Anyone agree with choices and the comments?

http://thequietus.com/art...-hits-comp

I'm not sure how "Erotic City" has went unnoticed or unheralded over the years. Even my non-Prince fan friends, or just those that are Top 40 listeners know "Erotic City" by heart.

Same goes for "Darling Nikki". That song was like a underground song back then, until Tipper Gore got her bored-housewives hands on it, then she shot it into every kid's ear canal.

There's only one song in that list that should be unheralded. The rest are good.

This is great stuff, thanks for sharing! I love it when music journalists concentrate on his unheralded material. The Lovesexy bit is right on-the-money.

yeah pretty much

what a wonderful selection of songs! that was a great read, very well written too!

I think this is remarkable. The folks who put this together...they actually know Prince! What a great read, full of amazing turns of phrase.

I dunno about this, however:

"Prince has never been a great singer exactly, but he’s rarely used his striking falsetto to better effect than here..."

Maybe you don't want to call Prince a great singer if Caruso is what you have in mind, but for pop? He's great. More than great.

"...'I met her in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine.' I credit this image almost exclusively with the warping of my 12-year-old sexual imagination. There's more than one way to masturbate with a magazine, after all."

So freakin' true. It didn't even occur to me until years later that Nikki might have been reading, or even looking at, the magazine in question.

"So intimate that you could hear the scratching of his fingers along the fretboard..."

Make that the strings themselves, not the fretboard. Right?

Re: 17 Days "Though originally conceived of as a track for Vanity 6’s second album..."

It was?

Re: Automatic "Here, he advances like a one-man Kraftwerk with a chromium boner, presenting himself as a helpless machine in the service of his lustful significant other while making a slave of the listener with the compulsive proto-House shudder & clunk of his beloved Linn M-1."

This is sheer brilliance.

Anotherwontdare said:

Yea, the "great singer" opinion stood out as misguided. Also, wasn't Life Can Be So Nice basically Prince/Sheila E instrumentation? I don't think Bobby Z is on it.

I love the quote, "leaving the listener shuddering between ecclesiastical fervour and lustful devotion, not knowing whether to laugh, cry or cum."

Don't you think the song Lovesexy is underappreciated here on the org?

Great article indeed !!!
Thanx for posting it!!!

They have good taste, don't they ?

kindofblue7 said:

Nice!

AM I the only one who had never seen that Apollonia 6 video?

love the write up for Crystal Ball. Can just picture the execs face when Prince played him the title track

Erik

Not bad. I love the wording in the review of "Lovesexy". Makes me want to go listen to it right now

StonedImmaculate said:

No, I know another guy that live in Groenland !!!! So, you are not alone !

Anotherwontdare said:

Yes, it wasn't written/produced as a P track initially. It was meant for either the second V6 album or first A6 album (depending on when it was produced). You can clearly hear Brenda Bennett singing background vocals towards the end. He most likely performed it with the Revolution (or did the whole thing himself) as a backing track, added the girls background vocals and decided he liked the song for himself. I'm sure The Vault or someone like Bart on here could give a more detailed background on the song's history.

pzlyprk said:

"17 Days" was recorded in the summer of 1983 (around July probably) for the second V6 album. It was recorded at Prince's home studio. Other songs like "Promise To Be True", "Vibrator", "G-Spot", and "Sex Shooter" were recorded as well. "Wet Dream's Cousin" was a work in progress at the same sessions.

Both "17 Days" and "Sex Shooter" were purposely rerecorded (1984, and 1983, respectively) for the A6 album. "G-Spot" was later updated for Jill Jones' album. "Promise To Be True" was revamped for Bonnie Raitt. Prince reclaimed "17 Days" for himself. It was meant to be sang by A6 or V6. You can hear the feminine edge in it. Also, since when does Prince smoke? Brenda did, and Vanity might have. The simple thing like "all I got, is two cigarettes..." is a line made for a girl, not a guy. You can hear Brenda and Susan on the song though. (You can also hear Brenda's voice buried a bit on The Bangles "Manic Monday", since they used most all of Prince's demo track as their own, opposed to rerecording it.)

As a note: "Wonderful Ass" was recorded at the same sessions, and was later reworked by Wendy and Lisa.
[Edited 2/4/10 8:12am]

Thanks for the followup. Explains a lot with the lyrics you mentioned, Ernest, being for a non-Prince persona. Prince isn't above brokenheartedness, of course, but "beg you to be near me" is probably from more of a feminine perspective.

Love the descripition of the Lovesexy title track.

I always thought that album was about him 'showing off' his as an arranger, and Frank Zappa and Duke Ellington sure come to mind when i listen to that album.

The Quietus is a tremendous site and very well respected within the music industry. I think it is a superbly written article and right on the money.

All those songs are well selected and thoughtfully described. These fellas obviously have a soft spot for Prince... you don't gather that knowledge of his music as a casual listener.

I think they could have looked at a wider range of his career, and tried to inject a little more variety into the list, but otherwise, it's nice.

shonenjoe said:

Ha. I think the Lady Cab Driver bit's hilarious. Not sure he's got it right though - isn't P in a cab with the cab driver? Sorry if this sounds ignorant but that's how i always heard it.

Thought something from the Girl6 album might've gotta mention, something like Don't Talk To Strangers is unheralded, whereas Sometimes It Snows In April and anything from Purple Rain not so, it seems to me.