Author: Zachary Hoskins
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Roundup: 1999, 1982
In case you missed it, yesterday I finally closed the book on the 1999 era for dance / music / sex / romance (well, almost… I still plan to write “bonus tracks” posts on “Vagina,” “Colleen,” “You’re All I Want,” and “Money Don’t Grow on Trees” for Patreon readers in the near future). This was…
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1999
What set Prince apart from his early-’80s peers was his insistence on greeting Judgment Day, not with solemn gravity or mordant gallows humor, but with a seemingly irony-free display of millenarian ecstasy.
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No Call U
It isn’t entirely clear whether “No Call U,” recorded toward the end of the 1999 sessions on July 23, was intended for Jill Jones, another side project, or Prince himself; more likely than not, given the “crazy blur” of recording sessions during this period, it wasn’t even clear to the participants at the time.
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Lady Cab Driver (Rearrange)
What keeps “Lady Cab Driver” distinct from 1999’s other transportation-themed erotic fantasies, “Little Red Corvette” and “International Lover,” is its pervasive sense of angst.
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Moonbeam Levels (The New Master)
If the 1999 album sounds like dance music from a cyberpunk future, then “Moonbeam Levels” sounds as if it’s been beamed in from an entirely different solar system: had David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust character been a product of the early ‘80s instead of the early ‘70s, this is exactly the kind of song I’d imagine…
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Don’t Let Him Fool Ya
While it’s clearly a throwaway, I defy anyone to get through “Don’t Let Him Fool Ya” without at least a head bob and a smile.