By new, I mean new to me. I’m sure other fans who’d had this album since its release 25 years ago had made them ages ago.
On a previous post (which may or may not be published by the time you read this), I’d dismissed this particular Prince album as non-essential. Meaning you could take a journey through Prince’s music and not miss too much if you skip this one.
And while I stand by that even after this last listen, I will say that there are still some things to enjoy even if it’s not at the level we come to expect from Prince by this point in his career.
First off- I listened to it start to finish with no skips and sometimes I admittedly do skip.
Man o War and love you but don’t trust- which are part of my cold reception to this disc over the past several years… I listened to them with as much objectivity as I could but ultimately they passed me by like some Taylor swift songs (there aren’t many…) where they’re there and I’m just too lazy to hit skip.
The latter just “exists” and I try to keep my emotions out of it. Objectively it’s a brilliant performance but there’s a wall I’ve put up to keep me from getting emotionally invested. It might be the wrong approach to put myself in Prince’s shoes when I listen so I can experience the music from his perspective (Matt Thorne disagreed with this approach in his book and was one reason his book put me off) but it’s the way I typically do things. But this is an exception because I know this is BS and I refuse to go along with it.
Man o War is ok but sorta feels unnecessary when the other song does a good enough job sending home the message. The one line about “putting something inside someone else”… not his best work by a long shot. Clearly he was trying to say something filthy without actually spelling it out. He got better at this over the years but it’s one of those instance where, if a lyric sounds ridiculous to me, I’ll flat out refuse to sing it.
Relating this back to the two women in his life at the time, yeah he might not have committed infidelity in so many words but he was certainly guilty of holding someone else’s hand- which by Mayte’s words, was an form of intimacy the two of them had during their courtship. But like with the other song, it’s him saying she abandoned the ship but she was the one going down with it until she finally left. A line I’ve become all too familiar with thanks to Taylor’s music.
I think I’ve made my point fully so time to move onto other things.
Overall I sorta feels like this album is a good way to show off Prince and his eccentricities. It was among my first albums- sometime within that first year of fandom- so I heard it with the mindset of Prince being something of a mythical being who thinks and acts differently than what you’d consider normal. Although you could make the case that in Undisputed and Strange but True that he’s playing up that angle to mess with people’s heads.
You have some so-called “normal” pop songs like so far so pleased, tangerine and wherever you go that are easy enough to get into. Then there’s Sun moon and stars plus Baby knows- where both songs are really good on their own but Prince throws in some quirky stuff in an effort to make things more interesting. The first having the random reggae rap and the other having a powwow about ditching someone in a car trunk… some people might say what kind of person comes up with this stuff? Me, I enjoy both thoroughly, every single listen.
I used to hate Undisputed because of the guest rap element but it all makes better sense to me now. Not saying I’ll go to this song on its own but I don’t mind it.
Prince did a lot of record company bashing in the 90s, in his songs and in interviews, and this is probably the most egregious example. After this, he laid off the subject with a couple of exceptions (notably son of a slave master from the posthumous welcome 2 America release). Attacking the commercialization of music, he’d get more vocal of that in later years. During the musicology era for starters but also the interview where he bashed Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran… which I’ll tell myself is only because of the radio over playing them. I refuse to believe Prince would hate Ed Sheeran specifically as an artist when he checks all of the boxes Prince deems necessary for an artist to have.
His part of the song ends with name dropping QuestLove and D’Angelo and it’s drawn a lot of speculation. Some have considered it a diss but I never interpreted it that way. He’s saying how his level is what people must rise above. Both of these guys were influenced by Prince and are carrying the torch for future generations. So he’s saying to talk to them so you’ll understand why they hold him in such high regard that they’re led by his example. It’s a well known fact in the community that QuestLove is a Prince fan and scholar of sorts- although comments in recent years have cast him in a different light. Instead of being admired as an authority on Prince, he drew criticism for saying he’s put off by the music coming out of the vault because he’s no longer the only person who’s heard these songs. As if he wanted to hoard all that knowledge for himself and keep it locked behind a gate. Sadly this type of “gatekeeping” is one of the big negatives about the Prince community as of late- discouraging new fans from joining up when Prince’s legacy could use all the support it can get.
