Apollonia 6 (1984)
When Prince stripped the Apollonia 6 album for parts he left two jewels remaining: Sex Shooter and this six-minute helping of dreamy pop, featuring Brenda waiting for her promiscuous date who’s currently 90-minutes late and counting. Each verse furthers the story on one minute (7:30, 7:31, 7:32…) and I could quite happily clock watch to the early hours with these Purple Rain-era synths for company. Add in Brenda and Susannah’s vocals merging into a hot updraft of Amazonian rapture and you have a lost classic on your hands. Being stood up never sounded so good. Don’t listen whilst driving though; those car-horn samples can make the road-rage rise within.
290: Dig U Better Dead
Chaos and Disorder (1996)
The vaguely cryptic lyrics powering this dark horse are battery-acid thrown in the face of Warner Bros, with a pH level that varies with your interpretation. The death in question could refer to the singer’s killing-off of his birth-name in 1993, or an accusation that his actual demise would be celebrated as a boon by the label, sadly topical in this posthumous era of remasters and anthologies. People have claimed that the first verse refers to negotiations leading up to Prince’s independent release of Most Beautiful Girl in the World. Possibly. Although being “a long time ago” I think we’re instead hearing about his first contract in the 70s, with the subsequent “experiment” being WB’s initial gamble on his career. Who knows. What isn’t in question is Prince is pissed! Whereas Face Down handles the subject with humour, Dig U Better Dead literally yells an incredulous “WTF!?” at those who hold his masters. In life there may always be “peaks and valleys” but this brickbat breakbeat is a steady, unrepenting javelin of righteous anger hurled at an insulting offer of “a toke or 2” from the fat profits cigar.
291: Groovy Potential
Internet download (2013) / HITnRun Phase Two (2015)
The title may be Austin Powersy but the music is a rich, elegant duvet of sound from Prince’s final album. If you like horns, Groovy Potential is bursting at the seams with them. In various flavours and sizes. Wave after wave of luscious brass and woodwind flood the track, turning all they touch into sonic gold. They’re not the only element to give you shivers – the vocals have a Fallinlove2nite vibe and the bass teases like an expert lover – but when you walk away, your only memory will be of a thousand horns singing the cosmic language of Unconditional Love.
292: Batdance
Batman (1989)
The first record I ever bought was Jive Bunny’s Swing the Mood, a child-friendly medley of jitterbug-era hits. This oft-ridiculed chart-topper imprinted in me a deep love of cut-and-paste culture and became the cartoon rabbit-hole that eventually led me into the underground world of Double Dee & Steinski, Coldcut and Cut Chemist. A world where eclectic sound-collages battled over a hip-hop beat. For a while I started to create my own cut-ups and one even made it onto national radio. They were my thing. Chicken soup for my restless soul. Batdance was released in the same month as Swing the Mood but until now I never considered it to be part of the cut-and-paste genre. In essence though that’s exactly what it is, only the samples are sourced a lot closer to home. Prince’s 1995 release Purple Medley follows all the rules of a standard megamix – a weaving together of the hits à la Jive Bunny – but Batdance is a cut-up masterpiece in the mould of Steinski; a shredded hodge-podge of film dialogue, previous songs and soundboard off-cuts. We Got The Power, The Future, Electric Chair, 200 Balloons and Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic get thrown into the potpourri of Gotham funk and for the only time on the album the guitars are let loose with impunity. Despite being left off compilations due to licensing issues, this three-part sampler symphony is one of Prince’s most well-known songs and possibly his most atypical; an impressive claim considering the diversity of his output. If Batman was fully soundtracked with this cinematic experimentation in place of recycled songs joking about the size of his “organ”, then the resulting album could have been a Burton-esque Lovesexy, instead of becoming a Shaun of the Dead punchline.
293: The Voice
Unreleased (1991) / The Voice (1993)
The eyes may be the window to the soul, but the mouth can be a gateway to other realms. Whether it’s Pentecostal Christians speaking in tongues, Brahmin Hindus exhaling the cosmic Om or Pythagorean Mystics hearing musica universalis in sung harmonies, people have always sought the divine in the human voice. Mavis Staples’s gospel training may make her 1993 version of The Voice a spiritual experience for some folk. For me it does nothing. Yet Prince’s guide track recorded in 1991 and sung with little emotion or theatrics pulls me in like a tractor beam. He may be on cruise-control, singing about hearing the voice of God, but when it goes acapella he could be singing about his breakfast and still I’d hear a thousand Vedic mantras beat-matched to a Gregorian chant.
