Greetings, readers! I am in the middle of a week of vacation, which is why you are getting this review a bit earlier on a Wednesday than you ordinarily might.
Disc 1833 is…Self-Titled
Artist: Prince
Year of Release: 1979
What’s up with the Cover? Prince shows us how to make a stock ‘head and shoulders’ shot into something sexy. What makes it sexy? The porn-star moustache? The lack of a shirt? The tantalizingly almost-visible right nipple?
Yes, all these things, and one thing more: Prince knows he is sexy. And when he stares at you with those big, beautiful eyes, you know that he knows.
How I Came To Know It: Over the last few years I’ve been slowly exploring Prince’s back catalogue. I found this one in the used section of my local record store, after some very foolish person decided to part with it.
How It Stacks Up: I have nine Prince albums in the collection (up from four in 2011 and seven in 2020). I highly doubt I’m done. However, I rank against what I have in the moment, so today I’ll put this record in at…#3.
Ratings: 4 stars
In 2006 Justin Timberlake proposed to bring sexy back, but in 1979 Prince wasn’t interested in such temporal niceties. His self-titled sophomore effort is suffused with sexy in a way that transcends space and time. Sexy is Everywhere, All at Once, All the Time. If you are ready to slide into that reality, then you are ready for this record.
Marvin Gaye wishes he could have this kind of staying power on a theme. That is not to say this record is without variety – it is just to say that all that variety exists in the context of sexy times.
Sometimes, Prince drops fast-moving funky grooves. Let’s call this ‘vertical sexy’, the kind of sexy you experience on the dance floor. Maybe you are dancing with a partner and reveling in the mirroring and call-and-answer crazy when you’ve got a groove going, and so does your partner (or partners – the dance floor being a wondrous and chaotic place). You’re showing off your moves, you’re checking out other people’s moves. The vibe is fan-fucking-tastic. Know the feeling? Well, Prince has the music you need.
Let’s start with “I Wanna Be Your Lover” which is one of the funkiest dance tunes ever written. You will dance until you split your pants grooving to this song, but you will be so in the throes of the music you won’t notice until later. Do not worry; it is dark in the club.
Do you love the opening riff of Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration”? Then you’ll also like the opening of “I Wanna Be Your Lover” which came out a year earlier and very much ‘inspired’ (and I’m being kind here) Kool’s “Celebration”. “I Wanna Be Your Lover” eschews the more mainstream celebration vibe, however and goes deep into the twisty Tunnels of Undiscovered Groove. Funky drum? Yes! Synthesizer wonderment? Yes! The funkiest guitar that ever funked up Funktown? Hell yes!
Prince follows this song up with “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” a song that shows the proto-eighties funk sound that Prince would later make famous three years later on “1999”. He’s already working it here – there’s just less people noticing at this time.
Rounding out the top three “vertical” tunes that start the record is “Sexy Dancer”. If the previous two songs were not funky enough for you, Prince has a balm for you, and that balm is a bomb - “Sexy Dancer” If some of the funkiest bass and guitar riff action on this song is not enough to get the juices flowing, don’t worry, Prince has added some sexy panting. Yes, panting – and not the split in the bottom kind I mentioned earlier although…related.
The record also features many slower songs like “When We’re Dancing Close and Slow”, “With You” and “It’s Gonna Be Lonely” that I would call ‘horizontal sexy’. I hope I don’t have to explain why, but if I do then you should ask your parents instead. This column provides music advice only. This stuff is Prince at his most…romantic. Not sure that’s the word. How about…intimate? It shows off his delightful high head voice and also that he knows how to play a more nuanced and gentle guitar style when the occasion calls for it.
Speaking of guitar, it is worth pointing out that even at this early stage of his career, Prince is already showcasing his virtuosity on the instrument. The soft and sensitive tones of “With You” and the raunchy rock power featured on “Bambi” are played with equal and amazing skill. Prince is so compositionally brilliant and musically innovative that it is easy to forget what a talent he was on guitar.
Near the end of the record Prince gives us “I Feel For You”, made famous by Chaka Khan many years later, Prince delivers the original (yes, he wrote it) almost as an afterthought.
This record is a hidden gem and only hidden because of the sheer volume of awesome things Prince did in the years that followed. Do yourself a favour and go back to the beginning. You’ll be glad you did.
Best tracks: I Wanna Be Your Lover, Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?, Sexy Dancer, Bambi, It’s Gonna Be Lonely
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