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Controversy - 40 Year Anniversary!
Run time: 37:15 Tracks: 8 Recorded at: Kiowa Trail Home Studio, Chanhassen, MN, USA; Hollywood Sound Recorders, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Sunset Sound, Hollywood, CA, USA Label: Warner Bros.
2. Sexuality 3. Do Me, baby 4. Private Joy 5. Ronnie Talk 2 Russia 6. Let's Work 7. Annie Christian 8. Jack U Off - It peaked at #55 again in 2016. - The title track was a #1 hit on the US Dance charts, as was "Let's Work." - It was certified platinum in the U.S. - Controversy was voted the eighth best album of the year in the 1981 Pazz & Jop, an annual critics' poll run by The Village Voice.
"  don’t really care so much what people say about me because it is a reflection of who they r." |
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My favorite album. My favorite era. This is my time to shine. | |
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Surprised no one has cited the Prince twitter and Facebook acknowledgement of this 40 year anniversary as a sign Controversy Deluxe is coming out! The same might happen again for the 20 year anniversary of Rainbow Children. There may or may not be something coming! |
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Controversy was all over the radio in Utah.
Welcome to "the org", laytonian… come bathe with me. |
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FrankieCoco1 said: Surprised no one has cited the Prince twitter and Facebook acknowledgement of this 40 year anniversary as a sign Controversy Deluxe is coming out! The same might happen again for the 20 year anniversary of Rainbow Children. And the symbol album? I think it will be different if they're still making posts about Controversy next week. | |
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Melody MakerJune 1981
The quiet tittle man with bovine, brown eyes and a whisper of a ’tache stares absent-mindedly out of the hotel window across London’s rainswept rooftops.
Steve Sutherland
“Actually,” he decides finally with pronounced hesitation, “I think it’s much more embarrassing talking about these things than doing them. I mean, I find it a lot easier to sing swear words than to say them and when I first had a girl, I found it realty hard to tell my mother but. Lord knows, I didn’t feel embarrassed while I was doing it to her.” The man shifts in his seat, fidgets with his fingers and smiles uneasily. He’s nervous – so nervous he gives me the jitters. I remember the quote from the New York Times: “With his sassy grace and precocious musicality he is heir to the defiant rock and roll tradition of Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger.” I look again at the slightly dishevelled figure sitting before me and figure I must be in the wrong room. Just to check l ask for his history and, yep, believe it or not, this is definitely Prince. CHRISTENED by his father – a jazz musician – from his fictitious stage-name, Prince is the fairytale story of a Juvenile runaway who really made good. At only 20 he has two platinum albums behind him in the States and a third, “Dirty Mind", rapidly approaching the mark despite a total airplay due to the risque sexual, overtones of its lyrics. Already a critically-lauded star back home,” and accompanied by a wild reputation, he’s now making his first tentative foray into the foreign market with a one-off show at the Lyceum. The first thing I was burning to know was what made a man referred to as the “solo Bee Gees of the libido” by Rolling Stone on account of his falsetto vocals and naughty-naughty songs, take to the stage, with his five-piece band, dressed in a studded leather coat, Y-Fronts and black thigh-length tights? To me it’s not outrageous, it’s comfortable,” he replies, trying to force a smile. “I’ve always dressed the way I’ve wanted to and if it goes with the music, it’s only because the music is part of me and so is the way I dress. I don’t try to do anything to shock people or to make money – that would make me a hooker”. PRINCE is not a prat but ’ neither is he the wunderkind America desperately tries to make him out to be. He’s accomplished – he’s master of 26 instruments, composes and plays virtually everything on all his albums and is the youngest person ever to self-produce for Warner Brothers- he’s flash, intelligent, a bit too self-obsessed for easy conversation, a little bit silly and kinda strange too. Things like his father leaving home, his brother flitting in and out of slam and a period lodging with his sister all seem to hold a fathomless fascination for him and he constantly calls upon his past, almost endowing it with some spiritual significance, as he struggles to explain the motives behind his music. “I saw an analyst once because I was wondering why I was so sexual-minded and why I wanted to go against the grain so much because it got me into a lotta trouble a lotta times” he reluctantly confides. “He asked me to talk about my childhood y’know, ’when you first experienced this and first experienced that?’ I realised that, when I was young, I used to read my mother’s dirty novels and I was more taken with them than anything – it was a lot better than comic books.” This apparent self-discovery has, he claims, not only enabled him to develop as a more full, unfettered personality but has given him new confidence in his work. “It was a revelation recording this last album,” he explains more excitedly, “I realised that I could write just what was on my mind and things that I’d encountered and I didn’t have to hide anything. The lyric on the new album is straight from the heart whereas the other albums were more feelings, more dreams and fantasies and they stuck to the more basic formulas that I’d learned through playing top 40 material in old bands. That’s probably why they were so big but that’s really upsetting for me because you say to yourself, “Well, do I just wanna be real big or do I wanna do something I’ll be proud of and really enjoy playing?’ ” ’l wanna Be Your Lover’ was a big hit off the second album,” he continues, “but it was hard for me to play that song after, a while. I’ll never get sick of playing the stuff from the ’Dirty Mind’ album because I’ll always remember what state of mind I was enduring the time it was recorded.” THE frankness of the third album, dealing with strictly taboo subjects like incest and lesbianism, was bound to keep it off the radio despite its seductive disco settings but the subsequent notoriety ensured the sales and anyway, according to Prince: “The sales weren’t important. There were points, I must admit, on the first two albums where I was writing to get a hit but that was too easy. I don’t like to do things that’s easy - it’s more of a challenge for me to write exactly what happens, exactly what I feel at that particular time. If I think a certain thought and I put it down on paper-exactly like I hear it in my head, that’s a challenge to me as a writer. “More than my songs have to do with sex,” he says, “they have to do with one human’s love for another which goes deeper than anything political that anybody could possibly write about. The need for love, the need for sexuality, basic freedom, equality... I’m afraid of these things don’t necessarily come out. I think my problem is that my attitude’s so sexual that it overshadows anything else that I might not mature enough as a writer to bring it all out yet “I’m gonna stop this soon,” he suddenly spurts. “I don’t expect to make many more records for the simple reason that I wanna see my life change. I wanna be there when it changes, I don’t wanna just be doing what’s expected of me. I just wanna live ... until it’s time to die...” He trails off and that’s the end of the interview. I rise, reach the door and turn to say goodbye but he’s already back there, gazing out the window. I remember a line from one of his songs: “Sex related fantasy is all that my mind can see,” and ponder on the dark, mysterious beauty turning tricks in the private bedroom of his mind.
[Edited 10/13/21 10:49am] Straight Jacket Funk Affair
Album plays and love for vinyl records. | |
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" don’t really care so much what people say about me because it is a reflection of who they r." |
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imagine a DE... it doesn't have to be a SDE, estate... just a DE along with a Dirty Mind DE will do! | |
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Nice to see the love from Apple Music.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Controversy https://music.apple.com/us/station/essential-album-controversy/ra.1588312344
Also noticed they Apple has expanded his Essential Albums section from 3 albums to 7. Which I am pleasently surprised about...Parade, Controversy and Diamonds & Pearls are typically not catagorized this way.
