it easy to have on the background and lose yourself to.
Comments
Post a Comment