Prince, no matter what his name was at the time, has been my most consistant love in music since I was 11 years old. I remember being home alone playing with my LEGOTM Galaxy Explorer on the living room floor, listening to the little radio I had gotten for Christmas that year, when "1999" came on and I was like "Wow, what is this music?" I wouldn't listen to the whole album for many years, but the title track and songs like "Little Red Corvette" were enough for me to be paying attention when "Purple Rain" came on the scene a couple of years later.
Damn, Purple Rain is one of the best albums of all time. When I think about 26 year old Prince fucking rocking the world with that collection of songs and blowing people away with live performances, and how tight a band the Revolution was I feel a streak of envy rise in me. I mean, sure the movie is ridiculous and the only moral I have ever been able to gleen from it, is that when your dad abuses you mom and tries to kill himself, and your girlfriend is on the verge of leaving you for your scummy rival Morris Day after you slapped her around, your band hates you and your career is going nowhere because you only want to do things on your own terms, if you play "Purple Rain" at a show everything will turn out okay.
And not only is the album great, but the B-sides off the singles from that ablum are among his best, I mean, come on "Erotic City"? (on the flip of "Let's Go Crazy"), or "God" (on the flip of "Purple Rain"), or "Another Lonely Christmas" (which accompanied "I Would Die 4 U") or the under-rated "17 Days" (on the other side of one of the best songs ever produced "When Doves Cry")
Oh and speaking of "When Doves Cry" I remember spending the summer with my older brother and his then wife in 1984, and this video show used to come on right around my bedtime, but when the video for the song would come on, my sister-in-law would come and get me to watch it because she knew how much I loved it. I remember being a little disturbed by his crawling naked on the bathroom floor, but at the same time I was so fascinated by Prince's style and his mix of soul, R&B, rock and "new wave" elements.
But there is so much Prince to listen to. . . Both "Around the World in a Day" and "Parade (Music from the second worst movie ever made, uh. . . I mean, 'Under the Cherry Moon')" have some great songs on them, but it is "Sign o' the Times" which followed those two which is probably my favorite Prince album.Oh, step back: While "Kiss" is the song everyone knows off of Parade - "Mountains" is the best song on that album.
Anyway, while Prince produced his own albums from the very beginning (he would only sign to a label that gave him full control - even though he was only 19 or 20 at that time, and Warner Bros were the only ones that would do it) it was not until "Sign o' the Times" when his production moved from serviceable to masterful - and his varying stripped down and lush and layered arrangements impress me every time - and this actually gets me to the point of this whole diatribe which suffers from a digression into my chronological exposure to Prince's music - which is, that from that point on listening to any Prince album on headphones, or on a really good stereo is a divine aural experience.
The touches that can be heard; the layered voices in gospel swoon, each one an example of his four octave voice that projects with equal strength whether it is his low bass growl or his falsetto soprano ringing - the rich and varied instrumentation, whether it be a funky-fat-ass bassline, or arpeggiated strings. Listen to that distorted over the top bass drum on "Housequake" or chilling vocals on "Adore" and you will know what I mean. . .and speaking of "Adore", it is also a great example of his lyrical proficiency. I mean, the playfulness he allows himself in an otherwise straightforward lover-man ballad shows an ability to poke fun of himself in his music, even if he comes off as not being able to do that in his life. His growled little aside in that song, that follows his singing, "You can burn up my clothes / Smash up my ride" that goes "Well, maybe not the ride" is like a little parenthetical reality check.
Or his cute little reference to Joni Mitchell's "Catch me I Think I'm Falling (in Love)" in "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" which works so well is another example (and interestingly the song has nothing to do with the real Dorothy Parker - and from what I have read he did not even know who she was - he just liked the name).
I can come up with a ton of examples from nearly every one of his albums after that - and after countless times listening to all of them I still discover new things layered in the production that amaze me in not only how they sound and work for the song - but in how the hell he even thought to do it to begin with. Check out "Jam of the Year" on Emancipation - which starts with a cheesy sounding drum machine, becomes a live drum kit somehow without ever giving away the transition unless you are just waiting and listening for it, and then I discovered years later that later in the song the drum kit become congas for four measures before going back. Flawless.
I know some people tend to say that they like Prince's early stuff the most, but usually when they say that they are really talking about his middle period (let's say "1999" thru "Batman"), as his first five albums are very different (and no less brilliant), but his later albums have some great great stuff and whatever he lost in pop sensibility he made up for with craftsmanship and risk-taking. Hell, even his bizarre inconsistent Jehovah's Witness opus "The Rainbow Children" has some incredible stuff on it (like "Family Name") and definitely is the furthest out there - and ostensibly throw-away albums made to fulfill his contract and "get his name back" have some hot tracks, like "Come". And Musicology's "If Eye Was The Man In Ur Life" is what pop music should sound like. Yes, there are Prince albums I do not like - like "Chaos & Disorder" (aptly named) and "New Power Soul".So, all I am trying to say is that spring and summer are my times when my obsession with Prince's music comes back and I listen to his albums endlessly. I love an afternoon spent in the park or on the fire escape just listening to album after album on the headphones and doing nothing but taking it all in and discovering new things that make me gasp. And plus, aside from Marvin Gaye, who's catalog is not as deep due to his untimely death and other career issues, who else are you going to find as many dirty songs as you are song about god/love?
"Mama's in the short dress, blowing in the breeze / Papa's just praying for the gust that'll bust that butt out, Please!"
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