No. 204: Dirty Mind

Band: Prince
Album: Dirty Mind
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: "Dirty Mind" is influential, if only for one of the first real dirt-bag filthy records to have any success. In 1980, a song like "Slob On My Knob" was 20 years away, but it couldn't have happened without "Head." Still, it's a remarkably underrated Prince record, due to his usual genre-bending, epitomized on the ten-types-of-wrong "Sister." His keyboard work is amazing, if nothing.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: It is dirt bag filthy. "Head" isn't subtle and "Sister" is just wrong. It's not a fully realized album, though, with songs like "Gotta Broken Heart Again" mostly mediocre.
Best song: The title track is a fun little romp.
Worst song: "Gotta Broken Heart Again" isn't good.
Is it awesome?: Yeah, it is.

Prince, like Michael Jackson, is a wildly important artist, someone who has influenced countless musicians. It goes without saying that his straightforward sex crooning is evident in today's Akons, T-Pains, R. Kellys and the like, but musically, he did as much as anyone to merge so-called black and white music. "Dirty Mind" was his first album to do so.

His use of keyboards as the centerpiece of his music was something innovative, though that was likely a function of the decade in which he operated. Still, he created something of a signature sound; Both synthetic and organic, Prince's use of electronic sound was something copied by about a million people during that decade, Prince himself included.

"Dirty Mind" is Prince's first foray into adding rock and roll into his arsenal. While mostly a falsetto upbeat R&B guy on his first two records, "Dirty Mind" sets the stage with the title track; A romp of sex over guitars and keyboards. "Uptown" is the other highlight of the record, using a Sly Stone-ish message of racial harmony to get everyone to party.

"Head" is controversial in how up-front it is, but "Sister" is the most striking. In just 94 seconds, Prince recounts having sex with his sibling, which is shocking no matter who you are. Also, this sister is 16 years his senior, more fuel to the "Prince is insane" fire.

Also amazing is the way "Sister" sounds; It could easily be an Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson song in its pure New Wave palm mutes and start-stop drums. Prince's crossover into rock didn't just pick up from the Beatles and Hendrix; He was hitting current music styles as well.

"Dirty Mind" is Prince's first great album. It's not on the same level as "Purple Rain," but it holds its own with "Sign 'O' The Times" and "1999."

No. 163: 1999

Band: Prince
Album: 1999
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: The calm before the storm that was "Purple Rain" brings Prince expanding his lyrical themes. Instead of the simply dirtbag filthy sex songs, Prince waxes on America in "Free," the computer age in "Automatic" and, of course, nuclear apocalypse on the title track.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: I'm not sure they have it wrong. It's not his best, but it has the makings of a very nice album.
Best song: The title track is wonderful as a post-nuclear holocaust party track, complete with computer voices and sing-songy chorus.
Worst song: "D.M.S.R." isn't good and it goes on too long.
Is it awesome?: It's pretty great.

Prince's pre-"Purple Rain" public persona is well-known. He's weird, he wants to fuck you and maybe he'll talk about God afterward.

"1999" was Prince's turning point. He started writing songs about nuclear winter or conceptual pieces about technology. It's a wonderful piece of history; Without "1999," Prince is still doing "Controversy" instead of "Sign O' The Times." Without "1999," Prince never puts out "Purple Rain," save for "Darling Nikki."

Prince may not have had the pop credentials like Michael Jackson does. But, he was wildly avant garde and clearly more experimental. "1999" was not a genre-shifter like later Prince record (again, he's an artist in transition). Most of the songs are early electro pop, standard stuff for the 1980s.

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I probably should be sick of the album's title track, but I'm not. You see, I graduated high school in 1999, so it was played at my prom -- it might've been the theme, I don't know -- and my graduation and all the goddamned time on every TV show for about eight months of that year.

Still, there's something wondrous in the crazily negative/scary lyrics of the song:

I was dreamin' when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin'
Coulda sworn it was judgment day
The sky was all purple
There were people runnin' everywhere
Tryin' to run from the destruction
U know I didn't even care

On the album -- as opposed to the single mix -- the song starts with a computer-modified voice of God giving the theme of the song, saying "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I only want you to have some fun."

