Prince

Prince is a challenge in lots of ways. Initially it was simple logistics, the discography took a while to appear on Spotify. Then there is the question of can I work through such a large and prolific body of work with an artist in which my personal investment is limited? Finally, his later output seems to be all over the place, to the casual listener he really dropped off the radar in the 20 years up to his departure. Most discographies list 39 albums including soundtracks. That really is too many, at least for one post, so I'm going to start with what looks like a prolonged golden period from his first album, 'For You' all the way through to Emancipation. That's 18 albums and shouldn't drive me mad. I may follow up with some selected highlights from his later period in a second post. 

Here's the full list. It's customary now to watch films accompanying soundtrack albums, so I'll see how I feel about Purple Rain and Batman, but I'm not inclined to investigate the self-directed Under The Cherry Moon, Sign O The Times, Graffiti Bridge or 3 Chains o' Gold. 

For You

Prince

Dirty Mind

Controversy

1999

Purple Rain

Around The World In A Day

Parade

Sign O The Times

Lovesexy

Batman

Grafitti Bridge

Diamonds And Pearls

Black Album

Come

The Gold Experience

Chaos and Disorder

Emancipation

FOR YOU
Released: 7th April 1978
Prince

Let's start by straying into areas I'd be better advised to avoid. There was a question posed to someone in a magazine once along the lines of 'Do your Prince albums sit in the 'Funk/Soul' section of your record collection or 'Rock''. For the record, no such organization occurs on the RockOdyssey album shelves, the best description I can offer would be 'randomly grouped'. For example all the Springsteens are together (although his move toward slim cardboard packaging ruins the entire line of the display and I have to lay Wrecking Ball on top of the rest, it's so bloody big), but the Beatles are below him. The point of the question, I guess, is that Prince is hard to pin down into a musical genre, but maybe it's a bit more sinister than that and the real question being asked is: Is Prince a black or white artist? He confuses the reductive world of popular music because he's clearly influenced by Soul and Funk but he can play the guitar like Brian May. Don't ask me where Hendrix fits in all this.

Now you may have noticed that I tend toward the whiter end of the musical spectrum. I grew up in a small town in the middle of England, and as I have discovered in recent years as I've been able to see the attitudes of old schoolmates on social media (the pictures of golliwogs accompanied by "Let's see how long this stays on Facebook" particularly make me despair), I was clearly unconsciously absorbing a view of what was 'for me' and what was 'for them'. Education and living in a diverse community are great remedies for all this, but the upshot is that I didn't really pay much attention to what I would have perceived as black artists in my younger years, and that includes Prince.

This debut album places him firmly in the Motown/Stax tradition and it's pretty conventional in places, but there are flashes of the innovations that will be coming later and it's utterly recognizably Prince. The falsetto is liberally deployed and songs like 'Crazy You', 'Baby' and 'My Love Is Forever' are straight out of the Smokey Robinson playbook, but then he throws in 'Just As Long As We're Together' which has such a full and complex sound over it's 6½ minutes you'd be hard-pressed to believe this was a debut album from 1978.

He establishes his reputation for sauciness early too. 'Soft And Wet' certainly draws the eye as a song title, although it could just be a descriptive title. The whole sound of it is rather squishy.

The last track I'm Yours comes as a shock, with it's cascading, prog-like guitar intro and the basic funk-groove is adorned with all kinds of complicated twiddles. It's probably the most indicative of what is yet to come.

It's short too. No greater respect hath an artist for his audience than that he can get what he needs to say on and off the turntable in less than 30 minutes.

For You

In Love

Soft And Wet

Crazy You

Just As Long As We're Together

Baby

My Love Is Forever

So Blue

I'm Yours

PRINCE
Released: 19th October 1979
Prince

One piece of wisdom that I've always remembered, if not abided by, since my youth is "If you don't love yourself, you can't expect anyone else to love you". Well, if we are to judge from the cover photo of this album, Prince Rogers Nelson clearly felt he deserved a lot of people's love, despite looking like a poor woman's Lionel Richie.

As for the music, so far so conventional. There's plenty of chirrupy, borderline cheesy, synths propping up the light soul-funk and the falsetto continues to be the default setting.  'Sexy Dancer' suggests he didn't yet have quite the self-confidence to turn the suggestiveness up as high as he would on later albums. The gasps sound more like he's just overdone it a little running up the stairs. Meanwhile 'When We're Dancing Close And Slow' is a little bit too gooey, in every sense.

There is also 'Bambi', which suggests that he's got something else locked up in his musical toolbox. It's the first time you hear a full-on rock guitar song from him, albeit with a less rock-conventional high pitched vocal. Doesn't really make you think of orphaned baby deer though.

Prince wrote Chaka Khan's 'I Feel For You', and it's on this album too, without the obligatory 1984 scratching. It has to be said that the song doesn't necessarily stand out here, it's much more even and therefore less interesting than the hit version.

Going back to the album cover. If you think that was bad, look what comes next...