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And one of the best Prince images ever https://www.princevault.c...aller.jpeg [Edited 10/13/21 13:07pm] |
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ohhhhh that's probably because they're hinting that those are the next 3 Super Duper Mega Deluxe Expanded Editions coming out.... just hold on tight, Purple Politicians! it's coming | |
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great album. not a classic. its not perfectly formed like dirty mind. its a transitional album, towards the stuff that would make him a big star in the 80s. also shows the image that would be most famous too. and shows that dirty mind was just a clever, calculated attempt to get the cool rock attention. prince was never going to sound that grungy and lo fi again. |
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To me, its the most important (not the best) album of Prince's career. This is the birth of the MPLS sound. The chicken scratch guitar, the non-falsetto vocals, the linn drum, the sex Vs religion, the pure dirty ballad, the rockabilly, the machanical synth, the overly stretched songs. . | |
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paisleypark4 said: Melody MakerJune 1981The quiet tittle man with bovine, brown eyes and a whisper of a ’tache stares absent-mindedly out of the hotel window across London’s rainswept rooftops. Steve Sutherland
“Actually,” he decides finally with pronounced hesitation, “I think it’s much more embarrassing talking about these things than doing them. I mean, I find it a lot easier to sing swear words than to say them and when I first had a girl, I found it realty hard to tell my mother but. Lord knows, I didn’t feel embarrassed while I was doing it to her.” The man shifts in his seat, fidgets with his fingers and smiles uneasily. He’s nervous – so nervous he gives me the jitters. I remember the quote from the New York Times: “With his sassy grace and precocious musicality he is heir to the defiant rock and roll tradition of Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger.” I look again at the slightly dishevelled figure sitting before me and figure I must be in the wrong room. Just to check l ask for his history and, yep, believe it or not, this is definitely Prince. CHRISTENED by his father – a jazz musician – from his fictitious stage-name, Prince is the fairytale story of a Juvenile runaway who really made good. At only 20 he has two platinum albums behind him in the States and a third, “Dirty Mind", rapidly approaching the mark despite a total airplay due to the risque sexual, overtones of its lyrics. Already a critically-lauded star back home,” and accompanied by a wild reputation, he’s now making his first tentative foray into the foreign market with a one-off show at the Lyceum. The first thing I was burning to know was what made a man referred to as the “solo Bee Gees of the libido” by Rolling Stone on account of his falsetto vocals and naughty-naughty songs, take to the stage, with his five-piece band, dressed in a studded leather coat, Y-Fronts and black thigh-length tights? To me it’s not outrageous, it’s comfortable,” he replies, trying to force a smile. “I’ve always dressed the way I’ve wanted to and if it goes with the music, it’s only because the music is part of me and so is the way I dress. I don’t try to do anything to shock people or to make money – that would make me a hooker”. PRINCE is not a prat but ’ neither is he the wunderkind America desperately tries to make him out to be. He’s accomplished – he’s master of 26 instruments, composes and plays virtually everything on all his albums and is the youngest person ever to self-produce for Warner Brothers- he’s flash, intelligent, a bit too self-obsessed for easy conversation, a little bit silly and kinda strange too. Things like his father leaving home, his brother flitting in and out of slam and a period lodging with his sister all seem to hold a fathomless fascination for him and he constantly calls upon his past, almost endowing it with some spiritual significance, as he struggles to explain the motives behind his music. “I saw an analyst once because I was wondering why I was so sexual-minded and why I wanted to go against the grain so much because it got me into a lotta trouble a lotta times” he reluctantly confides. “He asked me to talk about my childhood y’know, ’when you first experienced this and first experienced that?’ I realised that, when I was young, I used to read my mother’s dirty novels and I was more taken with them than anything – it was a lot better than comic books.” This apparent self-discovery has, he claims, not only enabled him to develop as a more full, unfettered personality but has given him new confidence in his work. “It was a revelation recording this last album,” he explains more excitedly, “I realised that I could write just what was on my mind and things that I’d encountered and I didn’t have to hide anything. The lyric on the new album is straight from the heart whereas the other albums were more feelings, more dreams and fantasies and they stuck to the more basic formulas that I’d learned through playing top 40 material in old bands. That’s probably why they were so big but that’s really upsetting for me because you say to yourself, “Well, do I just wanna be real big or do I wanna do something I’ll be proud of and really enjoy playing?’ ” ’l wanna Be Your Lover’ was a big hit off the second album,” he continues, “but it was hard for me to play that song after, a while. I’ll never get sick of playing the stuff from the ’Dirty Mind’ album because I’ll always remember what state of mind I was enduring the time it was recorded.” THE frankness of the third album, dealing with strictly taboo subjects like incest and lesbianism, was bound to keep it off the radio despite its seductive disco settings but the subsequent notoriety ensured the sales and anyway, according to Prince: “The sales weren’t important. There were points, I must admit, on the first two albums where I was writing to get a hit but that was too easy. I don’t like to do things that’s easy - it’s more of a challenge for me to write exactly what happens, exactly what I feel at that particular time. If I think a certain thought and I put it down on paper-exactly like I hear it in my head, that’s a challenge to me as a writer. “More than my songs have to do with sex,” he says, “they have to do with one human’s love for another which goes deeper than anything political that anybody could possibly write about. The need for love, the need for sexuality, basic freedom, equality... I’m afraid of these things don’t necessarily come out. I think my problem is that my attitude’s so sexual that it overshadows anything else that I might not mature enough as a writer to bring it all out yet “I’m gonna stop this soon,” he suddenly spurts. “I don’t expect to make many more records for the simple reason that I wanna see my life change. I wanna be there when it changes, I don’t wanna just be doing what’s expected of me. I just wanna live ... until it’s time to die...” He trails off and that’s the end of the interview. I rise, reach the door and turn to say goodbye but he’s already back there, gazing out the window. I remember a line from one of his songs: “Sex related fantasy is all that my mind can see,” and ponder on the dark, mysterious beauty turning tricks in the private bedroom of his mind.
