siLLy puPPy Despite the debut album being a complete commercial flop, PRINCE quickly followed up with a successor releasing his eponymous second album in October of 1979 and once again basically every single aspect of the album was handled by PRINCE himself including the songwriiting, production, arrangements and musical performances. This album showed PRINCE expanding his eclectic tentacles even further into the nooks and crannies of the musical world. While the album still retains a dominant R&B and synth funk presence, on album number two we get a lot more indicating telltale signs that the future purple one is unfurling his talents just a like a lotus flower unfolding its petals into full bloom. He is also showing first signs of loving to be naked! A shirtless PRINCE graces the cover and he is gleefully riding a unicorn unclothed on the back.

While the first couple of tracks are his usual shtick of synth funk verging on disco exclusively done in falsetto, on the third track “Sexy Dancer” we get a glimpse into some of the future purple one’s sound with a funk guitar taking control fortified with a groovy bass line and a healthy libido oriented lyrical litany complete with heavy breathing rhythmic accompaniments. Actually an early glimpse into the mega-hit “Kiss” to emerge a few years later.

Unfortunately some of my least favorite aspects of PRINCE are present here as well. I’m speaking of the over sappy ballads displayed here with “When We’re Dancing Close And Slow.” OK, maybe if you’re all hot and bothered by the album cover then this might do it for ya, but i’m sorry it’s not working for yours truly. Same goes for “With You,” the very next track which shows that the purple one hadn’t quite learned the art of pacing upbeat tracks with the slower moon howlers that i can’t stand. “Still Waiting” is the exception where PRINCE has a catchy piano man persona and has a beautiful melody that technically is a ballad but has a mid-tempo beat and a more interesting flow of chords, rhythms and harmonies.

The sixth track “Bambi” changes everything and debuts PRINCE’s brilliance of incorporating rock ’n’ roll into his synth funk visions. This track has a nice distorted guitar accompanied by a more real rocking drum beat. While this one rocks complete with little licks that would develop into PRINCE’s unique guitar soloing style, this one is still in tandem with the rest of the album with his falsetto only vocal style and funkified song structure. Still though, a prototype for his more rocking mojo of future hits such as “Let’s Get Crazy” and “U Got The Look.”

While this second album failed to score any significant chart climbing singles, it did hit number 22 on the Billboard album charts and was certified gold in the not too distant future. Despite the lack of singles it did however hit the R&B charts with “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?.” This album is also notable with the eighth track “I Feel For You” which was remade by Chaka Khan in 1984 and proved to be a huge hit which would be the first of songs written by PRINCE and performed by others to prove major chart success. Proof that PRINCE was first and foremost a songwriting behemoth who would go on to write countless tracks for other artists (think The Time, Stevie Nicks and of course Sinead O’Connor as well as the countless acts he spawned over the years.)

siLLy puPPy PRINCE Rogers Nelson showed musical talent at a very early age and released several demos before this debut album FOR YOU which emerged in 1978. At this time he was only 17 and i have to say…. sounds like it. This album is a far cry from the masterpieces of “Purple Rain” and the gazillion hits that would follow, but for what this album isn’t, it has kernels of what PRINCE would become yet at this point anyone listening to this album at the time would have a hard time predicting that this strange dude with that funny falsetto would become one of the biggest stars in all of musical history.

This first release by “The Purple One” was a rather modest affair. There is R&B, disco and synth-funk. Pretty much standard affair for the day and improving on none of the greats of the day in even the slightest. The music is nice and catchy and if this was PRINCE’s only album ever to emerge then it might even be a little bit beyond OK, but as we all know the best was yet to come and come again over and over and over again.