I Wanna Be Your Lover

Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad

Sexy Dancer

When We're Dancing Close And Slow

With You

Bambi

Still Waiting

I Feel For You

It's Gonna Be So Lonely

DIRTY MIND

Released: 8th October 1980

Prince

When you look up the Wikipedia entry for an album, there's always a 'Personnel' section, listing out the various band members, session musicians and guest artists that contributed to the album. For the kind of artist which is the stock in trade of my blogs the same people can turn up fairly frequently. Prince isn't typical of the artists I'm usually inspired to cover, but nevertheless, it's striking that for Dirty Mind, the personnel are: Lisa Coleman (of Wendy and Lisa) doing some backing vocals on 'Head' and Doctor Fink (who sounds like he might be the Muppets' Electric Mayhem's equivalent of Peter Green) who provides a second pair of hands on the synths on 'Dirty Mind' and 'Head'. Otherwise Prince is responsible for 'all vocals and instruments'. Oh, and he was sole producer too. So basically this full-sounding complex soul-disco extravaganza is all his own work. I'm guessing he might even have made his own tea. 

Another path I often go down is identifying the songs that I'm reminded of and then see which came first. This allows me to either elevate the artist in question to pioneering and influential groundbreaker or tired old copycat. Here the first two tracks particularly stand out for this reason. The title track has something of 'Jump (for My Love)' by the Pointer Sisters about it. That came out in 1984, so Prince's trendsetter credentials are fine for that. I've found 'When You Were Mine' harder to pin down, but it reminds me of something. Maybe it's just that I know it better as a song than I think I do. Anyway, the sound is squarely what you'd call 'eighties' and this is right at the start of the decade, so we're on safe ground if we think that Prince was unleashing plenty of new ideas. Both are just great pop songs too, a quality never to be sniffed at.

He's not necessarily branching out too much on this though. There's none of that rock electric guitar that he unveiled on 'Bambi', just a succession of synth-driven grooves. 'Sister' is a sort of rock and roll gallop-along I suppose, but barely breaches one and a half minutes.

Maybe you could call the artwork 'iconic'. It's almost certain that he thought so anyway. Americans often insist on referring to trousers as 'pants' (c.f. Billy Joel post) but the lower body garment that he's wearing on the cover of this meet the full, Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word, although Marks and Sparks' marketing department might insist on 'tanga briefs'. However, it's a better look than on it's predecessor. He seems to at least have sorted his hair and 'tache out.

Dirty Mind

When You Were Mine

Do It All Night

Gotta Broken Heart Again

Uptown

Head

Sister

Partyup

CONTROVERSY
Released: 14th October 1981
Prince

We're still going to have to address the album cover before anything else. Prince is an early adopter of the 'capsule wardrobe' in which you purchase a few good quality garments and mix and match for any occasion. Hence he has worn the same jacket on the covers of his last two albums, a dusky pink number with studded shoulder and matching brooch. So versatile that it can be paired with neckerchief and black thong for a late night raunch or a with evening dress for a more formal evening look for, well probably still a late night raunch.

Talking of raunch, he's trying hard with the song titles here. 'Sexuality', 'Do Me, Baby', 'Private Joy' and 'Jack U Off' clearly set out his agenda. He also ventures into the political arena, where it seems likely he doesn't quite have the same insight into what he's talking about. 'Ronnie, Talk To Russia' is on a level with Culture Club's 'War Song' in which Boy George asserted that "War is  stupid and people are stupid". Here Prince's plea to Reagan is to talk to Russia before it's too late and they blow up the world. He also notes that "You can go to the zoo but you can't feed guerrillas". Clever wordplay there.

He has a go at religion too. The title track includes a recital of the Lord's prayer and Annie Christian might be a pop at fundamentalism, but it's rather unfocused if it is, veering from the assassination of John Lennon, to the Atlanta murders and an FBI sting operation referred to as 'Abscam'.

So there's a clear intent here which is signaled in the album title. He's trying to cause a stir and establish a reputation but he's not really taking great risks with the music. 'Controversy' itself is punchy and catchy and in other parts it sounds like Hall And Oates ('Sexuality') or Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons ('Private Joy').

A couple of gems from the rather poorly referenced Wikipedia page. This was supposedly his first association with the color purple and the first time he did that spelling thing with 'Jack U Off'

Controversy

Sexuality

Do Me, Baby

Private Joy

Ronnie, Talk To Russia

Let's Work

Annie Christian

Jack U Off

1999

Released; 27th October 1982

Prince

My recollection of Prince bursting onto the public consciousness, in the UK at least, was that it was all tied up with the release of Purple Rain and the accompanying movie. But since 1999 and Little Red Corvette are on this from two years earlier, I guess I must be wrong. I do remember an outraged article in (probably) the Daily Mail, warning the nation of the corrupting influence of the Purple Poseur and the stream of filth that constituted most of his output. 

If nothing else,with the title track he gave every radio scheduler in the world five minutes off at midnight on 31st December 1998. It's also quite notable for the fact that the lead vocals are shared between Prince, Lisa Coleman and Dez Dickerson, especially at the start. There was also all that about Phil Collins ripping it off for 'Sussudio'. You can hear it I suppose, but I wouldn't accuse it of more than being 'heavily influenced by'. I had to look up the words. It's one of those choruses that we've all heard but have to make a best guess about what he's actually saying. For the record it's "Cuz they say two thousand zero zero party over, oops out of time; So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999". I take this to mean that Prince believes all partying will stop come the millennium, so 1999 will, literally, be the year to end all parties. Mind you he might have got his maths wrong, I make "two thousand zero zero" to be the year 200,000, so maybe we've got a few more shindigs to go yet.

