Prince's pop life, song by song, in chronological order.

While “Glamorous” sounded tailor-made for Sheila’s particular talents (even if it wasn’t), “Belle” is well-crafted but faceless, embodying the essentialist cynicism of the publishing imprint Prince used for his female side projects: “Girlsongs.”
What makes “Partyup” more than just ’60s fan fiction is the music: a lithe, infectious punk-funk groove, branded with the prophetic genre designation of “revolutionary rock and roll.”
It’s been just under two months since I started interviewing presenters from this spring’s interdisciplinary Prince conference at the University of Salford, and I’ve been absolutely thrilled with the results. But all good things must come to an end, so I had planned to make this chat with writer Erica Thompson the last of my post-conference podcasts.