497. Prince - 1999 (1982)
















Track Listing

1. 1999
2. Little Red Corvette
3. Delirious
4. Let's Pretend We're Married
5. DMSR
6. Automatic
7. Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)
8. Free
9. Lady Cab Driver
10. All The Critics Love U In New York
11. International Love

Review

I love Prince, I've always loved Prince and I don't know why the diminutive Jehovah's Witness has that effect on me, but he made some of the most danceable music out of the whole of the 80's. And this album is a perfect example of that.

The album kind of blows its load in the first two tracks, but there is more than enough left to make it an overall great album, also the first two tracks always seem better because they were such hit singles. The rest of the album is extremely impressive as well.

Only 11 songs that stretch out to almost 70 minutes and this just goes to show what extended tracks they are, punk this ain't. But this album is as influential on the music of the next 30 years as any punk album, the funk mixed with the R&B, pop and dance music just make it work on so many levels and it works great on all of those levels. And the lyrics are some of the dirtiest put to record and that's just another plus.

Track Highlights

1. Little Red Corvette
2. 1999
3. Let's Pretend We're Married
4. DMSR

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

While "Little Red Corvette" helped Prince cross over to the wider (white) rock audience, the rest of the album retains the elements of previous albums and is dominated by funk and synthesizer dance tracks. The album is, however, notable amongst Prince's catalogue for its wide variety of imagery and themes besides the sexual themes that had already become something of a trademark on previous albums. "Automatic," extending to almost ten minutes, starts side 3 of the album with a cocktail of synthesizers and bawdy bondage-inspired lyrical imagery which, transplanted to the music video for the track (with a scene that depicted Prince being tied up and whipped by band-members Lisa Coleman and Jill Jones), was, in 1983, considered too hot for MTV. "Free" is a delicate piano ballad expressing patriotism, while "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)", an ode to a harsh lover, is the centerpiece of a preoccupation with Computer Age themes that would continue into future albums. This "computer" theme is also reflected in the album's instrumentation, with Prince fully embracing the gadgetry and sounds of emergent electro-funk and '80's sequencing technology on tracks like "Let's Pretend We're Married" and "All the Critics Love U in New York," songs that widen his use of synthesizers and effects and prominently feature his noted uses of the Linn drum machine.

No Prince videos. EVER. Because despite being a great musician he is also an ass.