Tag: controversy tour

Dirty Mind, 1980 Podcast

Podcast: 40 Years of Dirty Mind

Post author By Zach
Post date September 11, 2020
2 Comments on Podcast: 40 Years of Dirty Mind

Way back in February of 2020, I asked Darling Nisi and Harold Pride to record a third episode in our series of in-depth retrospectives on Prince’s albums, this one for the 40th anniversary of 1980’s Dirty Mind. The podcast was intended to predate De Angela Duff’s DM40GB30 symposium, which in those simpler times was still scheduled to be held in-person at New York University.

Well, you know what happened next: DM40GB30 was delayed, then went virtual, while I slipped into a pandemic-related depression fog that only lifted, appropriately enough, after I participated in the virtual symposium back in June. Meanwhile, the podcast continued to lavish in the D / M / S / R Vault (a.k.a. the “Documents” folder on my computer) until the end of last month, when I was promptly reminded of just how laborious a task editing a three-hour podcast recording can be.

Now, the wait is finally over: the D / M / S / R podcast is back, in all its wildly self-indulgent glory. I want to thank everyone for their patience, and assure you that there won’t be a two-year wait before the next episode; in fact, I’d recommend you go ahead and use one of the links above to subscribe on your podcast service of choice using one of the links above, because I’m aiming to put out one of these bad boys (i.e., podcasts, not necessarily review episodes) per month. As always, let me know what you think, and feel free to leave a review on your podcast provider if you’re so inclined.

Tags 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1993, 1999, 2003, 2016, adore, allen beaulieu, american bandstand, andre cymone, andrea swensson, atlanta, august darnell, baby i'm a star, bambi, beatles, beautiful ones book, beauty school dropout, bernie worrell, bobby z, brother marquis, cc club, chanhassen, contort yourself, controversy tour, cynthia horner, darling nisi, david bowie, de angela duff, detroit, devo, dez dickerson, different world, dirty mind, dirty mind tour, dm40gb30 symposium, dmsr, do it all night, do me baby, dortmund, dr fink, elvis costello, enterprize, fire it up tour, first avenue, freddie mercury, funkytown, game of thrones, got to be something here book, gotta broken heart again, grand funk railroad, grease, harold pride, have a heart, head, how come u don't call me anymore, i feel for you, i wanna be your lover, i'm yours, ice-t, international male, james chance, joe jackson, john lennon, joni mitchell, jurgen reisch, let's pretend we're married, let's go crazy grammy salute to prince, lipps inc, little red corvette, lovesexy 30, lovesexy tour, madonna, mary tyler moore show, michael dean, michael jackson, minneapolis, morning papers, morris day, motown records, mtv, musician magazine, musician magazione, neil young, new york city, nwa, oar folk, on time, one nite alone tour, parade tour, paris, parliament, partyup, press rewind, prince, prince from minneapolis, prince from minneapolis conference, prince podcast, prince tour, public enemy, purple rain, purple rain film, purple rain tour, purple reign conference, rebels, revolution, rick james, right on magazine, ritz, sharon nelson, sheila e, sister, sister sledge, so blue, sometimes it snows in april, still waiting, super freak, tim curry, time, twin tone records, tyka nelson, university of salford, uptown, uptown neighborhood, uptown theatre, warner bros records, wembley arena, when we're dancing close and slow, when you were mine, worcester centrum, you, ze records

Alternate Timelines

The Dawn: How Prince’s Troubled Followup to 1999 Almost Became His Feature Film Debut

Post author By Zach
Post date August 14, 2020
4 Comments on The Dawn: How Prince’s Troubled Followup to 1999 Almost Became His Feature Film Debut

Cover art for Prince's 1984 album The Dawn; © Warner Bros.

