A minor hit, it quietly announced the arrival of a unique and uniquely unbiddable talent, so obsessed with sex he mentions his penis in the opening line. Released at the height of disco, Soft and Wet’s skeletal, off-kilter synth funk – complete with jazzy inflections – sounded like it came from another planet to the rest of the US chart. Early on in his career, Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad? offered dancefloor-focused R&B that was influenced by both AOR and the emergent new wave, and concluded with a startling display of guitar pyrotechnics. One aspect of Prince’s genius lay in his inability to be confined by musical genres. Hence the US-only Delirious, a kind of dry-run for Let’s Go Crazy, with its roots in 50s rock’n’roll. In the best possible way, the 1999 album was the sound of a man showing off: name a musical style and he could bend it to his own ends. Its lead single isn’t a bad song by any means – its sound is slinky and luscious, the chorus is great – but it’s no When Doves Cry. Prince clearly intended Graffiti Bridge to have a similar impact to Purple Rain, but the film was abysmal and the accompanying soundtrack uneven. Stark, acoustic and blues-influenced, performed solo and boasting a great vocal performance, The Truth didn’t sound like any Prince single before it. The Truth (1997)Īn interesting single from Prince’s artistically lean years, primarily because it took him somewhere new. I Hate You is The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’s evil twin: more pillow-soft soul, this time attacking rather than hymning a woman, complete with a faintly problematic faux-courtroom scene. The Gold Experience was a better album than its relatively lukewarm reception suggested. It helped that copies given away with gig tickets counted as sales, but so did the presence of straightforwardly enjoyable songs such as Cinnamon Girl, which you could have imagined him writing circa Around the World in a Day. Musicology was Prince’s biggest-selling album in more than a decade. But it did yield The Work, a relentless, horn-laden James Brown-ish groove that unexpectedly collapses into slowed-down vocals and synth-y ambience. The Work Pt 1 (2001)īeloved of Prince diehards, a bit of a schlep for everyone else, the jazz and Jehovah concept album The Rainbow Children underlined that Prince was now more interested in stubborn self-indulgence than commercial success. Nor has its largely instrumental first single dated well: it picks up when the vocals come in, but Prince had made umpteen more creative 12in remixes than this. The Batman soundtrack was the first real artistic wobble in Prince’s career, arriving replete with filler, including the phoned-in ballad The Arms of Orion. It’s not groundbreaking in the way Prince’s singles once were, but it’s exquisitely written. Gold (1995)Ī lost nugget from 1995’s The Gold Experience, Gold reiterates the anti-materialistic message of 1992’s Money Don’t Matter 2 Night. Dinner With Delores (1996)Īnother thrown-together contractual-obligation album, Chaos and Disorder had a rough charm and immediacy, as evidenced by Dinner With Dolores, a sweet, if slight, song cut from the same pop-rock cloth as Manic Monday. Her presence seemed to rouse him – it’s a gospel/southern soul-inspired ballad, and a minor gem. Prince hadn’t lost his ability to spot talent: U Make My Sun Shine featured a great guest appearance from neo-soul singer Angie Stone. Perhaps he made more of an effort because it’s about his desire to leave the Warners label. Letitgo isn’t a classic, but nor is it a disaster. But even when he didn’t really care, he couldn’t turn his talent off completely. Come was evidently thrown together to fulfill his contract.
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