thisisreece said:

NorthC said:

Do you guys listen to music with a stopwatch in your hands?

KingSausage said:

1. The first 10 seconds of Kamasutra
2. The delivery of the first verse of Days of Wild
3. The end of Party Up when it starts with "gonna have to fight you're own damn war"

4. Private Joy - "You belong to Prince."

5. The start of the 2nd verse of U Know
6. The end of The Dance when he starts freaking out! "Are you really gonna just stand there and act like you don't want this?"

7. Still Would Stand All Time - The part that starts with "No one man will be ruler" gives me chills almost everytime I hear that song

8. The way the guitar goes from the end of Eye Hate U into the next track

9. The song Time, during the second verse, the way that the lyric of "Stay with me" is wrapped into the music is really hitting home lately

There are lots more!

[Edited 5/27/16 0:25am]

I'm not ready to start saying which are the greatest 10 secnds in Prince music, but here are a couple of seconds that scream "Prince!":

(All intros: cut right before he starts singing)

Intro from Lady Cab Driver

Intro from Little Red Corvette

Intro to basically anything on the Purple Rain LP, but especially When Doves Cry, Purple Rain, The Beautiful Ones and Darling Nikki.

Intro from Alphabet Street

(Couple of short solos that are inescapable)

Kiss

I Hate U

Dinner with Delores

Clouds

(Piano solos)

The piano break in Electric Intercourse

(Fades)

Forever in my life

This is too hard an exercise, it's mindboggling how many hooks, rifts, solos and fades he came up with.

[Edited 5/21/16 16:22pm]

[Edited 5/21/16 16:25pm]

The last 10 seconds (or so) of the second verse in Anotherloverholenyohead, just up to when the chorus kicks in....

GirlBrother said:

the ending of "if I was the man in your life"

real jazzy

much too short

Camille2016 said:

Piano intro to Anna Stesia.

So many but this is one and the beginning of When Doves Cry. The part in Holy River when he sings with no instrumentation before the gitar gets in.

The accoustic guitar ending of Forever In My Life.

Love the vocal arrangment that kicks in halfway through the second verse of Anotherloverholenyohead where Prince is singing lead and suddenly the backing vocals take the lead and he switches to backing vocals for a few lines. Since its release, I find myself rewinding that part every freaking time and it never gets old. Yup, gotta soft spot for that ten seconds!

Prince was so good at musical punctuation. For ex., I really love the drums in Lady Cab Driver. Right before it kicks in to the sex scene, the drums rumble and then the snare hits twice and the bed springs start up. So fuckin cool.

It's not ten seconds, but the quick guitar solo in "Sexy Dancer" works for me.

The 'best' would take me way longer, but three of the most startling are:

1. 'Something in the Water' 1:39-1:49 - All the instrumentation has dropped out, leaving just the drums and those computerized sounds, and the distantly mixed singing of "I've got to get to you baby" drifts in and out...one of his best uses of silence and space. Truthfully, part of what makes this so incredible is that ten seconds later he screams his head off, but still, a great ten seconds!

2. 'If I Was Your Girlfriend' 4:24-4:34: "Would you let me tickle you so hard you'd laugh and laugh" thru "stand in silence", that revved up motor sound as his monologue gets out of control and then cuts out suddenly

3. 'When You Were Mine' 2:05-2:15: "Love you more than I did when you were mine"... then the synth comes in doubling with his incredible held high note. You can't tell the difference at first between the two sounds and they gradually separate. Brilliant!

[Edited 5/26/16 22:41pm]

I’d like to think such a clever thread stays longer than the Snow in April.

Because there are so many, you could go faster by dissecting every song and painstakingly classify each ten-seconds bit.

Even in my loathed Prince’s eras, there are ALWAYS ten seconds of something to be found, for EVERY song, that will shut me up.

It can be something hidden in the background, a vocal harmony, a small gimmick, a little percussion, a guitar or bass or keyboard part.

Heck, you can play this game with “Purple Rain” intros alone :

1 - Let’s Go Crazy - 0’01:0’11
First of all, there’s the organ. For the first time since the sixties (“Like A Rolling Stone”, “Whiter Shade Of Pale”, etc.), the instrument takes the stage, and in a much more overtly manner: this is an organ church under acid.

And then, this voice.

Like a Muezzin, stadium-delayed, SKipper claims in A over a G major: You’re hooked. You have to hear what comes next.

Then the snare starts (this is brilliant, every other musician would have added the kick drum to an intro), and then the organ stops, guitars take over, but you know the song.

2 - Take Me With U - 0’06:0’16 (from the 2nd chord, into the “Shhh”)
As if the “Let’s Go Crazy” intro was not enough to send every musician back into the studio, as Alan Leeds would put it, here comes an even more gigantic intro,
that would sound like Wagner if played by a decent Heavy Metal band.

The chords and the hypnotic arpeggios over them, that’s some serious shit. It’s a very good composition.

Luckily, Prince takes the Sir George Martin approach instead (“OK, first song, white rock and big guitars - check, let’s have a nice ballad to follow that”), takes all the pompous out of this “grand progression”, and makes it sound as light as 1966’s spring in London (or wherever).

The “Shhh” that replaces an otherwise dummy drum roll, is also an idea derivative of The Beatles (“Girl”), and modestly displays the boombox talents of Skipper: he was boom-boxing like a maniac during the 1999/Purple Rain era (cf. the coda of “Little Red Corvette (Extended Mix)”, “Tamborine”, “God”, “Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)”, “Girl”, etc.).

Someone in another thread suggested that Skipper seldom paid attention to his sound based on the facts that he recorded so quickly. That poor creature would have us to believe that all the beautiful, precise sonic details to be found everywhere in Prince’s music happen by accident. In short, that Prince didn’t care about sound because he was recording too fast.

