Tag: 2016
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Controversy, Part 3: Do I Believe in God? Do I Believe in Me?
More even than race and sexuality, the distinction between “God” and “me”–the sacred and the secular, the spirit and the flesh, etc.–was the prevailing theme of Prince’s career.
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Controversy, Part 2: Am I Straight or Gay?
While Prince’s flirtation with “post-racial” ideas in the Controversy era now seems antiquated and naïve, his similarly post-gender aesthetic feels remarkably ahead of its time.
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Do Me, Baby
“Do Me” wasn’t the first piece of aural erotica to reach the American charts… But those songs, however suggestive, had stayed within the realm of plausible deniability; in contrast, there’s no question what Prince is doing at the end of “Do Me.”
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It’s Gonna Be Lonely
On an album that arguably set the mold for who Prince was as an artist, “It’s Gonna Be Lonely” feels like the most “Prince” of all.
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Still Waiting
Heartbreak is the bread and butter of country and soul music alike; Prince employs these well-worn tropes with lines so note-perfect they seem almost timeless.
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When We’re Dancing Close and Slow
“Close and Slow” owes as much of its ambience to folk-infused 1970s soft rock as to any kind of R&B; in particular, it’s another early signal of Prince’s artistic debt to Joni Mitchell.