 I can only hope that 'Little Red Corvette' infuriated Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout, who has been mentioned elsewhere in the blog and counts as the most misguided man in the history of popular music by insinuating that Bruce Springsteen was lyrically and thematically limited in his approach to songwriting in his rather po-faced 'Cars And Girls' song. Well LRC is about cars and girls and is really very rude indeed for a song that still gets quite so much daytime airplay. 

Both 1999 and Little Red Corvette are quite long too, for successful charting singles. In fact the track listing looks like it should all fit on a single album when in fact it's a double. It doesn't always work. Automatic is too repetitive to maintain interest for more than 9 minutes and DMSR (Dance Music Sex Romance - since you ask) sounds like the raw cloth that Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars tailored into 'Uptown Funk'. 

Oh, and 'Delirious' has a silly squeaky synth going on in the background. It sounds like he's got Sweep the Dog on backing vocals.

1999

Little Red Corvette

Delirious

Let's Pretend We're Married

D.M.S.R

Automatic

Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)

Free

Lady Cab Driver 

All The Critics Love U In New York

International Lover

PURPLE RAIN

Released: 25th June 1984

Prince And The Revolution

In the mid to late eighties in the UK, we had four TV channels. There was no YouTube, no Netflix and certainly none of the readily available material that can be accessed by the curious teenager nowadays via the miracle of the internet (if you catch my drift). Therefore there was a heavy reliance on Channel 4's late night output and the domestic VCR to indulge in the more, ahem, 'educational' material of the time. Channel 4 provided some assistance with a helpful red triangle in the corner of the screen when they showed their more artistic movies, presumably to flag them up to the casual viewer. Anyway, Purple Rain was one such offering, in that you knew it would be pushing the bounds of raunchiness for the time. I've just watched it now, and while it's hardly tame, you can see much the same now in The Wicked Adventures Of Sabrina, with plenty of gore and satanism ladled on top as well.

I was sort of pleasantly surprised by how well it stood up though. It's pretty well shot and there's a reasonably deft interweaving of several storylines that are pulled together at the end in a competent fashion. The Purple Pixie of Love would never have been the world's greatest actor, but as a conflicted, arrogant, narcissistic pop star? Well the role could have been written for him. 

There are some problems with the plot however. The Manager of the First Avenue nightclub can only have 3 acts on his roster, so when Morris Day sets up a girl band with Apollonia, who just walks into the club one day to fulfill the role of love interest, objectified female, source of tension, punchbag etc etc, there is a danger that one of the others will have to be dropped. Why this is automatically The Kid and The Revolution is unclear. What's so great about Dez Dickerson and the Modernaires that makes them safe? In fact the credibility of the whole setup is rather undermined by the fact that Morris, Jerome and The Time are several levels more entertaining and funny than their rivals anyway. Surely no-one would drop a band capable of such precise choreography and whom the crowd clearly love.

Also, 'Apollonia 6'. There's 3 of them. Although admittedly there are some aspects of the line up which add up to six and are prominently displayed. Why is everyone performing in their underwear, Minneapolis is quite cold isn't it?

The performance of the songs in the movie more or less follow the running order on the album. 'Let's Go Crazy' introduces the Kid and the band at the very start and 'Take Me With U' is the soundtrack to him taking Appolonia with him on a road trip on his purple bike-o-ped before tricking her into stripping off and jumping into a lake. What a charmer. 

Most of the rest are presented as performances in the club, usually with the intention of pushing the plot along, so his gyrating and thrusting performance of 'Darling Nikki' is presented as a dig at Apollonia and 'The Beautiful Ones' plays on the line "Do you want him or do you want me" to communicate the idea that he's pissed off that she's sitting at a table with Morris. 

But, the album is great. A real career maker. As I said about 1999, Purple Rain was the point where Prince really caught the imagination, and 'When Doves Cry' is a terrific piece of pop-rock, with some brilliantly oblique lyrics ("animals strike curious poses"). 

The title track is presented as a cause of tension in the band through the film, supposedly written by Wendy and Lisa and which he refuses to put in the set, while winding them up with a rather disturbing ventriloquist act. In the end he heals the rift in the band and makes his peace with his hospitalized father (redeemed by having left a supply of original songs as sheet music - which wipes away the abuse of his mother) by performing the song and securing his place at the club. Even Morris repents in the end. 

Let's Go Crazy

Take Me With U

The Beautiful Ones

Computer Blue

Darling Nikki

When Doves Cry

I Would Die For U

Baby I'm A Star

Purple Rain

AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY

Released: 22nd April 1985

Prince And The Revolution

What is Prince's greatest contribution to the British people's understanding of Americans? It's that he had the ability to suddenly make us aware that they pronounce some words completely differently over there. So on 'Raspberry Beret', where we would say "leh-surely", he reveals that it's possible to say it as "lee-surely". See also "Dynasty" on 'Kiss' when we get to Parade.

This feels like a complete left-turn after Purple Rain. Perhaps the former was designed and constructed almost as a character in the film, the songs had to be convincing as the output of a young, talented band, but needed to also fit a certain style. So while that was much more of a rock-dance album, this is much poppier and more varied too. 

'Paisley Park' is an interesting and pleasing song. It reminds you of those Beatles songs that are little sketches of a place, like 'Penny Lane'. I'd almost forgotten it, but it's a good assured piece of music. Standout single was 'Raspberry Beret', the kind you'd find in a second-hand store. If Prince came to a South London Sue Ryder shop he'd be lucky to find a tweed trilby.