Note: I confess that this piece, a Patreon commission from Darling Nisi, has been a long time coming–so long, in fact, that I’m pretty sure I already owe her a second commission now. Part of the reason why I took so long are the same, much-discussed reasons why I took so long for everything over the past eight months or so; but part of the reason is because her request to imagine a circa-1984 Prince without Purple Rain required a lot of thought. No Purple Rain–which I took to mean the movie as well as the album–means no “When Doves Cry,” “The Beautiful Ones,” or pivot to Top 40 success; it also means no Paisley Park (the recording complex or the vanity record label), no massive renogotiated contract (and thus no “Slave”-era faceoff) with Warner Bros., and no comeback album and greatest-hits tour conveniently timed to the 20th anniversary. So large does Prince’s first film and sixth album loom over the rest of his career, in fact, that I didn’t even try to do justice to every change its absence would have wrought; this may be the first alternate timeline I will have to revisit in the future, just so I can fully think through what the ’90s or 2000s would have looked like to a Prince detached from both the expectations and the opportunities afforded him by Purple Rain.

In inventing an alternative followup to 1999, I ended up setting a few rules for myself: First, I limited myself to the existing timeline of songs recorded between January 1983 and March 1984, so the imaginary album could feasibly share a release date with the real one. Second, I wouldn’t use any track known to have been composed specifically for the movie–so, again, no “When Doves Cry” or “The Beautiful Ones”; I technically could have used “Purple Rain,” but that seemed to go against the spirit of the exercise, so I didn’t. Third, and finally, I tried to make my fake album as distinct from the real one as possible: if what set Purple Rain apart from 1999 was its concision and pop-friendliness, then my alternate-universe version would be more even more sprawling and idiosyncratic than its predecessor. Obviously, the album I reverse-engineered from existing recordings is no replacement for an actual, cohesive project produced, arranged, composed, and performed by Prince; but I do think it’s a fun listen (and yes, I did make a version I could actually listen to).

As always, I will end with the disclaimer that everything after this introduction is completely made up and just for fun, all Photoshops are crudely and hastily done, and all resemblances to actual persons living or dead are, if not coincidental, certainly not to be taken seriously.

Tags 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1999 song, 1999 tour, art garfunkel, arthur turnbull, baby i'm a star, bad timing, beautiful ones, blood orange, bloomington, bob cavallo, chuck statler, computer blue, controversy tour, dance electric, darling nikki, darling nisi, david bowie, david lynch, dawn, delirious, dune film, electric intercourse, eraserhead, erotic city, fame tv series, father's song, first avenue, g-spot, god, i would die 4 u, irresistible bitch, jason breininger, jill jones, jim henson, jim morrison, john l nelson, katrina's paper dolls, labyrinth, ladder, let's go crazy, let's pretend we're married, lisa coleman, little red corvette, los angeles, love and sex, lust u always, madonna, man who fell to earth, manic monday, melody maker, met center, michael jackson, mick jagger, minneapolis, morris day, music snobs, nicolas roeg, nine inch nails, performance, possessed, press rewind, purple rain, purple rain film, raspberry beret, revolution, second coming film, sex shooter, stand back, stevie nicks, sunset sound, temptation, time, vanity, vanity 6, warner bros records, we are the world, we can funk, wednesday, wendy melvoin, when doves cry, william blinn

1999, 1982

1999

Post author By Zach
Post date March 16, 2020
2 Comments on 1999

By mid-July of 1982, Prince had completed work on the album that would become 1999, with just one significant exception: “1999,” the song, was nowhere to be seen. When Prince played a rough mix of the album for his manager Bob Cavallo that month, he got a cooler reception than he anticipated.

“‘This is a great album, but we don’t have a first single,’” Cavallo recalled telling Prince. “‘We have singles that’ll be hits, but we don’t have a thematic, important thing that can be embraced by everybody, different countries, et cetera.’” In response, Prince “cursed me, and he went away–but he didn’t force me to put it out. Two weeks later, he came back and he played ‘1999,’ and that became the title of the album” (Light 43).