294: Live 4 Love
Diamonds and Pearls (1991)
Live 4 Love – or to give the song it’s full title: Live 4 Love (Last Words From the Cockpit) – is the big album closer, sung from the perspective of a fighter pilot on a bombing mission. It’s the millennia-long war between Eros and Thanatos, played out a mile above the Earth. This ambitious concept was toned down for mainstream consumption as an earlier recording included lines about the demise of the American Dream and bombs being dropped on “the families, the babies and the moms”. There’s also less FX in this starker draft, generating an atmosphere more in tune with the weighty subject matter; a less crowded battlefield for the Gods to clash on. Both versions feature a debutant Tony M, as the Angel of Death, and Sonny T who kills on the bass, but it’s Prince’s axe-work crowning the final minute that truly steals the show. His guitar solo is the screaming, unbearable tension of existence, as two primary drives wrestle for control of the cockpit in an aircraft spiralling towards the unforgiving ground.
295: Face Down
Emancipation (1996)
Face Down – a joker card that pricks the Emancipation bubble of pomposity – is possibly the funniest song to come out of Paisley Park. An aborted plan to release it as a single caused an equally-funny music video to be made and if a gif doesn’t exist of the shot where a bandy-legged Prince plays the violin then the Internet has failed. The genesis of the song lies in NPG member, Mr Hayes. According to him, a critic’s scathing review of The Gold Experience provoked the keyboardist to go on an expletive-laden rant which Prince found hilarious. Two days later this inspired gangsta-rap spoof was born, with the roastee updated to Warner Bros and their contract negotiations. The singer unleashes both barrels at his former label with the uncensored abandonment of somebody no longer needing to please suits, but what makes the tirade a comedic tour de force is the call-and-response section that deliberately blows the wind out of his sails. Insipid synths greet each shout of “horns!” and “orchestra!”, tripping up the ego and snarkily satirising the limitations of the genre. They slay me every time (although the shouts of “bass!” prompt a funky solo you could club seals with). Face Down is Prince, the trickster god, at his most ribald but it also became the catalyst for this particular persona’s destruction. Due to the coarse lyrics, Larry Graham would leave the stage whenever this song was played – a response that started a dialogue between the two musicians and became the ground zero of Prince’s eventual conversion. The self-described “skinny motherfucker with the high voice” would no longer cuss for kicks and a song born out of four-letter words (seldom heard with such dignity and bite) would later be the cause of their disappearance.
296: The Max
O(+> (1992)
“And now,” cried The Max “let the wild rumpus start!” And the wild things pounded their dancefloor drums and scratched their hip-hop garnish and ground their Arabian axes. Tony M went full Yogi Bear, Mayte hammed up her princess role and Prince bashed the hell out of the ol’ Joanna (“are you gonna play on that piano or just bang on it?”). “Now stop” The Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper.
297: Slow Love
Sign o’ the Times (1987)
Slow Love was originally written by Carole Davis and if her version had dropped first then this song would be a cover and therefore ineligible for this list. However, debuting on Sign o’ the Times with new music and lyrics undoubtedly makes Slow Love a product of Prince at his peak. Sadly it’s a ballad that never gets the attention it deserves, being the Luigi to Adore‘s Mario, but when it steps out of its brother’s shadow you notice something that Adore, or even anything else on the album, lacks: a Clare Fischer-composed string section. They’re the subtle star of the show here and fill the sparse arrangement with the music of the spheres – vibrations from a universal choir which stops the cosmos from disintegrating into a meaningless anarchy of atoms. My love for Adore is immediate, fiery and passionate, yet my love for Slow Love is slow, eternal and written in the night sky.
298: I Love U in Me
The Arms of Orion single (1990) / The Hits/The B Sides (1993)
After civilisation collapses and we regress to feuding tribes in a post-fallout wasteland, the only music available to hear will be found in clockwork musicboxes. Revered fossils from the time when the benevolent demon of electricity could still be harnessed. These last pockets of captured sound will only be played at sacred consummation ceremonies; rituals where couples bless the scorched earth with coitus after reciting solemn vows of desire. In this Rite of Nuclear Spring, I Love U in Me will be hymn number 7.