I’d rather believe that orger is either slow, or never heard SKipper’s output through a decent audio system: Prince doesn’t spend days, like Bruce Swedien and Quincy Jones, on a bollocks reversed splash intro FX (“Dirty Diana”).

Not because he doesn’t know how to do it.
Because it’s sexier with a breath through the teeth.
The little girls understand, as would James Morrison put it.

3 - The Beautiful Ones - 0’00:0’13

There’s nothing much to say about this one. It’s like all the new wave groups had to go back to their synths and drum machines.

Except no one has been able to slow the tempo to these levels since, or set a romantic mood over an almost dead chip last burp, 8 bits slowly dying, I mean this stuff sounds like HAL9000 agonizing, it’s the Duracell Bunny gone out of steam.

Poor Lonely Computer, apparently his girl has some views on another man (and SKipper “Tries so hard not go insane, Birds do fly, looks like Rain”).

Will our hero prevail at the end of the song?
Or would he been just screaming in vain at a Big Tall Wall?

4 - Computer Blue - 0’00:0’10

At the 10 seconds cut, it cuts right after the second “Yes, Lisa”.
Fine by me.

This is an intro which has a lesbian dialogue. I mean, Tipper, sadly you cannot argue much here, it’s just water temperature checking, what’s wrong with that?
Say again? “Shall we begin”? Well, the song of course!
You dirty-minded wife of a politician…

The Linn pattern is, at usual during the Purple era, incredible.
And the Purple Rain era trademark: the accentuated 4th snare hit, usually doubled with claps.

5 - Darling Nikki - 0’00:0’10

These 10 seconds are enough to set the whole mood. It’s a menace.
It sounds like a garage rehearsal. You can smell the warehouse.
It’s dirty, it’s the condensation of everything Skipper learned from punk.

Most of all, it’s sexual. The tension created by this greasy fuzz guitar, and the synth in counterpoint, is like you’re in your teens, and you just found hidden porn.

And he hasn’t start singing yet.

Tune it next week for Side B.
Same time, same boogie.

the fluttering rhythm guitar at the begginning of "Love 2 The 9's"

the last 10 seconds of "Time"

the machine gun fire on "Dance On" ("get off me punk! You aint sexy")

the first 10 seconds of the guitar solo on "Clouds"

the intro to "Take Me With You"

the beginning of 1999

spoken words on "Something In The Water" ("Bitch?...you think youre special?...well so do i")

Bob George (".. I pay the rent in this raggedy motherfucker....all you do is suck up food & heat")

Bob George (' put that suitcase down and put on that wig i bought you...no-no, no-no, the reddish-brown one")

1. Can't say 10 seconds, but the most transcendent minute in the Prince catalogue are the last 40 seconds of Darling Nikki into the first 20 seconds of When Doves Cry. Love the backward, "from the heavens", unintelligle vocal chorus that wavers then fades into what sounds like rain...as if angels fell out of the sky and skimmed the early for 30 seconds...completely gorgeous. When all this settles, the angels disappear, and When Doves Cry begin...epic Prince guitar intro using on octave pedal w/ distortion followed by that stripped down beat and synths. The passionate, animalistic dance of humankind begins.

2. Another personal favorite are the last 15 seconds of U Got the Look - Prince again on the guitars...beautiful, iconic, unique outro melody doubled on synths....what a way to "sign out" of the song.

[Edited 5/30/16 18:32pm]

The background that's playing in Automatic when he says, "Fasten your seatbelts....prepare for takeoff." Also toward the end of Automatic, he pounds the bass REALLY hard for a few seconds....I always crank the volume on that part.

The baby sound at the end of Delirious....not 10 seconds but it makes me smile everytime.

The strings arrangement in Raspberry Beret when he starts with, "Rain sounds so cool when it hits the barn roof...." Basically the strings during the whole song.

[Edited 5/30/16 20:07pm]

The moans and bass (808 maybe) at the very beginning of Cream. I always want that part to be longer.

[Edited 5/30/16 20:11pm]

With so many songs my choice may be silly, but I got really hooked on the part of "Future Baby Mama" where he sings:

"Yeah I know U might be fine, but I've seen it all before. Cinderella was a waste of time, then oop's she's out the door".

It's actually 12 seconds long, but I guess it's OK to count it

Wish I had a better way of describing it, but he does it best. The Question of U from 2:10-2:30. More than 10 seconds, but my God that guitar has given me chills since the first time I heard it. The whole solo really, but that bit gets me every time. Also, the intro to Bambi and the beginning of the Computer Blue solo.

-The beginning of Head

-The beginning of Gett Off

-The end of Purple Rain even though it makes me cry

-When the strings come in on Violet The Organ Grinder

Soft and Wet, 1:53-2:03

"Every time I'm with you, you just love me to death. Ooo-wee, baby! Leave me without... breath!"

Maybe not the absolute greatest, but I've had this in my head for the past few weeks. I love the exhale before "breath"!!! I finally saw a clip of Prince & the Revolution playing it live in what looks to possibly be P's birthday show in Detroit in 1986. Suffice to say my love for this song is now full blown obsession. I wish I could see other performances of it! It seems like a fun track to play!

Having a hard time to choose only 10 seconds...

- Guitar introduction on Bambi

-Temptation Chorus

-Guitar solo on IT

-The guitar and the piano on The Question of U (this song is SO perfect that has many amazing parts)

-Introduction on Anna Stesia

-The last instrumental part on In This Bed I scream (impossible not to dance)

-2.32 to 2.42 on Rave Unto the joy fantastic

- The greatest romance ever sold (Was there ever a reason 4 us 2 be apart?
The air that fills up this room says, "not hardly"
So this is where U end, and U and I begin ...)

[Edited 6/1/16 18:42pm]