Tags 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1999, 1999 new master, 1999 song, 1999 tour, alan leeds, all the critics love u in new york, allen beaulieu, andrea swensson, annie christian, armory, arp omni 2, atlanta, automatic, blade runner, bloomington, bob cavallo, bobby z, brown mark, bruce gowers, chattanooga, controversy, controversy tour, dance to the music, dc armory, delirious, dez dickerson, dmsr, do me baby, dr fink, dr funkenberry, feel u up, fixx, free, head, houston, how come u don't call me anymore, irresistible bitch, jill jones, jimmy jam, joe ruffalo, john lennon, ken tucker, lady cab driver, let's pretend we're married, let's work, lisa coleman, little red corvette, lust u always, man who saw tomorrow, marylou badeaux, met center, michael jackson, minneapolis, murielle hamilton, nostradamus, nothing to fear, npg, orson welles, per nilsen, plastic ono band, prince, purple rain, purple rain film, queen, red skies, revolution, rock with you, roy bennett, san antonio, second coming, seventh-day adventist church, sexuality, sly and the family stone, steve fargnoli, summit, susan moonsie, terry lewis, time, toure, turn it up, vangelis, vanity, vanity 6, warner bros records, washington dc, with you, yoko ono

1999, 1982

Lady Cab Driver (Rearrange)

Post author By Zach
Post date January 23, 2020
No Comments on Lady Cab Driver (Rearrange)

A real-life "Lady Cab Driver," circa 1919; photo stolen from pastpictures.org.

Of the 11 songs that would eventually make their way onto Prince’s fifth album, “Lady Cab Driver” appears to have had the longest gestation period. The song was completed at Sunset Sound on July 7, 1982, the day after “Moonbeam Levels”; but, as the recent Super Deluxe Edition of 1999 revealed, its seeds had been planted during a break in the Controversy tour over half a year earlier on December 8, 1981, in the form of a different song called “Rearrange.”

According to an interview with sessionographer Duane Tudahl for the Minneapolis Public Radio podcast The Story of 1999, “Rearrange” was long known to researchers by its title alone: “it was one of those songs that we’d heard existed, but I didn’t think it was actually a song,” Tudahl told host Andrea Swensson. “I thought it was just some shuffling of his stuff”–a studio note indicating a literal rearrangement of tapes. As it turned out, of course, it was real–though it was also little more than an admittedly funky sketch: a stark, mid-paced groove with a slick rhythm guitar hook similar to the Time track “The Stick.”

Given this similarity–not to mention Prince’s guitar solo, which plays neatly to Jesse Johnson’s combustive style–it seems likely that “Rearrange” was at least provisionally mooted for that group. But this is just speculation; ultimately, says Tudahl, we “don’t know whether it was intended for 1999, whether he was searching for a voice for 1999, or whether he was saying, ‘I gotta record another Time album soon.’ But either way it was something that was not planned. He just thought, ‘I’m in the studio, I gotta record… This is what I’m gonna do’” (Swensson 2019 Episode 2).

What Time is It?, 1982

I Don’t Wanna Leave You

Prince and Morris Day, circa 1982; photo by Allen Beaulieu.

The Time’s What Time is It?, was released on August 25, 1982–just two weeks after the self-titled debut by Vanity 6. It easily outperformed both Vanity 6 and the Time’s own debut, and effectively tied with Prince’s Controversy: peaking at Number 26 on the Billboard 200 and Number 2 on the Black Albums (recently renamed from “Soul”) chart.

Despite their success–or, more likely, because of it–Prince was determined to keep the spinoff group in their place. Studio tech Don Batts recalled him showing up to one of the band’s rehearsals with a rough mix of the finished record: “He threw the cassette at [guitarist] Jesse [Johnson] and said, ‘Hey man, you play really good on your album,’” Batts told biographer Per Nilsen. “That kind of comment, it was like saying, ‘Hey puppets!’” (Nilsen 1999 108).

More than anything, though, Prince kept his grip on the Time’s strings by saving their best material for himself. It’s hard to hear What Time is It?’s underwhelming closing track, “I Don’t Wanna Leave You,” without imagining a stronger alternative in its place: something that would end the album with a bang, rather than a whimper. Something, that is, like “International Lover,” which Prince had originally conceived for his side project back in January before poaching it for the finale of his own forthcoming album.