299: Newpower Soul
Newpower Soul (1998)
The Exodus songs New Power Soul and Big Fun hit it off so well on tour that they got together and three years later had a baby. Newpower Soul may have her daddy’s name and her psychedelic momma’s “head bob” but she’s forging her own path as the title track of an often overlooked album – an lp that’s a Prince solo release in all but name. Her horns are divine and she scats through the tracklisting with the clout of Ella introducing the band. Newpower Soul may not be the deepest groove on the record but in her words “keeping the crowd moving” is her “one and only duty” and in that role, she’s a five-star general.
300: Just As Long As We’re Together
For You (1978)
Just As Long As We’re Together is the Bayeux tapestry of early Prince history. An illuminating trip through his initial studio excursions. The song started life in 1976 as an instrumental called Jelly Jam and ended up as his second single and (running time-wise) a sixth of his debut album. For two years it was constantly rerecorded, increasing in size and complexity with each iteration, and was used as a showreel of the youngster’s virtuoso chaos magick to secure a record deal. He even rerecorded it live in front of record executives to prove his one-teen-band status. As his foot-in-the-door, it may be the most important song in his entire canon and although it was soon eclipsed by more natural and mature displays of his talent, Prince greedily piles his plate with enough disco chops and funky licks to feed Earth, Wind and Fire for a lifetime.
301: Dear Mr. Man
Musicology (2004)
Prince rages against The Machine over bluesy, smoky back-room funk. Although the tone is more despair than anger. A What’s Going On for the Dubya years. With Maceo, Sheila, Candy, Renata and Rhonda in tow, and armed with a bible and a copy of the constitution, Prince dictates a letter to politicians unnamed, listing depressing signs of the times and signing off with the three words “we tired U’all!”. In his late 40s he’s witnessed enough corporate and political rapacity that there’s no outrage left in the tank, just world-weariness. Ripe conditions for the languid kind of funk Marvin used to make.
302: Dear Michaelangelo
Romance 1600 (1985)
Sheila E gets the official writer’s credit but they’re fooling no-one, this is a Prince composition from root to branch. Created on the road during the Purple Rain tour, Dear Michaelangelo (sic) is a masterpiece marred only by the abrupt ending (which was possibly lost in a land-grab by the gargantuan A Love Bizarre). I always feel sad when the sax solo finishes as I know the plug is about to be pulled. Maybe it was the only way they knew how to stop this snowballing behemoth of dreamy pop, penned by a 20th Century Renaissance man but crafted by Sheila into one of her finest moments. It’s questionable why it was the B-side on the album’s second single, instead of the A-side though. It’s like if a Vatican City tourist brochure decided to lead with photos of the Sistine Chapel floor.
303: Joint 2 Joint
Emancipation (1996)
This is epic. It sounds like Prince played a game of exquisite corpse with his engineer, or gave him a transcribed dream which was then translated into Polish and back. However it was created, Joint 2 Joint is certainly the album’s most experimental track but you wouldn’t guess from the first two minutes as it starts off as standard Emancipation-by-numbers fare; a nightclub churning out pleasing but predictable RnB. Then, just as your eyes glaze over you’re invited up to the first floor where the live acts are. Poet99 gets upgraded from her usual two-word vocal sample to a full spoken word performance (albeit one used previously for The Dream Warriors) and she shares the bill with rockers and tapdancers in the true spirit of 90s eclecticism. A door in the back wall lures you further into the rabbit hole, and on the second floor the atmosphere takes on a darker tint. Walking past the whips, chains and moans of an S&M party you find Prince in the back room eating his cereal. A displeased kingpin caught off-guard. A hasty retreat follows and the last minute is given over to the early morning taxi ride home where you’re left wondering what the hell just happened.