Then I made some new observations I hadn’t before but I’m sure fans who’d been around longer had been aware of them for years.
During the title track, it hit me why I don’t like it.
His voice takes on the quality of sandpaper- he pushes it to give it that sound on purpose. It reminded me of something and I pursued my hunch to see if I was right. And I think I’m onto something.
He claimed he held it back all these years cuz it was too similar to Kiss. He first recorded this song July 1988. He recorded Scandalous in October of the same year. That ballad is highly regarded as one of his best but the one deal breaker for me is his scratchy voice on it. I’d be head over heels in love with him in that song but I don’t find the vocal attractive. It wouldn’t surprise me if that his way of emulating a black female vocalist with a similar style- nothing wrong with that except it’s a turn off in a love song. I judge his love songs by whether they make me fall for him or not. As brilliant as it’s composed and it sounds great on paper but it’s let down by that one thing,
Another interesting thing I read was that this song was considered for the scene in Batman that ultimately went to Partyman. I can definitely picture it- if only the fact its tempo would match the action on screen really well. Partyman just has that something extra, the right amount of zany character energy The Joker has in this one instance.
Also the horn section caught my attention for maybe the first time- and it made me think of something off LoveSexy. Probably Eye No. Which wouldn’t surprise me because that album came out a few months before this song was recorded.
Strange but true has some interesting instrumental moments strewn throughout. One moment reminded me of the turnaround from “new world” off emancipation. Another I’m sure is a reference to sexy dancer or some other song from his 70s work. But once I made that connection I was blown away. I already liked the song but now even more.
I forget which song but something in the drums reminded me of the drumming in emancipation.
Prettyman is considered one of the album’s better tracks and I’ve had issues with it in the past. Now the only ammo I really have left is that I’m just not into the whole James Brown thing. I know he’s a huge influence on Prince and the song features Maceo Parker from his band back in the day. But it doesn’t excite me the way his pop songs do.
At least I can say I enjoy his humor in the song a lot more than I used to. Suddenly “y2k not today, I wrote a check and the bank bounced” is the funniest thing ever- not that I didn’t appreciate it but now it’s super hilarious. Probably because i remembered even though I hadn’t listened to Rave in years.
Hot with U is great all around… the only problem is that it reeks of Prince trying to act younger than he is.
Not as bad as Jennifer Lopez doing “I love you papi” as a hook when she was in her 40s but it felt like Prince trying to appeal to a younger audience by using young people slang.
What’s funny is that I had Eve’s rap down cold and I don’t think I ever had before. It’s fascinating how much you retain with years of separation. I’d been considering lately how my head is so full of Taylor swift lyrics that other lyrics are starting to get squeezed out to make room.
I’m in the minority but I still like everyday’s a winding road better in the style of Sly and the family stone more than the original.
The “everyday” mantra section is still unnecessary but I still really like the rest of it.
And yeah, if this makes me a hypocrite, then fine. I’m a hypocrite. But as much as I spoke about the breakup songs on this album and how I refuse to be sold a lie…
I can’t help how I feel around “the greatest romance.” I’d spent too much time building up the fantasy of it in my head to give it up. It’ll always occupy that space where I just want to dream and never wake up from it. And yeah, I may have misinterpreted it as romantic all these years but I want to maintain that illusion regardless of what the truth is. And the truth mainly lies in the lyric “your body was designed to respond to mine in spite of your desire to mold me”. Mayte saw this as the first shoe and the other shoe to drop was love but don’t trust.
I have no overarching conclusion other than maybe I’ll listen to this album a bit more than I have.
But also- if there were songs that weren’t mentioned, I didn’t forget. I just had nothing new to contribute.
The Musings of DreamyPopRoyalty 