Elsewhere he's going from insistent dance funk-outs like 'America' to sub-Vangelis synth ballads such as Condition Of The Heart, via the pop-soul of 'Pop Life'. They're all good, but it's a bit of a ragbag. 

He returns to the talky intro motif of 'Let's Go Crazy' on his gospelly 'The Ladder'. It plods along, all a bit too earnest and the screaming and squawking at the end doesn't convince. At the end 'Temptation' sounds like a Purple Rain outtake, with bonus chimp impressions.

And what do we think of the in-song count-in? He does it twice on here, on 'Paisley Park' and 'Raspberry Beret', the latter is very reminiscent of the Wax single, 'Building a Bridge To Your Heart' where they add that "hold it" before they start. When it's included it needs to serve a purpose. 'Born To Run' needs the "One, Two, Three, Four" in the middle just to jump start the song again, but shouldn't it be unnecessary at the beginning of a song? I suppose it's about trying to make it sound spontaneous, but we all know it's been glued together on a mixing desk.

Around The World In A Day

Paisley Park

Condition Of The Heart

Raspberry Beret

Tambourine

America

Pop Life

The Ladder 

Temptation

PARADE - MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE 'UNDER THE CHERRY MOON'
Released 31st March 1986
Prince And The Revolution

It's taken me quite a while to getting round to this one. This is because I'm sort of committed now to watching any movie of which an album is the soundtrack, but 'Under The Cherry Moon' held no attraction for me at all. It doesn't have a good rep, and picked up a few golden raspberries along the way. However it does have some points of interest. It's the first big-screen outing for Kristin Scott Thomas, and although she was nominated for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst New Star, she does really come out of it fairly unscathed. It's Prince's directorial debut and, whilst it's hardly Danny Boyle, I'd say the direction isn't particularly poor. Story and dialogue are the real culprits here.

Prince clearly decided he wanted to capture an air of fifties Hollywood star vehicle, so it's all filmed in black and white and the sound is very crisp. In fact, it looks pretty good, which is not to say that it's Roman Holiday, nor that he is the new Audrey Hepburn. Prince is Christopher Tracy, one of a pair of gatecrashing gigolos ligging around the south of France and wearing their hats in the bath. However I'm afraid 'Christopher Tracy' is not the name of a high-heeled, bolero-wearing sex machine, but possibly the BBC's Oslo correspondent. His mate is 'Tricky' played by Jerome Benton just continuing where he left off in Purple Rain.

They target rich shipping heiress Kristin at one of her soirees, but Christopher falls for her, naturally. Steven Berkhoff does his usual thing as her father (clearly just trousering the paycheck) and Francesca Annis sits about being cougar-ish. I lost interest halfway through, but it's all fairly standard forbidden love and final tragedy stuff. Christopher gets shot in the end, but true to the B&W movie cultural norms, not a speck of blood soils his all white suit and overcoat combo. 

One big problem is the music. All of which is great, of course, but it just imposes itself all over the movie. It looks like a classic movie, but suddenly there's a sequence where Prince is dancing on top of a piano to 'Girls And Boys' or snogging Kristin in a car to 'Kiss'. For it to work properly it really needs an orchestral soundtrack. Mountains plays over the end credits and is, I think, the actual music video, although still in monochrome.

There is a lot of memorable tracks on the album. 'Girls And Boys' is a fine example of parping bass saxophone on a par with Vanessa Paradis' 'Joe Le Taxi'. I seem to remember that back in my student days we forged some kind of link between 'Anotherloverholenyohead' and veteran end-of-the-pier comic Tom O'Connor, but I can't remember how we got there.

And of course there's 'Kiss', a rare song in that two very different versions have maintained pretty much equal currency down the years. Prince's is delicate and fragile, Tom Jones' is forthright and muscular. For my money, Prince edges it for being just that bit more interesting.

One final thing about the movie, it boasts a direct cinematic link to The Beatles movies. Victor Spinetti puts in an appearance as one of 'The Jaded Three'.

Christopher Tracy's Parade

New Position

I Wonder U

Under The Cherry Moon

Girls And Boys

Life Can Be So Nice

Venus De Milo

Mountains

Do U Lie?

Kiss

Anotherloverholenyohead

Sometimes It Snows In April

SIGN 'O' THE TIMES

Released: 30th March 1987

Prince

Whither Sheena Easton? We all knew her as a pub singer who got lucky via the patronage of the BBC and Esther Rantzen. A jumpsuit clad girl next door with Lady Di haircut from suburban central plain Scotland. Then our hero gets his claws into her and the next thing you know she's putting out filth like 'Sugar Walls' and convincing all of us that nothing we think we know is true. She's on this, the magnificent 'U Got The Look'. Mind you, Prince seems to be rather keen on the sounding like Bart Simpson on that and a few other tracks on Sign 'O' The Times. In fact I was driven to look up whether he had any involvement in that, but no, it was Jacko. 

'Hot Thing' comes a few tracks before 'U Got The Look', but it does take a moment to realize that it's a different song and you're gonna have to wait to be colored peach and black. It's like the sexed up version of the later song, if that's possible.

