(Featured Image: Warner Bros. press photo, 1978; stolen from Lansure’s Music Paraphernalia.)
Note: In the last several weeks of writing about the songs on Prince’s debut album, I’ve been struck by the many contingencies that exist around For You
Continue reading “My Life with You I Share: An Alternate Timeline Review of For You”
(Featured Image: Billboard magazine ad, 1979; photo stolen from Fusion.)
Well, it took a little longer than planned, but we’ve officially finished Prince’s first album! For You
So, to that end, here are all nine of my posts about the album, in ascending order of my personal preference:
9. “So Blue” Like I said in the original post, this feels the most like filler of anything on For You; having said that, however, there are so many interesting little sonic touches that make it a pleasure to listen to. Most artists would kill to have Prince’s filler.
8. “My Love is Forever” Maybe the most dated song on the record. Love that guitar tone, though.
7. “Just as Long as We’re Together” A virtuoso performance on just about every level, but a little precious for my tastes. Still, you can’t deny the kid has talent, and the “Jelly Jam” coda knocks.
6. “Baby” The most conventional late-’70s R&B track on the album; but Prince’s more-falsetto-than-falsetto voice, and the unusually mature lyrical themes, demonstrate that there’s something much more interesting at work.
5. “Crazy You” A real sleeper; this one went from one of my least favorite tracks on the album to my top five. It’s slight and arguably underdeveloped, but the vibe is undeniable. If he’d put it out in 2016 instead of 1978, hipsters would have already developed a whole subgenre around it, like beachwave or space calypso or some shit.
4. “For You” This used to be the only song on the album besides “Soft and Wet” that I really loved. It’s no longer that, but it’s still up there. Prince’s vocals are breathtaking, and the chutzpah it took to make this the opening track of his first album is admirable.
3. “In Love” I used to think it was “too disco”; now I enjoy its funhouse-mirror version of the Minneapolis Sound. And who among us wouldn’t let 19-year-old Prince “play in their river?”
2. “Soft and Wet” Easily the most “Prince”-sounding song on the album, and not coincidentally the only one that tends to be anthologized. I’m not mad, though; it’s a great track.
1. “I’m Yours” Man, did this song ever grow on me. The guitar pyrotechnics are amazing, of course, but the extreme contrast between Prince’s sledgehammer riffage and his overtly fey vocals is what makes it for me: it’s not quite like anything else in rock. Like I noted in the post, this song more than any other on the album would determine Prince’s musical direction for the next several years; it was definitely the right call.
Now, let’s take a look at the tag cloud and see how it compares to the last one:
Aside from the obvious differences in date and location, it’s interesting to see how Prince’s dominant musical influences are beginning to shift: Stevie Wonder comes up a lot more than Sly Stone, and while Larry Graham is holding strong, both James Brown and Earth, Wind & Fire have taken a dive. Oh, and I apparently haven’t been talking about Under the Cherry Moon as much. That’s probably for the best.
Like I said yesterday, we’ll be spending one more week wrapping up For You, with a different kind of post I’m trying out for fun. Then, the following week, we’ll pick up with some of Prince’s 1978 home recordings. In the meantime, check back on Saturday for the last of my Prince (Protégé) Summer guest posts on Andresmusictalk. You can also check out the growing companion playlist on TIDAL, if that’s your thing. And, again, thanks so much for reading!
(Featured Image: At Unique Records, San Francisco, 1978; photo stolen from Noisey.)
There’s a famous story, originating with former Warner Bros. executive Lenny Waronker, about the 1977 test session in Los Angeles where Prince first demonstrated his ability to self-produce. “As I was walking through the studio, he was on the floor,” Waronker told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2004. “He looked up and said, ‘Don’t make me black.’ I thought, ‘Whoa!’ He said, ‘My idols are all over the place.’ He named an array that was so deep in terms of scope of music that for an 18-year-old kid to say what he said was amazing. That, as much as anything, made me feel that we shouldn’t mess around with this guy” (Star Tribune 2004).
It’s important to note that, when Prince asked Waronker not to “make him black,” it was less an expression of internalized racism than one of pragmatic frankness. As we’ve noted before, Prince was acutely aware of the hypersegregated nature of the pop music market in 1978–not least because his own hometown of Minneapolis was among the most musically segregated in the country. His desire to be a “crossover” artist was fed in part by his vaunting ambition, of course, but also by the simple fact that if he didn’t break out of the R&B charts, his own city wouldn’t play him on the radio. So from the beginning, he struggled against being pigeonholed as an “R&B” (read: Black) artist.
The trouble was that “making Prince black” was the only way Warner Bros. knew how to sell him. When For You
(Featured Image: Prince in his first press kit, 1977; photo stolen from Nate D. Sanders Auctions.)
Sessions for Prince’s second demo at Sound 80 commenced on December 29, 1976 and lasted through the remainder of the winter. This time, a total of six songs were completed: new versions of “Soft and Wet,” “Baby,” “Jelly Jam,” “Make It Through the Storm,” and “Love is Forever”–now renamed “My Love is Forever”–plus a brand new song, “Just as Long as We’re Together.” Just like with the earlier sessions at Moonsound, however, the final demo was limited to only a few tracks. Per Nilsen’s The Vault reported the tape as consisting of “Baby” and “Soft and Wet,” with “Make It Through the Storm” “as a ‘back-up’ if record company executives wanted to hear more” (Nilsen 2004 16-17). According to a recent auction listing, however, at least one configuration seems to have featured “Just as Long as We’re Together,” “Jelly Jam,” and “My Love is Forever.”
In addition to the demo tape, Prince’s management also prepared a luxe press kit to distribute to labels in Los Angeles. “We attacked it all first class, ’cause if we went in as just the average Joes, it wasn’t gonna look like a first-class effort,” Owen Husney recalled to biographer Dave Hill. “We spent 1,500 dollars on fifteen press kits… The usual press kit has clippings, and stories about your mom, and all the other bands you played in. All I did was have a picture of Prince on the cover. It said, ‘American Artists Presents Prince’, and inside there was just five sheets. And on those sheets there was just one picture, and one quote from Prince above each one” (Hill 40). The minimalist presentation had the additional effect of playing up Prince’s enigmatic air, which remained a cornerstone of his public persona for the duration of his career. “[T]here was a mystery about him even then,” Husney told NPR’s Audie Cornish shortly after Prince’s death in April. “And so as a manager I noticed that, and I was able to just make that a part of who he was in all of our publicity and everything going forward. We did a first press kit with him that said very little, because Prince said very little. Because his music does the talking” (Cornish 2016).
