Author: Zachary Hoskins
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3 x 2 = 6
Just as he’d done for his own Controversy, Prince put the finishing touches on the Vanity 6 album at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. The last song he recorded for the album, on April 5, 1982, was also the last song on the track list: a gauzy synthpop ballad arithmetically titled “3 x 2 =…
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Let’s Pretend We’re Married
Against the mechanized backdrop of “Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” Prince delivers a vocal performance that is pure flesh, utilizing every gasp, pant, slurp, and scream in his ever-expanding repertoire.
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If a Girl Answers (Don’t Hang Up)
“If a Girl Answers” brings to mind the sense of queer kinship, recalled by author Hilton Als, among “the colored queens I had known growing up, who called Prince ‘Miss.’”
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Bite the Beat
Prince’s main contribution was the lyrics: Vanity 6’s most sexually aggressive this side of “Nasty Girl.”
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Wet Dream (Wet Dream Cousin)
Vanity was chosen to lead the group for her firecracker personality, bedroom eyes, and ability to fill out a lace camisole, not for her powerhouse pipes. The trouble is that Prince wasn’t always good at selecting material that played to her strengths.
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Drive Me Wild
At the core of Susan Moonsie’s dirty-schoolgirl persona was “Drive Me Wild,” one of the handful of songs originally recorded for the proto-Vanity 6 Hookers project in 1981.