Prince / Revolution And Revelations 1980 - 1995
1980 – 1986
01 Head / Dirty Mind October 1980
02 Controversy / Controversy November 1981
03 Little Red Corvette / 1999 February 1983
04 Something In The Water / 1999 February 1983
05 When Doves Cry / Single A Side May 1984
06 Take Me With U / Purple Rain July 1984
07 The Beautiful Ones / Purple Rain July 1984
08 I Would Die 4 U / Purple Rain July 1984
09 Purple Rain / Purple Rain July 1984
10 Another Lonely Christmas / Single B Side November 1984
11 Around The World In A Day / Around The World In A Day April 1985
12 Paisley Park / Around The World In A Day April 1985
13 Raspberry Beret / Around The World In A Day April 1985
14 Pop Life / Around The World In A Day April 1985
15 She’s Always In My Hair / Single B Side May 1985
16 Girls And Boys / Parade April 1986
17 Anotherloverholenyohead / Parade April 1986
18 Erotic City / Single B Side August 1986
1987 - 1995
01 Sign ‘O’ The Times / Sign ‘O’ The Times March 1987
02 Ballad Of Dorothy Parker / Sign ‘O’ The Times March 1987
03 Starfish And Coffee / Sign ‘O’ The Times March 1987
04 If I Was Your Girlfriend / Sign ‘O’ The Times March 1987
05 I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man / Sign ‘O’ The Times March 1987
06 The Cross / Sign ‘O’ The Times March 1987
07 Shockadelica / Single B Side June 1987
08 U Got The Look (Long Look) / Single 12” A Side July 1987
09 Alphabet St / Lovesexy May 1988
10 Glam Slam / Lovesexy May 1988
11 Anna Stesia / Lovesexy May 1988
12 The Future / Batman Soundtrack June 1989
13 Joy In Repetition / Graffiti Bridge August 1990
14 Money Don’t Matter 2 Night / Diamonds And Pearls November 1991
15 Seven / Love Symbol October 1992
16 Loose! / Come August 1994
17 Gold / The Gold Experience September 1995
One of my greatest regrets is that Prince completely passed me by until ‘Sign O The Times’, the only R&B single to address the hopelessness and spiritual desolation of the Reagan years. So while he is widely remembered as one of the titans of 80’s pop, his commercial high being Purple Rain - the single, the album, the movie - I remained stupidly ignorant. Even now I don’t quite know how that happened. Perhaps my ears were still stuck in indie mode but its safe to say that from thereon in I never missed a beat. Ironically, from Purple Rain on, many believe that Prince stumbled as often as he soared and no-one was much inclined to give this aloof, fruity genius an easy ride. Rarely and then reluctantly courting audiences he seemed to believe that sales and acclaim were inevitable given his talent and perseverance alone.
The one thing Prince has always been is productive. Since his 1978 debut For You there have only been seven years without a new Prince album, and that’s not counting the lorry load of bootlegs loaded with unreleased songs and live performances. At his peak he was so prolific he was even consigning potential hits to B Sides or gifting them to the likes of The Bangles and Sinead O Connor. Nor did he ever repeat himself. While his first two albums were mediocre exercises in funk and disco, he proceeded to forge his own pop language, utilising anything that took his fancy; from jazz to house to new wave to psychedelia to strange odd genres only he knew about. In his glorious, wondrous pomp the usual rules simply did not apply.
Naturally there were times when Prince was forced to concede that they did, yet those moments were few and far between and when his gambles paid off, everyone basked in the glory. After all, who else would have backed avant-garde Freudian funk before ‘When Doves Cry’? And who else would have sacked their entire band before constructing Sign O The Times, in many ways black music’s answer to The White Album? And who else could have turned Sheena Easton into a fuckable glamour puss? The hits of course remain peculiar enough but once past them there’s a whole mass of revolutionary, out there ideas and weird experimentation; songs that don’t go where their supposed to; basslines that vanish without reason; Princes voice warping into a new persona; sleaze mixing it up with spirituality; sincerity battling it out with gimpoid humour.
In the 90’s when Prince became the artist formerly known as, a time when his paranoia and bullshit were at a peak, his creativity didn’t so much desert him as overwhelm him. There were still fantastic moments on every release but it was hard work digging them all up. And yet while his magnificent catalogue has no sound that could in anyway be called consistent, it always retains one overriding philosophy, namely Princes maddening, crazy, intoxicating self belief.
May 2013
