Ok everybody let's reflect back on this landmark 1980 album from LIL MAN. This is THE ALBUM. This album really got the critics attention. This is the album where critics stated that LIL MAN was going to be an artist to be reckoned with. Looking back in retrospect in this sex drenched pop/R&B music world we live in now, this album may not be that surprising MAYBE, but in 1980, people weren't ready for the ranchy album(and I still think this album is shocking even by today's standards). There's only one thing on P's mind....SEX and more SEX!!!!! Every song on this album deals with the subject directly or indirectly. This is RAW Prince.Some of the songs on this record certainly have a strip-down feel to them. This album came with a warning label on it. I remember growing up and hearing "Uptown" and especially "Dirty Mind" on the radio and being "won over". I really didn't care for him much until the solid hard-hitting synth funk of the first two singles touched my ear drums.. Then HEAD came and by me being me a funkateer.... I was surely impressed. It's still amazing even looking back in retrospect that R*B radio gave HEAD so much airplay....especially considering the subject matter. Makes you long for the days when radio station had balls...metaphorically speaking(LOL). Some people naturally wondered whether the songs on this great record were autobiographical.espcially aftet hearing the rauchiness of "Sister". LIL MAN himself said in an interview around that time that the songs on Dirty Mind were based on real life experiences. but that's about all he would say on that subject.
[This message was edited Mon Apr 21 11:09:20 PDT 2003 by Brother915]

I sometimes think this is actually his best album. It lacks his present day habit of feeling the need to overproduce the music and over-layer his vocals. It's simple and raw. It reminds me of the Truth in some ways.

I only discovered just a couple years ago that the backdrop to the Dirty Mind album is actually a matress frame without padding. That is so great!!

raw, nasty and freeky!
that's how i like it.....music i mean

I'm sorry but I'm far too young to remember Head on the radio. I was born 3 days after it was released.

However, the Dirty Mind sound is what immediately drew me into Prince and I can confidently say that I listen to this album more than any other I own.

Why? For starters, the sound is completely different to anything today, and a good deal different to anything anytime. The unique sound together with the simplicity of the songs actually make it a very easy album to break into. This simplicity provides another strength; the funk is lean. The synth and rawness of Head makes my skin tingle sometimes, it's absolutely electric.

Moreover, the album has a lot of cheekiness to it. There's no "Strays Of The World"-style heaviness to it. The album is light and fun, with a lot of outrageous and provocative material. However, it's of a nature that is almost cartoonish and certainly not serious enough to be taken seriously. Sister is extremely tongue in cheek, for example.

This short album often makes me yearn for more of the same. However, expecting Prince to ever return to this is of course utterly out of the question. His sound has moved on and so has his lyrical style. The easiest way to put this, is to imagine that 1980 Prince is a different person to the 2002 Prince. He is.

Dirty Mind: I salute you!

ahhh....been waitin 4 this thread....

dirty mind is my fave album by p, and it's the album that got me diggin the brotha as well.

plus it came out like two months before i wuz born...

This is the album where he found his "voice", what he was all about. From the cover and the bedsprings and him standing there in that trenchcoat and bikini drawers, to the songs. So bad ass and such a "Rude Boy" as his button says.

As I posted once before...I was 5 years old when the album came out and my favorite older cousin was always listening 2 it...and I LOOOVVVVVEED "Head"!!! My cousin would sit there and crack up as I sang along....knowing I didnt know what the fuck I was singing about!!! My parents were outraged when I asked for DIRTY MIND for my 6th b-day!

Anyway...It was when I first fell in love with P!!!! I love each song from beginning 2 end.

I believe WHEN YOU WERE MINE is one of the best rock songs ever written!!!!! I love it so much!!!! If I was a musician/singer...I would open my live shows with it!!!

Yes...DIRTY MIND was very much an eye-opener for many....it pushed society's buttons and kudos to P for that!!! I just wish P still had some of that raw sexual energy goin on today!!!!! Dont know when/if that'll ever happen again!!!!!

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"You're gonna have to fight your own damn war..cuz we dont wanna fight no more!"
[This message was edited Fri Mar 29 14:55:55 PST 2002 by VANITYSprisonBYTCH]

To tell you the truth I can't remember the first time I heard this album. Although I wasn't a child when I heard it back then and I was into Prince (but not as intensely as in the near future after this album).

But I put this album in Prince's top 5 or 6 discs of his career. It's minimal, hard, hardcore, passionate, intense, punk-ish, urgent, iconoclastic, and really mysterious when I think about it.

This was his first album he put together a cohesive statement. Nobody sounded like this. NOBODY.

He didn't care what you thought about him, his look or his music. It was his way or the highway. He was allowing you to come along for the ride, or to get off the rollercoaster, because he was going to blaze his own trail regardless of whether or not you wanted to keep up with him.

And although you could hear that it was minimalist, at the same time you can hear the threads of rock/funk/punk/pop and new wave. It makes you wonder just who Prince was listening to back then. Because even though you can pinpoint the genres, you can't pinpoint who exactly this guy was listening to. And then you realize he was probably listening to the voices inside his head.