A list (in no particular order) of my 500 favorite songs (singles, deep cuts, hits, and more) of all time. Includes a wide array of selections from rock, punk, funk, R&B, soul, classical, jazz, folk, and world music.
It is so frustrating to write about Prince. His complete aversion to putting his back catalog and performances online is confounding in this day and age. I totally get wanting to control your output in a way that doesn't pimp your principles or your art. But come on. If people can't find your stuff, they're eventually going to stop looking for your stuff. I'd bet that there's a growing percentage of people under the age of 20 who've never even heard the track "Raspberry Beret" from Around the World in a Day (1985). Which is shame, because it's one of the few, true pop masterpieces of the 80s with an arresting melody, tasteful production, and intelligent lyrics to match. Even though the subject matter is still somewhat "adult" (the song is ostensibly about the Purple One's first time), it has a certain innocence and strong sense of storytelling that made it a bit more accessible to me as a kid. (Let's just say mom and dad weren't letting me listen too closely to the words of "Little Red Corvette.") And the narrative is so full of vivid imagery—raindrops on a tin roof, crackling lightning, and the titular hat; it simply was a great song for sparking my 7-year-old pictorial imagination. My favorite part has always been the way Prince sings the lyric I said now, overcast days never turned me on... I think it's because the delivery of the line is so bluesy and soulful. It counterbalances the baroque pop/Sgt. Pepper's feel of the backing track and pulls it back from the brink of being too sunny.
I remember when Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You" came out in 1984. It was the weirdest sounding thing I'd ever heard: there was Melle Mel from Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five rapping/chanting Khan's name, a sample of "Fingertips, Pt. 2" by Little Stevie Wonder thrown in for good measure—not to mention a live Stevie Wonder, playing harmonica on the track, and then odd tape noises and random effects that kind of left you wondering if someone had leaned on the wrong button during the final mixing. I listen to this song now and marvel that anyone had the guts to even attempt anything so bizarre (much less that mainstream radio programmers had the stones to play it). Because Khan owns her performance so completely, a lot of people don't realize the song actually is a Prince composition. It originally appeared on his 1979 self-titled album, albeit in a much leaner format. In fact, compared to the late mega-producer Arif Mardin's everything-and-the-kitchen-sink production for Khan, Prince's original sounds almost like a demo. In truth, Khan's cover of "I Feel for You" came about because her record company had expressed "concern" that she'd released several albums in a row without a definitive hit single. (In record company speak, that means, "We're dropping you soon if you don't get a hit.") So Mardin specifically set out to create something attention-grabbing that felt very futuristic, combining the Uptown vibe of hip-hop with the Downtown vibe of electro-pop and adding the element of soulful R&B. Mardin recounted to NPR's Michele Norris in 2005 that the idea of using Khan's name as a rhythmic element came out of a conversation with Khan's brother, musician Mark Stevens. "I said, 'You know, you have two sisters—one of them is called Taka Boom, and the other sister is Chaka Khan. Why can’t we use these two names like percussion? Taka Boom-Chaka Khan-Taka Boom-Chaka Khan'.” Even though the initial experiment didn't quite work, it did establish the groove for the song, and the vocal percussion idea morphed into Melle Mel's rap. Mardin also revealed that the famous Chaka-Chaka-Chaka-Chaka Khan "stutter" at the beginning of the song (a technique that hip-hop producers jumped on and ran into the ground in the years that followed) was a serendipitous error. "As we were mounting the recording onto the main master, my hand slipped on the repeat machine. And we said, 'let's keep that; that's very interesting'."
Sitting in the middle of Prince's sprawling double album Sign O' The Times (1987) is the curious track "If I Was Your Girlfriend." The Purple One wrote the song to explore his feelings of jealousy regarding his then-fiancée Susannah Melvoin's close relationship with her twin sister, Wendy Melvoin—the guitarist in Prince's backing band, The Revolution. In short, he realized Susannah would never share the same degree of intimacy with him as she did with Wendy, and that bothered him deeply. But instead of writing the song from a guy's point of view, he wrote it from a woman's point of view, expressing the wish that she could share the same kind of lasting bond with her boyfriend that she shared with her best girlfriend. (It's a pretty daring exercise in psychology for a pop song.) To take the concept even further, Prince recorded the song with sped-up vocals to sound like a woman. He even credited his alter-ego, "Camille," for the performance instead of himself. In fact, the song had been slated for inclusion on a full Camille album, which he ended up shelving in favor of Sign O' The Times. I don't mean to imply that the song is just some odd curio or throwaway, though; its slinky beat, slapped bass, and soulful hook make it one of the best tracks in his entire catalog. It's a shame it was so misinterpreted and ignored at the time of its release.
You couldn't turn on the radio in 1984 and not hear something from the Purple Rain soundtrack. Nevertheless, for a 6-year-old kid (as I was in 1984), Prince was a little too adult for me to even comprehend. I liked the groove of "Let's Go Crazy." "I Would Die 4 U" was catchy, too. But then I'd see him on MTV or Casey Kasem's old Saturday morning countdown show on NBC, and the whole makeup/Glam Rock meets S&M theme that he and The Revolution had going on was a little much. In my kid mind, every performance of his back then was a little like watching Ringling Brothers Circus, where Prince was the ringmaster and The Revolution were the clowns. Weird clowns who humped their keytars. It really wasn't until years later, when I went to a special showing of the film Purple Rain at an art house cinema in Chapel Hill, NC, that I had a chance to reevaluate Prince through adult ears and eyes. I walked away with a whole new respect and admiration of his genius. And, yes, he is a genius. Prince's amalgam of New Wave, Glam, early rock and roll, jazz, R&B, funk, and soul into something completely new is pretty amazing. It's a mix that, at first blush, should not work. For any other artist, it wouldn't work. But Prince has roots and influences that range from Duke Ellington to Marc Bolan. That massive pool of inspiration and musical knowledge in combination with his unbridled creativity changed the way music sounded in the early 80s. I came out of the theater that evening after watching the last scene of the film, where he finally plays Wendy and Lisa's new song (in reality, Prince alone wrote "Purple Rain"), and I felt like I had been to a revival. In fact, I think it's the gospel feel of the song that saves it from falling into the "power ballad" camp, even though it does make you want to sway with your Bic lighter in the air. Since Prince is notorious about keeping any of his music off YouTube and the internet, I regretfully can't post a video of Prince performing this song. There are HORRIBLE cover versions out there, including one incredibly off-tune karaoke rendition by a guy who looks like Kenny Powers from Eastbound and Down. There's also some dude who rambles for 9+ minutes about supposed backmasking (aka "backward messages") in the song. Search "Purple Rain" online at your own risk.
