Prince recorded "Automatic" at Sunset Sound. We gotta take a moment and appreciate this fucking brilliant ass song, with its sexuality, it's talk of cunnilingus, some light bondage, and the idea that maybe all this is happening in a dank, steamy basement in an old warehouse in downtown Minneapolis somewhere.

It was recorded 4 days before "Something In The Water" and 7 days before "Delirious".

1999 was released October 27, 1982. It was performed regularly on the Parade tour. On NPG Ahdio Show #7, the medley from that tour was released from a show at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. "Automatic", "DMSR", and "The Dance Electric" was part of it. It was also part of the Cobo Hall video.

There was a promotional video for almost the whole song. The song clocks at 9:37, and the video was 8:43. It was one of Prince's longest tracks until "Purple Rain", "America", and "I Would Die 4 U". (And we know the full version of IWD4U is upwards of 30 minutes.)

This song blew.my.mind when I heard it on 1999. ("I'll go down on you all night long - it's automatic." Wait - he will? ) Plus the way he ping pongs back and forth between left and right channels from 4:00 on, like he's all around you and talking to both sides of your brain. Plus almost ten freaking minutes.

It's always been my favorite on 1999.

Genesia said:

This song blew.my.mind when I heard it on 1999. ("I'll go down on you all night long - it's automatic." Wait - he will? ) Plus the way he ping pongs back and forth between left and right channels from 4:00 on, like he's all around you and talking to both sides of your brain. Plus almost ten freaking minutes.

It's always been my favorite on 1999.

By the late 70s and early 80s, when musicians really started to play with stereo I became fascinated with channel separation. I think it was something on "Thriller" or something else with a walking sound effect that went from one channel to the other that I would geek out on. So "Automatic" was definitely in that realm of "OMG!"

i didnt like it much as a kid but I didnt really grasp the song until I strted hitting puberty...WOW. Still blown away by its space age production/

TrivialPursuit said:

Genesia said:

This song blew.my.mind when I heard it on 1999. ("I'll go down on you all night long - it's automatic." Wait - he will? ) Plus the way he ping pongs back and forth between left and right channels from 4:00 on, like he's all around you and talking to both sides of your brain. Plus almost ten freaking minutes.

It's always been my favorite on 1999.

By the late 70s and early 80s, when musicians really started to play with stereo I became fascinated with channel separation. I think it was something on "Thriller" or something else with a walking sound effect that went from one channel to the other that I would geek out on. So "Automatic" was definitely in that realm of "OMG!"

The first song in that vein that I remember hearing is The Cars' "Moving in Stereo."

laytonian said:

. Led Zeppelin WHOLE LOTTA LOVE, several Beatles'recordings and early stereo recordings experimented with channel separation.

laytonian said:

. Led Zeppelin WHOLE LOTTA LOVE, several Beatles' recordings and early stereo recordings experimented with channel separation.

No doubt, but I was a little white boy in the mid-south listening to Prince, Diana Ross, Earth Wind & Fire, Commodores, etc., coupled with Mickey Gilley, Johnny Lee, Anne Murray, Waylon Jennings, etc. Never did get to the now-classic rock. Everyone around me did. It wasn't until my later 20s that I got into The Beatles more, and touched on Led Zep time to time. So I missed a lot of that in 1983 when I was singing "c'mon baby let's fuck" under my breath. haha

I just remembered that "Peach" guitar solors sorta play with channel fading, too.

Yes, yes, yes! The song is STILL all that and then some in my book! But the VIDEO, though y'all!

LAWD have mercy!

I'd already liked Prince and his music for years. I was 12 going on 13 by then and had absolutely no understanding of all the sexual connotation that was going on in the song and video. All I remember KNOWING by that point was... I LOVED PRINCE! I LOVED PRINCE...A WHOLE DAMN LOT!

Just listened to it on vinyl for the first time and it BOPS!!!! Absolutely meant to be heard on vinyl. I swear, he took all the best parts of early 80s music and condensed it to less than 10 minutes.