I'm not getting younger... 20 years... time runs.

My favourite Prince album and the FIRST album I'd ever bought - not just Prince, but anybody...

I was 13 when I bought this - I hadn't yet turned 14. I bought it from HMV on cassette. In later years, when I'd buy records, I'd carefully unwrap the cellophone and read the liner notes on the bus home but I remember that I was more interested in reading comic books on that day. I'm pretty sure that I was reading an issue of Crisis On Infinite Earths, on the bus back home.

I'd bought a few Prince singles in the past - but only ever a few. The Double A-Side reissue of '1999'/'Little Red Corvette' being one of them. He'd been on my radar but I hadn't really paid much attention until I saw and heard 'Kiss'.

I remember the stereo I'd placed the cassette into. It was given to me by my Great Uncle Stanley. It seemed to have a weird electro-magnetic field around it, even when switched off. It smelled of electricity and the dusty speakers always seemed to exude an inaudible hum.

Pressing play and trying to guage the volume by listening to the tape-hiss, I lay down on my bed, ready to listen. Then it started... It was the sound of a madman throwing an orchestra off the top of the Eiffel Tower. I jumped up with a start; stopped the tape; rewound and ejected it. I figured the tape must have been loose, so I tightened it by spinning a pencil in one of the spools.

The tape went back into the stereo and this time I sat up and listened... The exact same cacophony, followed by a scream and then... cinemascope. I'd never heard anything like it before in my life. Sure, I was aware of orchestral psychedelia, because my Uncle Kevan had copied me his Beatles vinyl onto numerous cassettes. But this was different. It wasn't psychedelic rock - it was psychedlic jazz-funk-bubblegum-pop. The feeling was like drinking a cold glass of cola on a boiling-hot day. I cranked up the volume and lay back again...

'Christopher Tracy's Parade' gave way to 'New Position' with it's clanging steel drums and elastic bass. It was during this song that I noticed the female voices cooing softly but just as loudly. The song seemed to come from no fixed point of gender: "Do U, Do U like a good man should" trilled the ladies' voices. A new position indeed.

'I Wonder U' floated by like a half-remembered lullaby; 'Under The Cherry Moon' rattled along, evoking memories in me of times and places I'd never even experienced. It sounded like one of Marlene Dietrich's chansons but sung by a man.

Then came 'Girls & Boys'. It was dense and multilayered yet spartan. Instrumentation drifted in and out, constantly morphing. What I thought was a french horn became a gurgling analogue synth. Prince noted that although the "girl" in his story had "the cutest ass", so did the "boy" - and he managed to deliver this line without any loss to his masculinity. The song sounded like sex - not dirty or smutty - but sexy.

'Life Can Be So Nice' screeched onto the speakers - a joyous hymn to nothing else than falling in love. Clattering and rolling like a broke-down car, cruising down a hill on an empty tank. I couldn't believe that this music had actually been thought-out in advance - it all sounded so spotaneous and alive.

'Venus De Milo' fluttered like the morning sunlight on my face, when waking on a sunny day. After the cassette clicked to a stop, the colour in my room faded, back to black and white.

Turning the tape over, 'Mountains' pounded away like a huge machine designed for no other purpose but to funk you up. I didn't really take to the song until I heard the full-length version on the 12" single. Still, it rolled along pleasantly enough at the time. I knew that 'Kiss; would be on soon and I couldn't contain my excitement.

When 'Do U Lie' came on, I didn't know what to think. I'll forever associate this song with Inspector Clouseau's theme from the Pink Panther cartoon show. It's the accordion. My first experience of Prince in cheezey-mode.

Then it came - 'Kiss'. I turned the volume up louder. The bass from the speakers seemed to be moving the hairs on my arms to stand up. I will never grow tired of this song. Ever. Prince hollering like he was desperate for sex with anybody, regardless of how beautiful or not they may be - just so long as they put out. From first encounter to sexual frustration in a split-second. Not so much as "this is what I think we should do" as "this is how I'd like to do you". The "Dynasty" name-check thrilled me - it was my favourite show at the time!!! It felt like coming up for air after drowning in the orchestral sea which preceded it.

'Anotherloverholenyohead' sounded like it should have been the final song on the album. A funky plea for acceptance after Kiss's cock-sure posturing. It was funky, poppy and tied-up all the other elements of the album into something inbetween The Four Tops and and Five Star. A perfect pop song.

The longest song on the album was also it's last. 'Sometimes It Snows In April' sounded funereal and folksy. Again, I didn't take to the song instantly but I listened all the same whilst dwelling on the 40-something minutes of genius I'd just absorbed. The song never moved me until I'd had my first crush, the next summer.

After that first listen, I taped a back-up copy for my walkman, on my brother's tape-to-tape deck and my life changed.

Some people think that losing your virginity is the most memorable thing you do in your life. Listening to this album was better than losing my virginity. The day I bought and listened to it, is the day my childhood ended and I properly became a teenager.

virginie74 said:

Salut Virginie ! Un petit mot en francais parce que j'ai remarqué que tu es française et je poste trés peu car j'ai tellement de mal avec l'anglais...Sinon, je suis d'accord avc toi, ça ne nous rajeunit pas tout ça, mais quels souvenirs!