This seemed to be a bit of a game changer for Prince at the time. I guess he was always a serious artist, but the fact that he was openly addressing the issues of the day, especially in the title track, indicated that he was really now in the big leagues. The other standout track on an exceptional album is 'If I Was Your Girlfriend', which seemed a daring concept for someone who had presented so far as a full on, if rather effete, heterosexual.

He still has some time for a more classic rock sound. 'I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man' is a fine piece of mid-eighties party rock and 'The Cross' brings a harder psychedelic rock edge.

There's a couple of live songs included at the end starting with 'It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night' feels more like a jam designed to give a flavour of the Prince concert experience than a proper song.

But, you know, I think my favourite on this was 'Starfish and Coffee', which is a bit of perfectly catchy pop-nonsense.

Sign 'O' The Times

Play In The Sunshine

Housequake

The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker

It

Starfish and Coffee

Slow Love

Hot Thing

Forever In My Life

U Got The Look

If I Was Your Girlfriend

Strange Relationship

I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man

The Cross

It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night

Adore

LOVESEXY

Released: May 10th 1988

Prince

Such was the anticipation from one of the residents of student hovel 10, Eden Vale, Sunderland in the Spring of 1988 that the release of this album was marked on the kitchen calendar. However, the assumption that Prince would spell it with an 'i' rather than a 'y' proved unfounded. This was the last minute replacement for the none-more-Tap unreleased Black Album, which eventually surfaced in 1994. If it was a rush-release then it probably proves that Prince had an instinct for instantly memorable pop-funk. 

'Alphabet Street' is kind of like an X-cert Sesame Street song and he throws everything into the mix including a rap in which reference is made to checking your body "like a horny pony would". There's also the line about talking "so sexy, she'll love me from my head to my feet". I'll be honest, I love the concept that Prince's erotic eloquence is such that it makes him irresistible, but he was still quite an odd-looking little squirt when it comes down to it.

'Glam Slam' reminds me of 'Sarah' by Thin Lizzy, but only for that soft fuzzy guitar backing. It's gives the impression of being quite a sweet love song, but in the end he's still going on about being horny and flicking nipples. His one-track mind stays on course for 'Anna Stesia' afterward too. The Wikipedia entry for the album suggests that the album is about the conflict of good and evil, but if so, it's quite a, shall we say, 'physical' battle. By the time he gets to the title track he admits to having "racecars burn rubber in his pants" and the end of the song is pretty much pure filth. 'When 2 R In Love' sounds quite tender, and I suppose it is, but he still doesn't hold back on the graphic imagery.

He does finally rein it in for 'I Wish U Heaven' and finishes with the very literal 'Positivity', which genuinely seems to be simply about giving people the best chance in life by accentuating the p.

We cannot let the cover art pass, but it's hard to decide what to say about it. Prince had a long track record of considering himself a bit of a looker. Maybe he's being ironic, but you have to think he really does see himself as some kind of perfect, god-like specimen. It's a nice composition, I'll give it that.

Eye No

Alphabet Street

Glam Slam

Anna Stesia

Dance On

Lovesexy

When 2 R In Love

I Wish U Heaven

Positivity

BATMAN

Released 20th June 1989

Prince

Let's not forget that Tim Burton's Batman was a Big Deal in 1989. Unlike today where Marvel churn out 3 superhero flicks a year and DC are constantly trying to keep up, back then the only really successful attempt at the genre was Superman and it's sequels, which ground to a halt with Superman IV in 1987, a film that I have not seen to this day. I do have a fond memory of the seventies version of Spider-Man starring Von Trapp kid Nicholas Hammond, but mainly because I saw it with my dad at the Tamworth Palace cinema in a double bill with the far superior Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger. Batman was just that daft, but fondly regarded sixties TV series. But at the end of the eighties, comic books suddenly got serious with Watchmen, The Dark Knight and The Killing Joke. So, it was time for a dark, 'adult' take on Batman. Since it was all supposed to be nothing like the Adam West version, it meant you had to be unpredictable in your chosen director and soundtrack, which sort of explains why Burton and Prince came onboard.

The other interesting thing at the time of writing is that Joaquin Phoenix is doing his turn as Joker in cinemas. I thought there might be interesting parallels to draw between him and Jack Nicholson, but they are simply two completely different types of film, with Batman being a pretty straightforward crime caper with dress-up. Nicholson's Joker is just vindictive and crazy, not really too different from Cesar Romero in the TV series, Phoenix is damaged and corrupted, not a career criminal.

Well in fact, despite this being billed as a soundtrack album, Danny Elfman did the proper one - all dark and gloomy orchestral and so setting the standard for all subsequent iterations of the character, Prince only really contributes some songs to the movie's set pieces. Actually, this album, as good as it is, feels like just a promotional puff for the film. He makes liberal and effective use of the dialogue, mainly drawing on Joker's lines. 

There's two obvious places where the Prince songs play a part. 'Partyman' accompanies the defacing of priceless art in the Flugelheim Museum ("Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds. Laurence!") and 'Trust' as he's parading through Gotham dishing out dollar bills before gassing the poor saps ("Go with a smile!"). 'Trust' sounds like the sort of thing old Morris Day and the Time would be camping up outrageously in Purple Rain. Otherwise, 'The Future' is just about heard in the opening, and 'Electric Chair' is what is playing in the background at Bruce Wayne's charity evening.  

