Emancipation (1996)
There are swathes of Prince’s back catalogue that stand beyond time but this infectious house banger off Emancipation is a perfect summer capsule of a care-free 1997. You can imagine it simultaneously blooming amongst a thousand Yates’ Wine Lodges before withering at the hard winter onset of cinnamon vodkas and Jägermeister promotions. The NPG Hornz lift this track out of mere house territory, gilding it with flighted bravado and the breakdown three and a half minutes in sounds like the world has stop spinning as Gaia catches her breath. If this had replaced D:Rream in soundtracking Tony Blair’s electoral victory then the afterglow would be so strong we would still be crowning him with fillets of wool and anointing his head with myrrh. Yes, I’m saying this song is so powerful it can be used to whitewash war crimes. Despots take note.