Prince - Dirty Mind (1980)

It's time for the best album from one of my musical heroes. I decided the other day that I'm going to get into hanging out with celebrities. I mean, my friends are cool, but there are probably way cooler people out there, such as Prince, Ben Affleck, and Heather Graham (bombers). So yeah, attention all celebrities, why don't you come over and listen to records.

Prince's absurdly prolific output from the early 80s is unbearably, appallingly consistently great - a real monsoon of musical creativity and weird-ass grooves. I don't even know what to say about this other than if you don't like it, come over and I'll gladly cut your ears off for you. Idiot.

Underneath the layers of synth tones and guitar embellishments, these songs embody a stark "less is more" philosophy. Notice that Uptown is based upon the same chord progression for the entire song, broken only briefly for a pre-chorus, and structuring changes are brought about by changing instrumentation. As in the construction of human language, a collection of basic rules gives rise to infinite variations in meaning through recursive groove structuring and adolescent incest fantasies.

I usually hate the lyrics to just about everything, but I truly envy the voracious, animalistic sexuality represented here. Prince wants to bang more than I've ever wanted anything in my life, and that is something that rules. Another cool thing about these lyrics is that they are very offensive to those with morals and values. Here is a funny video of Zappa and other whites on Crossfire discussing censorship in the 80s. Sister features prominently in the discussion, which is actually one of Prince's best choruses, home to one of the catchiest, non-diatonic notes of all time.

Also I back Prince singing in falsetto almost the whole time. Really good move; totally maxes out the androgyny.

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The Time - What Time is It? (1982)

This is basically a Prince album except Morris Day sings instead of the Purple One. You guys remember The Time from Purple Rain, especially The Bird. Well, What Time is It? features The Walk, which, although it doesn't have the memorable and brilliant squawk, does have a really nice minor chord progression and a skit about a woman with an ass so big that it is difficult to take her jeans off. What do you think about this skit, Steve? Ignore what Morris Day has to say at around ~3:30 and realize that this is the anatomy of a Prince groove. He just brings everything in and out, and you can pay attention to which parts are most important and which parts are just flair.

This really shows how to maximize an idea. Most of these songs are just based on one groove with lots of vocal tracks extra instrumentation for the chorus. Also, there are extended jam outs that are kept interesting by the liberal use of weird doubles on the hi-hat and really silly synth tones.

And there is another skit about a pre-internet SIF, reminding us that the world wide web is merely an enabler in these sorts of things.

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