[Edited 10/13/21 10:49am] wow!! What a time capsule interview!! To think this 'dishevelled' man who will stop making records soon grew in to being prince, the superstar! thank you for sharing!! Not the most flattering interview Loving the line that states prince is not a prat. | |
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Every song on the album is a banger. Doesn't matter if he refined his approach to the various themes he was going for here. Every song is a banger and set the l precedent for the rest of his whole sound. Best album. Classic. Legend. | |
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“I just wanna live ... until it’s time to die...” That got me choked up. | |
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After disco died, Prince invented the 80s right there | |
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Love that old interview. He was very open then. But that's about dirty mind right, not controversy,? |
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" don’t really care so much what people say about me because it is a reflection of who they r." |
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1981 and this album made me a fan!Happy 40th anniversary to this wild blitz of funk, new wave, and hyper energy! Although it’s sometimes regarded as a lesser album among his titanic 80s run, I think Controversy is outstanding from start to finish. I’ve always loved it, and it has only climbed my rankings over time, now ranking as my 3rd favorite Prince album (and 9th overall). He was so desperate to get his vision out there during this era, and that youthful exuberance adds such charm. Rick James may have laid claim to “punk funk”, but it is this album (along with Dirty Mind) that seems to embody that spirit more than any other — it’s in the herky jerky singing in “Private Joy”, the shock tactics of “Jack U Off”, the raucous rave-up of “Ronnie Talk to Russia”, the rawness of “Sexuality”, and the social and sonic tantrum of “Annie Christian”. And of course, the three singles are juggernauts, with the title track being among his most potent and enduring thesis statements, “Let’s Work” featuring perhaps the best bass groove of his career, and “Do Me, Baby” serving as a wanton, steamy template for all of his midnight ballads to follow. 8 songs. 37 minutes. The birth of the Minneapolis Sound. It’s the essence of Prince at his hungriest. Feel free to join in the Prince Album Poll 2018! Let'a celebrate his legacy by counting down the most beloved Prince albums, as decided by you! | |
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DO ME, BABY DEMO. " don’t really care so much what people say about me because it is a reflection of who they r." |
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I love it! Love the MRK drum machine, love the unintentional c&w feel, love it’s innocent energy and love how it reminds me of “Open Book”. It’s amazing & testimonial how he could repeatedly re-recreate a whole song from the bottoms up. My only gripe was I wish they let the tape roll instead of fade it, but hopefully the full version gets released  | |
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" don’t really care so much what people say about me because it is a reflection of who they r." |
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“With You” is definitely a c&w song, put a little peddle steel guitar and it would fit the format. I think that’s probably the mid-west influence creeping in. | |
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It's a really good and fun record. I think it's the first one where we can hear Prince really "turning the corner" into the sound he would perfect on 1999. | |
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" don’t really care so much what people say about me because it is a reflection of who they r." |
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There are several Prince songs where if you just changed the instruments but kept the same song structure, chords and notes they could be played country style. | |
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