This may be one of PRINCE’s lesser appreciated albums simply because it gets drowned in the sea of albums he has released over the years, yet there is something special about a debut album for me whether it is their swan song or not. It displays a time where the artist shows a unique potential (or not) and a portrait of their roots. That is definitely the case with PRINCE here. In all his reserved efforts there is a sense of something lurking beneath the surface ready to unleash itself on an unsuspecting world. The album? OK. I got to this well after being exposed to pretty much everything after, but there is a smattering going on here that points to something more albeit unperceivable at the time.

dreadpirateroberts Prince’s 1991 ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ was co-billed with his backing band the New Power Generation and saw him take further steps toward straight ahead pop, but steps also, into the hip hop market. This obviously constituted a departure from the RnB and funk material of earlier releases, but such elements are not absent here.

After a stretch releasing soundtracks (Batman & Graffiti Bridge) Prince delivered ‘Diamonds & Pearls’ which was a massive chart success in the UK, US and Australia especially. It was an album complete with slick early-90s production, raps and catchy hits that just begged for erotic film clips. While a similar production style would be taken further on albums like Michael Jackson’s monster-selling ‘Dangerous’ later the same year, Prince was always more eclectic. On ‘Diamonds & Pearls’ he puts touches from funk, RnB, rock, soul, jazz, and rap on his pop songs, even using the occasional industrial drum sound and spoken narrative. Lyrically he’s still in the bedroom most of the time, one of the exceptions being highlight ‘Money Don’t Matter 2 Nite’ or when he hands the mic over to dancer and rapper Tony M, who delivers boasting in a serviceable manner that isn’t ineffective but might not win him many ‘serious’ hip hop fans.

Prince also raps on occasion and the ‘up close’ vocal sound he employs (such as in ‘Jughead’) suits his sometimes almost lazy delivery and somehow adds more fuel to the sexualisation of his performance – something he takes to almost comical extremes in the slow-jam of ‘Insatiable.’ A more than talented vocalist nonetheless, his arranging skills are on display in the dramatic opener ‘Thunder’ where his lower register, rock voicing, and trademark falsetto are multi-tracked to great effect.

While Prince handles his usual plethora of instruments, The New Power Generation do feature too. The rhythm section sound together despite attempts to make them come across as ‘sampled,’ and aside from Tony M’s lead raps and the occasional co-write from some of its members, it’s Rosie Gaines who gets much the spotlight, especially on the title track. Her backing vocals are distinctive and she often appears in a manner comparable to the way Fergie would later be used in The Black Eyed Peas.

This isn’t Prince’s best album by any stretch. Instead perhaps, it’s now partly a time capsule of 1990s pop and should appeal to fans of the era as much or more than Prince fans, and this is certainly true if you’re mostly looking for his funk and RnB. Aside from ‘Willing and Able’ and the delightful ‘Strollin’’ there isn’t too much. The general feel of the album is better demonstrated by singles like ‘Cream’ or ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ and ‘Get Off.’ The occasional misstep like ‘Daddy Pop’ doesn’t really effect the general flow of the album, at its worst its formulaic and at its best it’s fun, well-written pop blessed with Prince’s distinctive singing.

Warthur Around the World In a Day is one of Prince's more experimental albums, focused as it is on embracing the rock side of the Revolution's sound and directing it to pay tribute to the psychedelic sounds of past decades. Whilst the idea of a psych-funk-soul mashup is very much valid - after all, that's precisely what Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic did - the end results here are rather muddled, failing to stand up either to the psychedelic influences the album was trying to pay tribute to or Prince's immediately preceding work with the Revolution on 1999 and Purple Rain. Raspberry Beret is alright but otherwise the album's best seen as an ambitious mistake - a mistake worth attempting, but a mistake nonetheless.

Warthur The soundtrack to Prince's zeitgeist-capturing movie is another great rock-funk-soul fusion piece from the Revolution, this time around leaning a little more heavily on the rock side of the band's sound - and in doing so making a fine case for the group as the 80s successors to Funkadelic. Although unlike its predecessor it doesn't quite have a standout track on the level of 1999 or Little Red Corvette, at the same time it is a bit more consistently high in its quality, with out any songs which get repetitive or outlast their welcome. For a brief time in the 1980s Prince could do absolutely no wrong, and this is a great souvenir of that period.