A CELEBRATION: 1999

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Thread started 06/20/09 6:17pm

Swa

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A CELEBRATION: 1999

Continuing the one album a day discussion of Prince's work and how it felt listening to it for then and now. For other's in the series check the links at the end of this post. And don't forget to share your views.

1999

I first got 1999 as a single album. I can still remember the day I bought it home and put it on the stereo and hearing 1999 blast out of the speakers, I can also remember the panic of hearing let’s pretend we’re married and wondering if my parent’s heard those words, but I’ll get to that latter.

With the needle finding it’s groove 1999 exploded with that distorted opening phrase “Don’t worry I won’t hurt you, I only want you to have some fun”. And fun we had. 1999 was the party jam for a generation and even the shadow of the 2000s it still has that good time feel. If ever there was a song that you could point to to say “this is the start of the Prince sound” this is it. We have the tom roll distorted rim shot drum machine beat, the funk synth melody, that pop clap, and the funkier than thou guitar riff. While serving as much as a trademark sound, 1999 also introduces us to Prince with a band (or at least allusion of a band). The song groves and slinks along amidst the dread of a nuclear threat but with a carefree attitude. As the song hits the final few minutes it blasts into the stratosphere bolstered by a chorus of “party” that seems to just bath you in joy before crashing down into the doomsday fear. Trigger the explosion.

It’s hard to listen to LITTLE RED CORVETTE and not get caught up in how big a hit it was at the time. Still to this day if you ask most people to name 3 Prince songs, this will most likely be one of them. What I loved about the song was the way it started all slow and seductive, deliberately missing a snare beat in the opening to almost extend the seduction that was being delivered lyrically. And who can resist a song with that opening line, and that hook for a chorus. Joining the long history of girl as car sex story telling, Prince gives it his own spin. And that breakdown is just too smooth.

DELERIOUS with it’s rockabilly feel is like JACK U OFF meets SEXUALITY (listen to the opening beat and try not to sing “stand up organise” by the end of the first bar. The quirky tweaked synth line just made the song seem even sillier than it was. It wasn’t a track that I felt as a kid, and while over time I have grown to love it, that squeaky synth still makes me cringe.

It wasn’t until I got until much later that I discovered the single LP I had was actually a cut down of a double record set. And only then did I realise that Delirious wasn’t followed by FREE but instead followed by what was possibly the most shocking song I had ever heard.

What can anyone say about LET’S PRETEND WE’RE MARRIED? It’s raucous, driving, intense, dirty, and oh so irresistible. That synth bass line seems to pump blood into the appropriate places of the track. With a nod to Joni Mitchell via the CHA CHA COOCOO YEAH providing a little light at the end of the chorus, the song seems to get more demanding and darker as it progresses. The fact that all instruments are digital and artificial adds to the subversiveness of the track. And at the point where Prince screams, you think the guy has lost his mind and given into the darker more depraved side of his personality, and with explicitness of the last 60 plus seconds mixed with another call out to GOD you do get the sense that he has lost it. But how brilliantly so.

I never heard D.M.S.R. until a few months after getting the album my older brother brought home the full length cassette. Having worn out my copy from repeated plays, hearing D.M.S.R. was like finding a painting of Mona Lisa’s sexier sister. This of all the songs on the album seems to typify what would be known as the Minneapolis Sound. The rich and multilayered drum machine, the heavy synth work, the call and reply feel. To this day this a favourite of mine. And while he may have cleaned up the vocals, you can’t take the funk out of the track. A classic, and 8 minutes of unabashed funk.

AUTOMATIC was another track I discovered on that cassette. A darker side to DMSR, it’s just as seductive in its arrangement, and draws you in deeper and deeper as it slinks along. And who can resist that final flurry in the closing minute?

As dark and ominous as some of the tracks on 1999 feel none are quite as dark as SOMETHING IN THE WATER (does not compute). With the drum machine set to panic, the song bubbles along sinking the listener into a well of desperation and despair. Prince lays it all out on this track, with those pained screams and frustration. The clash of sounds from the totally alien almost android music to the raw humanity of the vocals make this a brilliant track, and one of his most under-rated.

Which leads us into FREE. A track that just doesn’t hold me as much as it should. Listening now I am hearing a blueprint of his ballads here though, there’s a glimpse of The Beautiful Ones, a hint of The Ladder, and even a wink to Still Could Stand All time. All of which are superior reincarnations.

LADY CAB DRIVER was the track that closed out the album for me. It’s full funk and a song that in later times I would love drumming to. It’s unmistakable Prince on the kit, with his rolls as accents and double snare work, and that bass line is from heaven, just underpinning the track and jostling it along it’s course. Again lyrically we get a glimpse of Prince’s loneliness for connection, and his frustration at the world for his place it in. Another stand out track and Gemini Twin to Irresistible Bitch.

I was never a fan of ALL THE CRITICS LOVE YOU IN NEW YORK. Maybe I didn’t get it, even when it was thrown up again as a reworked b-side to Sheila E’s Belle of Saint Mark (Too Sexy). But over the years I have found myself loving it more and more.

For me INTERNATIONAL LOVER is a step backwards. It just seems like a weak track and echoes all the ballads that came before. And the “welcome aboard the lover ship” stich is just cringe worthy. I much rather preferred it when the album closed with Lady Cab Driver.

As an album it was a leap above everything that had come before, and although Prince refers to it as his kindergarten, I think it’s an album that is at the top of its class. It was the perfect foundation to launch Prince further into the mainstream and prepare them for the smash hit that was to follow.

Swa

If you missed other Celebration threads - here are the links.

FOR YOU http://prince.org/msg/7/311337
PRINCE http://prince.org/msg/7/311446
DIRTY MIND http://prince.org/msg/7/311567
CONTROVERSY http://prince.org/msg/7/311655
[Edited 6/20/09 18:36pm]

"I'm not human I'm a dove, I'm ur conscience. I am love"

KoolEaze	BlackguitaristZ posted a really nice thread about the 1999 album, too. A couple of years ago. I highly recommend reading it.
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jill4life	Listening to Lady Cab Driver is like peering through binoculars at the building across the way....( )
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exenn	Let's Pretend We're Married and Something In The Water - both make my heart race in ways most songs can't. Easily fifteen years ahead of their time, if not more.
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