304: Manic Monday
Unreleased (1984) / Different Light (1986)
The mid-eighties were such a Midas period for Prince that even his cast-offs proved to be worldwide top-10 hits. Manic Monday was pulled from the Apollonia 6 album and only given to The Bangles two years later because, according to Wendy, he thought the lead singer, Susanna Hoffs, looked cute. However, it is possible Prince always sensed the song’s mainstream appeal and jettisoned it from his side-project, along with 17 Days and The Glamorous Life, to be given the chance to germinate on more fertile ground. He didn’t have the utmost confidence in Apollonia Kotero’s singing ability and although he also appears on the original demo, the vocals pale when compared to Susanna’s rendition. It’s like a room lit by tubular lighting-strips suddenly being flooded with daylight. Manic Monday may have been written by somebody to whom rat-race commutes and 9 to 5 drudgery are an exotic novelty but beneath the occasionally hollow-sounding lyrics and 1999 melody run a “crystal blue Italian stream” of sparkling, innocent pop.
305: Future Soul Song
20ten (2010)
Prince may insist that this is his future soul song but it could be a Platonic solid of every one of his previous ballads. The trusty Linn-drum snaps underneath a miasma cloud of all his slow jams sung at once. A gorgeous taste of what his dreamt voice coming “from every mountain top” would sound like. Of course Prince isn’t asking you to file this under Future Soul though. The title refers to the subject matter: souls in the future. It’s another postcard from the Day of Reckoning and the swelling vocals do such a good job of making me wish I was there that I’m ready to sign up to this all-singing oneness right away. The wall-dissolving enlightenment of 2020 isn’t far off.
306: Loveleft, Loveright
New Power Generation single (1990)
A glut of Prince tracks from the early nineties fall between being remixes and brand new songs and Loveleft, Loveright is possibly the only one to surpass its source. It’s heard in the final bars of New Power Generation pt II, buried under an avalanche of inferior spin-offs but the full track is a different beast indeed. Admittedly on paper it doesn’t sound much. The barest amount of instrumentation clings to a thumping beat, as Prince enthuses about a ménage à trois. Yet the bass is a foot-thick sidewinder and the chorus is infectious enough you’ll be singing it until the sky turns purple. Also, the choppy guitar in the largely instrumental second-half is julienned to perfection. Loveleft, Loveright is easily lost amongst the iterative clutter of the maxi-single years but goes to show that even in the darkest bowels of his catalogue there’s ambergris to be found.
307: Jughead
Diamonds and Pearls (1991)
The oft-mocked Jughead is the sacrificial lamb passed around the entire fanbase to reset swords and unify over. A panto villain that’s both punchline and punching bag. Whether the lion’s share of flack is earnest or Pavlovian I can’t work out but I will personally stand up to say I love its “stoopid” little face. How can you not? Okay, so it goes heavy on the acquired taste of Tony M (Prince’s vocal involvement totals less than 20 seconds) and I could go without the rant at the end that got Prince sued by his ex-manager for $5m. But the song itself is a frantic spring-cleaning of pretensions before the introverted calm of Money Don’t Matter 2 Night. Mellifluous humming from Rosie kicks things off and while you’re safely lulled, the traps are lifted and the Jughead dogs are let loose, panting and snarling, trained to attack the body and not the head. This “new dance commercial take 2” (Horny Pony was take 1) will never be fashionable but the most fun things in life never are.
308: Mad
Unreleased (1994) / Internet download (2001)
Surfing in on a loop of Headshock’s Bebop Ta Hip Hop, this Exodus shortlister lays down everything you’d expect from a Prince production in 1994. The bridge and chorus are catchier than a yawn but all the boxes are ticked so methodically there doesn’t seem any room to imprint its own character. For a track named Mad, it’s sadly lacking in unpredictability. And that’s when Prince flips the “dirty switch”. Yes! A burst of guitar gushes forth that sounds like all hell’s wasps. There’s witchcraft afoot and for a brief moment the track suddenly turns from mad kooky to mad certifiable, like a realisation the hearts that somebody dotted their ‘i’s with were written in blood. I have a list as long as your arm of other tracks where I wish that guitar switch had been found.
