Art Official Age (2014)
Time’s intro may be all touch-tone beeps, but the beat sounds programmed on an old rotary phone. A lumbering, mechanical rhythm that pauses while the dial resets after each digit. It’s just one of the contradictions that make us feel we’re at the point in the album’s story where the concept of time breaks down and Mr Nelson experiences every moment at once. Previous Prince songs bubble up (I count twelve references, including three obvious ones from this album) and everything that ever was, is, and will be, flood the senses as the doors of perception explode open. You thought that was a funky bass solo you heard? It’s the sound of spacetime being rent asunder. Of course these metaphysical trappings come parcelled up with the album. On any other release, this song would just be a dirty phone call between a lonely Prince in his hotel room and Andy Allo, the “animal half his age”. Here it’s Prince passing on the secrets of time learnt from The Greatest Romance Ever Sold and Chelsea Rodgers.
If there’s any song on ‘Art Official Age’ that perfectly captures the spirit of Prince’s psychedelic period (1985-88), “Time” is as good as it gets.
He and Andy Allo have the kind of vocal chemistry that you can’t teach. Then, around the 2:57 mark, you’ve got Prince at his bass-thumping best. I almost want to yell into the speakers back to him, “If that ain’t Larry Graham, you’re doing a darn good impression of him!”
All in all, “Time” is a classic slow jam that feels vintage and futuristic at the same time.