8. PrinceDirty Mind
This isn’t my favourite Prince album ever, but I chose it because I was in this mood where I loved how amazingly minimalist this record is.
He was still trying to impress the world and go “look at me”, it was hilarious. I stood next to him once. He’s smaller than I thought possible. My girlfriend at the time was 5’ 1” and it looked like she towered over him.
The three high points on the album are, I guess, the sound of the record. He’s got that really cheesy synth which is not pretty but he uses it so well. Probably the high point of using that synth is the beginning of ‘1999’. He’s able to use these cheesy, cheap synth sounds and make brilliant stuff with it, which is kind of the opposite of what progressive rock people were doing with synths. He was making minimalism in pop using the sounds that we associate with what The Human League did.
I love the beginning of the song ‘Dirty Mind’ where it’s just [sings rhythm intro]. ‘When You Were Mine’ is one of the best pop songs ever. One of the best pop lyrics ever is: “You didn’t have the decency to change the sheets.”
I didn’t actually know about Prince when this album came out, I used to read the music press so I was aware that he existed, but somehow or other, the wrong people were writing about him at that time. I didn’t really get into him until my friend bought 1999, and I don’t think I really got into this album until after I’d owned Around The World In A Day. Then I decided I should own all his records. I’m probably more attached to Around The World In A Day because that’s the album that came out when we were on tour. I bought it and listened to it every day.