It's unclear what the thought process behind 'Arms Of Orion' was. A duet with Sheena Easton which is full-on Disney schmaltz. Actually, Prince's lawyers might have pricked up their ears on hearing 'Can You Hear The Love Tonight'. Presumably it was expected that Batz and Vicki Vale would take a moonlit romantic cruise in the Batamaran at some point, but that never materialized.

It closes with 'Batdance', lead single and most clearly a promo for the film with it's liberal use of dialogue. One memory of this is that Yvette 'Most Haunted' Fielding interpreted the song in dance on Blue Peter. The exact reason for this remains clouded in my memory, maybe just learning a dance routine was a useful addition to the old CV, especially if done on licence payers money. Well, I remember it being quite literal (bat costumes, flappy arms etc) but can't find a trace on YouTube. 

The film itself? It stands up quite well. It doesn't feel very Burton-ish. I think that was more the case with Batman Returns. Keaton always struck me as a very static Batman. A lot of the time he stands stock still, letting the bad guys exhaust themselves around him (including an attack which is reminiscent of the swordsman in Raiders) them socks them in the moosh. The point of the film was that Batman was as crazy and damaged as Joker. They're yin and yang you see. Jokers slashed mouth smile is supposed to contrast with Bruce's perma-pursed lips. When they enter Vicki Vale's apartment one after the other, they say the same line.  Thirty years of endless repetitions of the character and the adoption of all the comic books as a modern mythology means that I now realize that Billy Dee Williams character, Harvey Dent, is destined to become Two-Face, but by the time that happened in  Batman Forever he'd turned in Tommy Lee Jones.

The Future

Electric Chair

The Arms Of Orion

Partyman

Vicki Waiting

Trust

Lemon Crush

Scandalous

Batdance

GRAFFITI BRIDGE

Released: 21st August 1990

Prince

It's taken me a long time to get around to writing this one, although I have been listening to it for a couple of weeks now and it's a great album. The problem is, it's a movie soundtrack and I was already a little weary of Prince's directorial efforts, so I was very tempted to skip the visuals and just crack on. But, the film is a sequel to Purple Rain, and no matter how non-committal Wikipedia might be about whether it's a true sequel or not, it does feature the same characters and locations and takes place after the original movie, so it meets some pretty important criteria. It's unfair to Prince as well to criticize his directing skills, to my untutored eye it looks just fine, his problem is gossamer thin plots and appalling dialogue. In fact the plot is so not-there in this one that it really qualifies as a 90 minute performance/concert video - and in that sense it's really very good.

So, plot. Morris is staging a takeover of all the clubs at Seven Corners, these consist of Pandemonium, which seems to be his own base of operations, Melody Cool, run by Mavis Staples with her son, Tevin Campbell, in attendance, and The Clinton Club, run by a character called George Clinton and played by...George Clinton as a kind of interpretation of...George Clinton. You'd think they just wanted George Clinton in the film. Finally there is the Glam Slam run by our hero, The Kid. Morris seems to have Clinton and Melody well wrapped up, but of course it's his old rival The Kid who is holding out. Meanwhile an Angel called Aura has come down from heaven to do some kind of business between Morris and The Kid involving seducing both of them. I really didn't follow that bit. 

The titular bridge looks like it's made out of fibreglass, but apparently really does exist, it's where Aura hangs out while playing the two rivals against each other. 

Eventually there's a band performance-off between Morris's Time and The Kid's New Power Generation for the soul of the Glam Slam, however the actual decision making process on the winner seems to just be for Morris and Jerome to hold their nerve, tell The Kid he was crap and they win! They kiss and make up at the end of course and the neighbourhood continues to be able to support 4 similar nightclubs all adjacent each other.

The album follows the track order of the plot, so the excellent 'New Power Generation' introduces the Kid and his band while 'Release It' is used for the usual precision synchronized Time dance routine. It's quite a nice contrast really, Prince and his guys are presented as organically gyrating groovers, while Morris and Jerome are all camp control. There's collaborations with all the main guest stars, George is brought in for 'We Can Funk', Tevin wears a too-big suit and draws a crowd outside Melody Cool for 'Round and Round' and Mavis does 'Melody Cool' as a signature song as she's giving Morris the musical V-signs. 

Best known song is probably 'Thieves In The Temple' which really does very little to drive the plot along, but I'd say this is about the most consistently high quality record I've listened to so far. The collaborations and a few Time songs help. 

Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

New Power Generation

Release It

The Question Of U

Elephants and Flowers

Round And Round

We Can Funk

Joy In Repetition

Love Machine

Tick, Tick, Bang

Shake

Thieves In The Temple

The Latest Fashion

Melody Cool

Still Would Stand All Time

Graffiti Bridge

New Power Generation - Pt. II

DIAMONDS AND PEARLS
Released: 1st October 1991
Prince And The New Power Generation

Sign O The Times seems to be generally accepted as Prince's masterpiece, but for me, this has been the most consistently enjoyable album so far, from the funky sitar of Thunder to the absolute filth of Gett Off and Cream it's full of memorable grooves (that's right, I referred to a musical track as a 'groove'). There's a thrilling, thrumming bassline on 'Daddy Pop' which contrasts with the delicately crafted title track, a perfect duet with Rosie Gaines, who has a voice to match any of your Mariah's or Alicia's.

