Art Official Age (2014)
U Know kicks off a run of superb but similar-sounding, futuristic RnB on Art Official Age that’s easy to overlook following the oxygen-hogging opening quartet. It brings your blood pressure down after the eurodance, sci-fi plot twists, emotional breakdowns and whatever The Gold Standard is. A chance to reboot after your mental bandwidth gets choked. On its day U Know can be my favourite song from this seductive middle-section but loses points by lifting the beat and moans from Mila J’s Blinded – a sample so unusually large for Prince that it almost tips the song into being a cover. In the dancehall world, it would be labelled a version. Ignoring the ethical questions this raises (the first Mila heard of U Know was when she discovered it on Soundcloud) Prince adds enough top-spin to send it into the heavens. The verses hammer out a staccato flow of robotic legalese, which could be the iTunes terms and conditions for all I can make out, but explode into a chromatic firework display of light and neo-soul adoration in the chorus. I have detailed thoughts on how this song fits into the album narrative, which I won’t bore you with here, but I do believe all this relationship legal-wrangling and hitting on attached women is part of Mr Nelson’s old life before being woken in the future. Before he stopped believing in possessions. Before he learnt there are no such words as me or mine. Although Mila J may tell you he always believed that.
Now I just want to hear your detailed thoughts on how this song fits into the album’s narrative 🤣
I didn’t know about the sample. It’s like sprinkling purple charisma over a preset (which I believe is how 777 9311 came about too). Having given up on his studio work for about 25 years, this album had a few keepers. I first heard it over the in-store speakers in H&M while buying a linen suit (how very 80s of me) for a series of interviews. I was like, ‘Great, more auto-tuned wank, actually it’s not bad, this is a bona fide groove, hang on it sounds a bit like Prince, whoah this is definitely Prince, I’m going to take my time trying things on and listen to the rest of the album’. The initial wave of optimism soon passed, and I’m guessing this was the beginning of his Fentanyl-addled output, but in that moment H&M felt so full of potential, like I could strut out the door onto the street in my linen suit and start all over again.
Listening over the store speakers in H&M is the new listening in bed with your eyes closed.