#130 Prince, '1999' (1982)
Previously #163
One of the most prolific and influential artists of all-time, Prince has shown up on this countdown repeatedly (his name is mentioned in 15 different album reviews, not including his own album, ‘Dirty Mind (#326). ‘1999,’ his 5th album in 4 years was his major breakthrough and the pre-cursor to his megastardom. You might say he hit a purple patch (I’ll just leave this here). On this record, Prince introduced his band, The Revolution. That’s not to say that Prince didn’t play most of the instruments himself. The band members’ contributions were mostly the backing vocals with some guitar. Knowing Prince recorded everything himself, I was always confused about the title track, on which there is clearly female vocals. Prince was so talented and versatile that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that those vocals belonged to him, but I’ve since learnt it was Dez Dickerson and Lisa Coleman.
Other than the first with The Revolution, it was also Prince’s first Top 10 record, his first record to be nominated for a Grammy, his first double album and his first Top 10 singles with ‘Little Red Corvette’ and ‘Delirious.’ “I won’t hurt you, I only want you to have some fun,” is how the record starts. “I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray,” is the next line. And astray it does go, but in the best possible way. Prince meanders between radio-friendly pop songs, funk jams and the filthiest, most sexual songs; on the song, ‘Let’s Pretend We’re Married,’ one of the lines is “I sincerely wanna fuck the taste out of your mouth.” Woah. That line knocked me off of my feet. This is a man who was all over commercial radio with other songs from this same album, and who then writes lyrics like that. In 1982, people who bought the album for ‘1999,’ ‘Little Red Corvette’ and ‘Delirious’ surely would have been flabbergasted to hear that. Prince hadn’t intended this to be a double album, but he just kept on writing songs, as he did. And as was the case over and over, the songs were exceptional. And so over 11 songs and an hour and 10 minutes, Prince takes us on a filthy, sexy, funky journey. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2008 and went on to be certified 4x Platinum in the US. The artwork is amongst his most iconic too.
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