As noted above, the Nelson libido is not being held in check on this album. 'Cream' squeezes every ounce of meaning out of it's title. It sounds like it's been whipped to a smooth consistency. He even manages a reference to T-Rex's 'Get It On'. Not much later on he doubles down with 'Gett Off'. Rapper Tony M's "23 positions in a one-night stand" is unambiguous to say the least. It's all ecstatic screams, sleazy flute, thumping bass and lewd commentary.

The Prince falsetto is back back back on 'Strollin'', an ultra cheesy easy-listening jazz effort that strays about as far into the innocent as 'Gett Off' goes into depraved, and he continues to explore his more thoughtful side with the smooooth 'Money Don't Matter 2 Night'.

There's a couple of thumpin dance tracks too in Jughead and Push accompanied by forceful and furious rapping. I'm no big fan of hip-hop, but you can hear the craft that goes into it.

The album packaging was a holographic image, which of course I can't really reproduce in this medium, but it at least explains why every version of the cover I found online was slightly different from the rest.

Thunder

Daddy Pop

Diamonds And Pearls

Cream

Strollin'

Willing and Able

Gett Off

Walk Don't Walk

Jughead

Money Don't Matter 2 Night

Push

Insatiable

Live 4 Love

THE BLACK ALBUM

Prince

Released: 22nd November 1994

Black albums are ten-a-penny. There's Metallica's with the barely visible snake, Jay-Z has done one, so have Weezer and The Damned, there's even Smell The Glove. The idea is, presumably that The Beatles stole a march by getting a White Album out, which left no option but to go to the other end of the monochromatic spectrum. Although there is a band who have the brass-necked cheek to call themselves The White Album. A quick five minutes on Spotify revealed the existence of The Grey Album (Danger Mouse), The Green Album (Muppets), The Yellow Album (Spongebob) and even Das Beige Album (Ollie Schulz and Der Hund Marie- I didn't investigate). Red and Blue Albums are attributed as the two Beatles compilations (1962-1966 and 1967-1970 respectively). 

So it's not a particularly interesting or original nomenclature. For Prince it's all tied up in the mystery of the origins of the album, which was slated as the follow up to 'Sign O The Times' and was distributed as a promo but withdrawn because Prince thought it was evil (all this is according to Wikipedia by the way, I'm no Paisley Park student). I'm not sure I'd call it evil, but it's quite extreme and the language! 'Bob George' is a potty-mouthed swear-fest (and an unfitting tribute to the bling-garlanded arrers-chucker). It's also not available on Spotify, which is a relief in one way, I'm forced to a single listen on YouTube and an off the cuff write up rather than an agonized week or two of trying to get a grip. 

There's a LOT of funk. In fact most tracks seem to be extended grooves rather than proper songs. It is also known as The Funk Bible. The main exception is 'When 2 R In Love' in which he channels Barry White, if he had been a castrato. I'm also tempted to say that some of it is not that good. '2 Nigs United 4 West Compton' descends into frenzied improvisation that sounds like he's playing it on a shoebox with elastic bands stretched around it. It's supposed to be a reach out to a black audience, but surely Prince's appeal and genius is that he bridged any perceived alignment of race and music? Anyhow, he might have been better off keeping it under wraps indefinitely, I reckon it could have benefited from the forgiveness of flaws that a posthumous release can bring.

Le Grind

Cindy C

Dead On It

When 2 R In Love

Bob George

Superfunkycalifragisexy

2 Nigs United 4 West Compton

Rockhard In A Funky Place.

COME
Released 16th August 1994
Prince

Each track has a single word title, although Letitgo is a bit of a cheat isn't it? Single words, single entendres. It's all reasonably filthy and bracketed by the title track and 'Orgasm' - which is not a song at all and as literal as you can possibly imagine. Don't listen to it in polite company is my advice. Lots of slurping and gasping on the 11+ minutes of 'Come' too. It's a smooth enough jazz/soul groove but you have to start thinking that he needs someone to start reining him in. He was about to take on his 'Love Symbol' persona at this time too and it seems that this was all mixed up in contractual obligations of providing a final album for a Warner Bros contract before he could move on.

There isn't much in the way of 'songs', it feels more like a dance mix album, with Prince by turns talking sexy, being morose, effing and jeffin' and I'm not sure what he's attempting on 'Solo'. Cleo Laine? Many of the songs start with the sound of crashing waves, but it'as unclear what the significance is. 'Letitgo' is the best thing on it by quite a distance but I wouldn't be tempted to the album twice (although I have done).

So the plan is, I have 3 more albums to go, but if it's not going to be a chore he needs to up his game and make it all that much more interesting.

Come

Space

Pheromone

Loose!

Papa

Race

Dark

Solo

Letitgo

Orgasm

THE GOLD EXPERIENCE

Released: 25th September 1995

Prince/'Love Symbol'

For my next journey into Prince's hedonistic world we must imagine that we are browsing in Boots, WH Smith or Marks and Sparks (or maybe somewhere like JC Penney if you are of an American bent) in the days before Christmas. The desperate shopper alights on a  rack of essentially empty boxes which offer 'experiences'. You know the sort of thing, balloon trip, wine tasting for two, spa day and driving. Well Prince seems to be offering his own range of experiences, but if Auntie Ethel is not that interested in various forms of sexual encounter then they might not be the perfect seasonal gift after all. Each song is prefaced by a kind of jukebox selection of an experience from "The Dawn, playground of the New Power Generation". The calm female voice lists the themes, all of which inevitably include 'sex'. 

