I was watcching a documentary about British synthpop the other night and came across the song "Nag Nag Nag" by post-punk band Cabaret Voltaire, ca 1979. The drum track sounded oddly familiar until I realized that this is probably the same one used in the track "Annie Christian" by Prince from 1981.

I know Prince was into a lot of the New Romantics and other Bristish stuff in the early 1980s, but I doubt that he had the sampling technology back then. Can anyone confirm if this is a standard rhythm track for one of the early synthesizers? What tech was Prince using back then?

[Edited 2/9/18 2:41am]

daha6439 said:

I was watcching a documentary about British synthpop the other night and came across the song "Nag Nag Nag" by post-punk band Cabaret Voltaire, ca 1979. The drum track sounded oddly familiar until I realized that this is probably the same one used in the track "Annie Christian" by Prince from 1981.

I know Prince was into a lot of the New Romantics and other Bristish stuff in the early 1980s, but I doubt that he had the sampling technology back then. Can anyone confirm if this is a standard rhythm track for one of the early synthesizers? What tech was Prince using back then?

[Edited 2/9/18 2:41am]

There were no samplers back then (unless you count the Mellotron which was analog as it played tape loops of a sound when a key was struck). The drum machine used on Annie Christian was a Roland TR-808.

Its close but Annie Christian's beat stops and gones on the final notes

I definitely think P was hip to Cabaret Voltaire and the other proto industrial and performance art based acts.....

daha6439 said:

I was watcching a documentary about British synthpop the other night and came across the song "Nag Nag Nag" by post-punk band Cabaret Voltaire, ca 1979. The drum track sounded oddly familiar until I realized that this is probably the same one used in the track "Annie Christian" by Prince from 1981.

I know Prince was into a lot of the New Romantics and other Bristish stuff in the early 1980s, but I doubt that he had the sampling technology back then. Can anyone confirm if this is a standard rhythm track for one of the early synthesizers? What tech was Prince using back then?

[Edited 2/9/18 2:41am]

The drum track was done on a Maestro Rhythm King, specifically the MRK-2 a/k/a "The Funkbox" that Sly & The Family Stone used.

Here's a demo of the machine:

https://www.youtube.com/w...Fj2mkFYsc

[Edited 2/9/18 15:40pm]

[Edited 2/9/18 15:41pm]

To your credit, this song is thirty-nine years old and is one of 1,000,001 I have never heard of until now but I don't hear the resemblance. For me, this song has more patterns than AC and sounds faster. If there was the slimmest possibility that P was familiar with this band in 80-81, he was quite hip at the time.

Maybe--but there's also some guitar/feedbacky sounds that are awfully similar too toward the beginning. From around :20 to :26, it sounds pretty close to Annie Christian, and not just the drums (if you didn't know better). Cool.

EddieC said:

Maybe--but there's also some guitar/feedbacky sounds that are awfully similar too toward the beginning. From around :20 to :26, it sounds pretty close to Annie Christian, and not just the drums (if you didn't know better). Cool.

That forever raunchy guitar solo-ing is some of the best guitar ever..and its buried deep in the mix of the obscure track, go figure.