4Ever (2016) / 1999 Super Deluxe (2019)
Prince’s first vault item to be released posthumously was 1982’s Moonbeam Levels, a much-loved song used to hoodwink fans into buying yet another greatest hits compilation. Although picking a popular bootleg already illicitly owned by many may not be the effective dangled carrot Warner Bros envisaged. Written during Prince’s 1999 era, the lyrics are naturally concerned with death, destruction, and nuclear fallout. They describe a Cold War Chicken Little wanting to be beamed out of this life and into “a better place to die”. Sounds depressing but the music is anything but. The only thing that could beat it is if the moon goddess Selene herself descended from the heavens with her silver chariot’s tape deck blasting out the soundtrack to a dream Elliott Smith once had.
Tag: 1999 Super Deluxe
225: Purple Music
1999 Super Deluxe (2019)
Prince gets high on his own supply as he writes a ten-minute dissertation on The Funk and the narcotic qualities of his music. It’s the base ingredient from any rumpshaker in his repertoire, distilled and served uncut. Naked, other than a smattering of Controversy-style rhythm guitar, tantric bass and an intriguing sketch at 8:20 where Prince’s unheard answer to the question “what would you like to bathe in this morning?” disturbs his computer valet to the point of malfunction. It’s a section that only lasts 20 seconds but in just a few words he paints a thousand pictures. All of them NSFW.
237: Possessed
Purple Rain Deluxe (2017) / 1999 Super Deluxe (2019)
Prince wrote Possessed after attending a James Brown concert, and later dedicated it to him on 1985’s Prince and the Revolution: Live. On this video, the song wears its influence fully on its sleeve, but the original studio version, recorded two years earlier, took Mr Dynamite to another level – James Brown 2.0: Spooky Electric Boogaloo. On this robo-funk groove, the Oberheim synths shimmer and the empyrean guitar-work is pure fire, but the lyrics go to a darker place as Prince rattles the cage of his inner suppressed demon and stokes his “satanic lust”. It’s the “I want you, I need you, I must have you” brand of pop where the tape is left running and all the worrying implications and subtext leak to the surface. This early incantation may have scared him as it was subsequently buried in a lead box before it broke free to live amongst the shadows of the bootleg world. A new version was recorded the following year and briefly cropped up in the background of a scene in Purple Rain, however it would be 33 years until we got to hear it in full. The lyrics were reworked to be less menacing (apart from a bizarre aside about tearing people into little pieces to sell as a jigsaw puzzle) but conversely, the music is infinitely more unsettling. Bassless and guitarless, the 1984 version flutters and trembles like the palpitations of a diseased mind. It’s a lot more experimental and will likely take up residence in the darkest corners of your dreams but unlike the 1983 original it forgets to inject the funk into its dysfunction.
333: Don’t Let Him Fool Ya
1999 Super Deluxe (2019)
While you sweat over your masterpiece that will secure fame, recognition and respect; your magnum opus funnelling everything you feel about today’s societal decay into a five-part space rock opera to illuminate minds and contribute to the fall of the venal power structures stripping the world for parts; while you pour your heart and soul into this cataclysmic talisman of righteous enlightenment, a previously unheard funk-riff that Prince belched out in his sleep three decades ago will resurface and cause more world joy than any of your high-minded intentions. Don’t Let Him Fool Ya is barely even a song, more a tantric joy in bass-led repetition. Don’t feel bad, the dude’s inhuman.
377: No Call U
Unreleased (1982) / 1999 Super Deluxe (2019)
A three minute slice of synth rockabilly in the Delirious / Jack U Off mode. Obviously Delirious is an infinitely greater song, meaning that demos like No Call U and Turn It Up are often overlooked, but even so they still retain a dark, unhinged power. Nuggets of delirium found in the vault’s backwaters. If Elvis’s twin brother Jesse had lived to see the eighties I like to think that he would be on a dive bar tour, mimicking his sibling’s gyrations to sleaze funk like this. Half-heartedly leering / sneering at the sparse crowd, as wall-sweat drips from the light fittings into the beaten-up synths. Later, Jill Jones and Vanity also tried lending their vocals to the track but without Prince’s Presley lip snarl they were doomed to fail.
381: Turn It Up
Unreleased (1982) / 1999 Super Deluxe (2019)
A highly infectious 1999 off-cut that got bumped by the similar-sounding Delirious. Turn It Up is a whole lot more than the sum of its parts. Elementally there’s not much to it: a simple LinnDrum beat, a few synth lines (including one that sounds like dripping water) and Prince pleading you to turn it up for five minutes. A guitar does sneak in at the end (and the intro) to add some variety but the bulk of the song is just one man with some old, cold technology creating a bumping groove that would keep the JBs up at night. The magic can’t be found in its dissection but there’s some crazy funk neutrinos at play here. Emulators must despair.