I'll be honest, I'm getting tired of Prince now, he's good, but the subject matter is relentless, and I'm saying that when I'm on a pretty artistically solid album. Take the opening track, coyly titled as P Control but much less coy in actual execution. The P stands for 'pussy' and this is not a guide to training your cat. The use of the oedipal expletive seems gratuitous and I began to spend more time wondering why there is such a need to shock rather than enjoying the song. 

There's two hit singles and, if you're looking for evidence that this is a return to mainstream acceptance then 'The Most Beautiful Girl In the World' and 'Gold' are compelling, but the former is withheld from the Spotify version of the album. The criteria for this kind of thing is not clear to me at all, it happens occasionally, usually with hit singles, but if so, why doesn't 'Gold' qualify too? The lyrics of that song have always given me pause, "Even at the center of the fire, there is cold"? simply not true I'm afraid, it's clearly the hottest place, it glows red.

All my negativity is really just based on weariness with him, this is actually a really good album, and seems to be generally accepted as his best since Sign O The Times, and the end is now in sight as I'm drawing the line at Emancipation

P Control

Endorphinmachine

Shhh

We March

The Most Beautiful Girl In the World

Dolphin

Now

319

Shy

Billy Jack Bitch

Eye Hate You

Gold

CHAOS AND DISORDER

Released: 19th July 1996

Prince

You can't trust anyone. Just as I was thinking that Prince was just content with lascivious funk, he comes out with a beezer like this, although apparently he's not that keen on it and it's another sop to his Warner's contract. This was about the time he was claiming that being in a record contract amounted to slavery. The opening title track and the following 'I Like It There' are both  chunky rock-outs, before he slows it down for the lyrically inventive 'Dinner With Delores' - "Like a Brontosaurus; she was packing it in". Surely there's a better rhyme for "Delores". Chorus? Porous? Ignore us? 

He tries out a Texan accent at the start of 'Right The Wrong' and embraces a bit of toasting on 'I Rock Therefore I Am' reminiscent of the Soup Dragons/Junior Reid reworking of the Stones 'I'm Free'. 

I suppose it feels quite safe. These are structurally conventional songs, so it seems likely that he just dashed off a load of stuff that was neither shameful nor groundbreaking, but it does serve to emphasize how versatile he was capable of being. 

Chaos And Disorder

I Like It There

Dinner With Delores

The Same December

Right The Wrong

Zannalee

I Rock, Therefore I Am

Into The Light

I Will

Dig U Better Dead

Had U

EMANCIPATION

Released: 19th November 1996

Prince

Dear lord. 3 hours? B Springsteen Esq. of this parish is known to be prolific in producing a lot of material and then sorting the wheat from the chaff before assembling a final album and although there's doubtless a lot of whole grain goodness in this marathon from Prince, surely some trimming was possible?

I mean, I get it, this is the aftermath of his struggle for freedom from the bondage of his Warner Bros contract, so he was probably holding a lot of stuff back for just this moment and Chaos and Disorder, released  just 4 months earlier, may have been a collection of his rejects (although I enjoyed the rockier sound) that he put out to complete the required album quota, but to be honest, there's more width to this than top notch quality. Also, being quite weary after 18 albums and 4 films, I'm not inclined to give this the attention it might deserve. He seems content to pay tribute to classic soul sounds, to the extent that the lead single was 'Betcha By Golly Wow', which deviates nary a gnat's whisker from the Stylistics version. Incidentally the song is not a Stylistics original and started out under the title 'Keep Growing Strong'. Prince takes the later title and adds an exclamation mark for good measure, Probably a bit peed off because he couldn't call it 'Bet U By Golly Wow'.

I get the feeling that the Isley Brothers may be the most influential act in popular music history, I often find myself thinking of them when listening to other artists. It may be that soaring twanging guitar sound is so unique that anything similar makes me think of them. 'I Can't Make U Love Me' does owe quite a lot to 'Summer Breeze' though.

Otherwise the length makes it unremarkable. There's just too much and it all becomes a libidinous slurry. Why anyone would sit down and listen to the whole thing is beyond me, and I guess that I'm deliberately missing the point, maybe he does intend it as something you just dip into. It's a shame in the sense that I'm calling it a day with this one. There's heaps of albums after this but I doubt I'd be able to find anything original to say about them. Prince fell right out of the mainstream at this point. I'm sure I could not tell you one single from this point onward, so he clearly meant little to me. 

Jam Of The Year

Right Back Here In My Arms

Somebody's Somebody

Get Yo Groove On

Courtin' Time

Betcha By Golly Wow!

We Gets Up

White Mansion

Damned If Eye Do

I Can't Make You Love Me

Mr. Happy

In This Bed Eye Scream

Sex In The Summer

One Kiss At A Time

Soul Sanctuary

Emale

Curious Child

Dreamin' About U

Joint 2 Joint

The Holy River

Let's Have A Baby

Saviour

The Plan

Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife

Slave

New World

The Human Body

Face Down

La, La, La Means Eye Love U

Style

Sleep Around

Da, Da, Da

My Computer

One Of Us

The Love We Make

Emancipation