It's almost a picture of the '80s. The video features keytar, the lyrics are about an impending world war and the band's response, instead, is to party. While it could be a ridiculously scary song, it's not. The major chords rip through the song -- Phil Collins would later copy them for "Sussudio -- and the drum machine thumps.

I've probably heard this song involuntarily more than any other, yet I still love it. I know all the words and it's a surefire song to get people on the dance floor. Just don't listen to the lyrics.

No. 93: Sign 'o' The Times

Band: Prince
Album: Sign 'o' The Times
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: Prince's most diverse record, "Sign 'o' The Times" was originally slated to be a triple (!) album. Some of the songs were taken from sessions in 1982 ("Strange Relationship" and "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man"), while the record produced three top-ten hits (the title track, "U Got the Look" and "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man").
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: There's a lot in there and it's hardly as danceable as his mid-80s stuff. Still, it's the second Prince record on here, and it fits in the mid-90s.
Best song: "U Got The Look" is classic Prince.
Worst song: Again, because I worship the sun, I don't like "The Cross."
Is it awesome?: It's borderline, but let's say yes.

"Sign 'o' The Times" is a double album originally slated to be a triple album. So, inevitably, you know my feelings on it. It's bloated, there are great songs on it and there is filler. Rinse, repeat.

What's striking about "Sign 'o' The Times" is the experimentation on it (Prince himself hated the term, saying "I hate the word experiment, "It sounds like something you didn't finish."). Several songs have little or no guitar, just sparse keyboard production and Prince's staccato vocals; The title track is the best example of that method gone well. As is Prince's way, he tries different lyrical topics, falling from "The Cross" (religion) to the zeitgeist title track to the big-time sensuality of "U Got The Look" to the ode to platonic love "If I Was Your Girlfriend."

Also, "Housequake."

If you've not heard "Housequake," I can sum it up for you: Prince trying to be James Brown. In it, Prince swears (a lot), something James never really did. And the lyrics sound a lot more like a Parliament song than ("There's a brand new groove going round/In your funky town/And the kick drum is the fault/You gotta rock this mother") anything about "Hot Pants" or feeling good.

Still, the start/stop rhythms, the shouting peppering horns, the fierce bassline... It's straight up James Brown. And you know something, Prince does it strikingly well. His "ow"s and "eee"s aren't James' (whose are, though?), but he seems at home rocking the genre as much as James used to.

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Is "Sign 'o' The Times" on par with "The Wall" or the White Album? No, but it's a different animal. Prince is weird; There's no way around it. And "Sign 'o' The Times" is pretty weird. That doesn't make it bad. It's just weird.

No. 72: Purple Rain

Band: Prince and The Revolution
Album: Purple Rain
Why Rolling Stone gets it right: "Purple Rain" is Minnesota's greatest son's (take that, Warren Burger and Bob Dylan!) greatest record. Fully realizing his inner nouveau Sly Stone, Prince combined the popular genres of the day (pop, hard rock) with the music he was already making (funk, R&B) and some disparate styles (early rap, psychedelia, maybe early electronic music?) into something totally different and brilliant. The accompanying film has achieved "So bad, it's good" status thanks to the ironic love given to Morris Day recently, but the album stands up.
Why Rolling Stone gets it wrong: I imagine it should be higher, but I'm not totally sure. This is a pretty good rating.
Best song: "When Doves Cry" is, hands down, the best song on "Purple Rain."
Worst song: Well, if you're Tipper Gore, it's "Darling Nikki." For everyone else, it's probably "The Beautiful Ones."
Is it awesome?: It's close, but it falls short.

Is there a weirder state in the Union than Minnesota? All kinds of strange politicians come out of Minnesota, hence Jesse Ventura winning the governorship up there. It's cold nine months out of the year. They have a million lakes, though many are frozen. It's Midwestern in a lot of ways, but it's so far North, it might as well be Canada.

Bob Dylan is from Minnesota. Minneapolis had produced a decent punk rock scene in the '80s with bands like Soul Asylum and Husker Du.

