Controversy (1981)
A sound so fun and uniquely Prince that he would attempt to recreate it several times over the next few years. But only Delirious would come close to bettering the neo-rockabilly lunacy of Jack U Off. It was the first live band recording on a Prince album and the first to utilise his trademark Princebonics, with his spelling of ‘U’. When he performed it to 94,000 Rolling Stones fans as part of a warm-up set in 1981 they couldn’t stomach this assault on their rigid, conservative tastes and booed him off stage. But if your notion of rock’n’roll excludes a gender-flipping hand-job singalong performed by a black man in bikini briefs then you’re doing it wrong. This is weapon-grade Little Richard and should always be deployed in areas of high pretension.