309: Elephants & Flowers
Unreleased (1988) / Graffiti Bridge (1990)
Born in the Lovesexy era, this lumbering, trumpeting celebration of all the Creator’s creations had to wait until the release of the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack before it could be unleashed onto the paying public. And in it crashes like a pachyderm in a florists. The 1988 original features an elephantine bass synth that could feed a sieged city for days but is sadly buried in the mix on the album version. So much for all the talk in the updated lyrics about stripping down. This later version unfortunately also suffers from the same recording glitches heard on Tick, Tick Bang: an accidental ‘fart’ noise seven seconds from the end that somehow fits the adolescent Controversy offcut but is jarring on this scooping of sunny Lovesexy psychedelia. However, what it loses in bass and dignity it gains in finesse and sheer joy. With new screenplay-appropriate lyrics, Elephants & Flowers is an upbeat hymn pumped up on sunshine and steroids. All Creatures Great and Small (Horton Hears a Who mix).
310: Stare
HITnRUN Phase Two (2015)
A bass riff so thick and funky it was brought in from the live environment to be tamed into a studio recording. The result sounds several shades of awesome but an animal this wild can’t be made to play by our rules. It can be coaxed into wearing a simple three verse song structure if labelled clearly (“first things first…” etc.) but compromises aren’t a part of its limited vocab. The lead will just unflinchingly do its thing, only pausing briefly at crowd-pleasing commands like Kiss (evidently yet to learn the trick Sexy Dancer). Whatever you do though, don’t fade out early or you’ll be knocked aside as it runs snarling to the mixing desk to get its paws on the fader. Best to leave it to play until it tires. Or better yet release back into its natural habitat on stage. Remember what happened to Siegfried and Roy?
311: Hot Wit U
Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999)
From the first match-strike until the final fading note Hot Wit U has a bitter metallic taste that could be considered unpleasant if not adorned with moments of sheer bliss. The horns are on fire and Eve more than justifies the Not Prince billing but, like its spin-off Underneath the Cream, it’s the reflected glory of astral-travelling transcendence that truly rescues the admittedly middle-drawer beat and chorus. In this case, it falls to Prince’s dislocated vocals to take you up into that “fourth dimension plane” and when his verses are heard on headphones they sound like transmissions from outside time, or telepathic messages from benevolent beings on Sirius. There are remixes out there. Certainly skip the mix on the alternate Rave In2 album where Prince performs a grotesque coupling with an exhumed Nasty Girl, parading the 80s classic like he’s in a Jacobean revenge tragedy. The unreleased dance mix is one of his better ones to bear that mantle and the hip-hop version I’ve not heard but don’t have high hopes for. But why shop elsewhere when the original can evoke a metaphysical safari through time and space, while simultaneously asking you to dance in front of headlights nude?
312: Underneath the Cream
Supercute single (2001) /The Chocolate Invasion (2004)
Underneath the Cream… Cream, get on top… As a soy-milk drinker, Prince seems strangely concerned about your location in relation to dairy products. Unless he means… oh my! Nobody tell Larry. Underneath the Cream takes its title from a line in Hot Wit U and nestles within a trio of XXX songs on The Chocolate Invasion. The smooth, succulent centre of an early-noughties, naughty hat-trick. Also add the raw intimacy of opening track When Eye Lay My Hands On U and unexpectedly you have Prince’s raunchiest album since Come. The lyrics of Underneath the Cream are certainly graphic but the soft-as-silk seduction slinks along like butter wouldn’t melt. The music even veers towards blandness at times, quietly inoffensive like hotel-room art, but at 1:45 the synth strings swell, the song transcends to another plane and suddenly we’re astral wingsuit-flying with Hypnos and Eros. A “wet dream eternal” you’ll never wish to wake from.
313: Last Heart
Crystal Ball (1998)
In anybody else’s hands, this would be the flash-in-a-pan hit single on an instantly forgettable album. A solid pop song destined to burn brightly for a week. However Last Heart has imbibed the aqua vitae of Prince’s vocals, a luxurious performance increasing the track’s longevity to evergreen immortality. Of course it also helps that this demo was never given the chance to become chart fodder, being intended for the moribund Dream Factory project and resurrected over a decade later to be buried on a low-profile 3CD compilation. A diamond hidden amongst diamonds. The ominous ultimatum delivered in the chorus is reminiscent of the Beatles’ Run For Your Life, another pop song of sweetly sung death threats aimed at an unfaithful lover. This macabre side only further endears Last Heart to me as kids with a dark glint in their eye are always more interesting than those on model behaviour.