Also, Prince. Prince is from Minneapolis. Outside of "genius," the first thing people identify with Prince is "strange." He's a very strange dude. He's brilliant, but he's clearly nuts.

The first thing that stands out is his hyper sexuality, something that has been co-opted by a lot of R&B singers since Prince, but none as well. Prince's genius in regards to filthy music was his ability to cloak/blend it with sensuality. His own bisexuality clearly gives him an edge over the overly machismo "I want to hit it from the back"-type lyrics that have come since "Darling Nikki" (sample lyric: "The castle started spinning or maybe it was my brain/I can't tell U what she did 2 me, but my body will never be the same "). His lyrics are just part of what made Prince both so influential and so popular.

Stylistically, though, Prince is one of a kind. His obsession with bright purple (and, later, bright yellow) is certainly distinctive. He's been lampooned on Dave Chapelle's show for wearing a "zorro-type outfit" or something "a figure skater would wear." Certainly, his flamboyance was something to behold in the '80s.

His personal style, especially on "Purple Rain," takes from Jimi Hendrix as much as his guitar work does. His solos on "Baby I'm a Star," "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" showcase his guitar chops as well as his fashion sense for the strange.

Again, he's strange. A lot of people my age know Prince from his assless chaps appearance at the VMAs (an appearance which appears to be absent from the Internet) and his constant name change battle (he's "Prince," he's a symbol, he's "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince," he's "Prince" again). Certainly, the story retold on "Chapelle's Show" is even more hilarious when you read about the Carlos Boozer rental story.

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Still, the music is amazing. Taking a page from Sly Stone's book, Prince added rock and roll guitar to R&B in order to add to the frenetic energy his previous albums had already featured. The result is songs like "Let's Go Crazy," a nearly unclassifiable song that mixes the funky beats of R&B with the hooks of a pop record and the guitar solos of a Hendrix track.

"Darling Nikki" was one of the Parents Music Resource Center's "Filthy Fifteen," the songs they considered to be the 15 most sexual songs getting radio airplay. It's quaint to look at the list now (considering Khia's "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)" was a top 50 single in 2002), but "Darling Nikki" was kind of dirty for the time. Just the opening lines ("I knew a girl named Nikki, I guess U could say she was a sex fiend/I met her in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine") are provocative enough for some parents to be upset. Still, the song rocks pretty hard and Prince's use of language is considerably better than the goofed analogies of "Milkshakes" and being a "Slave 4 U" of modern porno-rock (as Tipper would call it).

Of course, the album's zenith is pretty clearly "When Doves Cry." Covered by everyone from Damien Rice to Mushroomhead to that kid in the Leo DiCaprio version of "Romeo and Juliet," "When Doves Cry" is delightfully and unapologetically unconventional for a dance track. Instead of a quick-reaction beat, the song starts with a guitar solo and a simple 4/4 electronic beat. Prince's guttural utterings/David Lee Roth-esque moans enter, along with the sparse melody played on what sounds like a toy piano.

Probably the most striking thing, musically, is the lack of a bassline. In a genre known as well for bass players (The Family Stone's Larry Graham, Bootsy Collins, etc.) as lead singers, Prince forgoes a back bassline in any context. According to legend, Prince put one in, but felt it sounded too normal for his liking.

Lyrically, it's as adventurous as it is smart. The metaphor of peace failing in a household setting (the song was written about Prince's parents separation) works well, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure birds don't cry. Still, Prince weaves family dynamics ("Dig if U will the picture/Of U and I engaged in a kiss/
The sweat of your body covers me") in with stories of his family struggles ("Why do we scream at each other?/This is what it sounds like when doves cry") all while wondering which is real. It's a wonderfully introspective number wrapped in a musical experiment that works as well as anything did in 1984.

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I'd be remiss if I didn't send readers over to Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson's piece for Rolling Stone Magazine's "Immortals" series. In that series (maybe I'll do a project on that piece one day), RS named what they consider to be 100 of the greatest (the greatest, maybe?) artists. Anyway, ?uestlove's piece on Prince represents a better perspective from someone who grew up on Prince's early stuff.