I’m a Prince fan. But I’ll confess to not having all of his albums. Especially his earlier, pre-Purple Rain material. Some of it I’ve had, and not listened to thoroughly, some of it I have.
Yesterday, I filled in the gaps in my collection and I decided to start listening from the beginning. From “For You” on – in order.
Presently, I’m at 1999 – and that’s when I made a discovery: Prince didn’t become Prince until 1999.
Surely, he was Prince. Surely, there were moments of Prince-ness in Dirty Mind or Prince, but it wasn’t until Controversy did I begin to see the seeds of who Prince would become and, more or less, remain. Before 1999, we’re given a couple of glimpses into what we know as the Prince approach to music making – songs like “Do Me, Baby,” “So Blue,” “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad” and “I Wanna Be Your Lover” in particular.
But the key factor in the fast majority of these songs is Prince’s singing voice.
“Ronnie, Talk to Russia” is the *first* Prince song that isn’t in the upper-octave, falsetto singing voice. It’s sort of amazing to hear this voice – that is *the* Prince voice we all know, suddenly appear.
He falls back into the Funk/Disco fusion with “Let’s Talk” but then we get the extremely awkward, extremely interesting “Annie Christian.” This isn’t a good song in particular. The lyrics are relatively puerile, the whole thing feels like a college cheer. There’s no subtlety or nuance to the message or the style, but suddenly, as a fan – you see that Prince isn’t happy with the music he’s been doing. He’s ready to move to the next level, he’s ready to change things, and he’s got some ideas.
“Jack U Off” is glorious in it’s own way. The first thing that I realized upon discovering this song, is how much “Can’t Stop This Feeling I Got” sounds like this tune. From the beat, to the singing voice, to the melody, here was Prince tapping into his future sound.
As such, it’s a great last track to go into 1999.
1999 is the arrival of Prince. The Prince we’d know for the rest of his musical history, up until at least this point. From the first notes of the title track – it’s already different than anything he’s done before.
The disco is gone. This is a new fusion – punk & new wave. And suddenly, we aren’t treated with Prince falsetto. We’ve got Lisa singing the first words, Dex following her, and then Prince himself. But not the Prince we’d heard for years – this is the Prince singing the way Prince needs to sing. The way Prince would sing to change the world and the face of music.
“Little Red Corvette” is the final nail in the coffin of the old Prince. Even though he’d go back to the falsetto voice on occasion, to great effect on ballads and softer songs, “Little Red Corvette” is slow, powerful, and emotionally driven. It’s a slow-churn, and Prince’s voice is haunting. He’s not trying to shock us any longer with discussion about his sister’s panties, or a blatant exclamation of jacking someone else off.
Now he’s using nuance. He’s using his voice, his music, and his poetry to transcend beyond standard faire overt-sexuality, and enter the realm of seduction. “I’ma try and tame your little red love machine” is far more potent and powerful than “A blowjob doesn’t mean blow.”
By the time the chorus has kicked in, Prince has arrived. “Little Red Corvette” is the first Prince song. The vocal stylings alone are defined. From his powerful singing voice, to his high falsetto and his low grumble, Prince moves all over the vocal scale and it feels right. This is the birth of the Man. The Artist.
I wish Prince would write a biography. I wish he’d tell us all what he’s gone through, how he was thinking about music at this time, how he made these transitions, what helped him change, what was going through his mind. All we can do is speculate, but man, it’s fun.
The rest of 1999 is eye-opening. Prince plays with musical styles. “Delirious” continues the slow, bass-heavy thump. “D.M.S.R.” is our first Prince-party JAM! Like “Housequake” or “NOW!” or “There will never be another like me.”
He continues to play with new sounds, new song-stylings that we’d hear throughout the rest of his career. “Something in the Water” is “My Computer.” 15 years early. And with “International Lover” Prince lets all of us know that he can still bring it like he used to, but that things have changed. You’ll have to open your mind from now on. He’s discovered his voice, and he’s going to do things you’ve never imagined.
But he can still give you that old-style disco/funk/falsetto ballad you fell in love with.
John McCain and his campaign have decided to wrestle the mantle of Change from the Obama campaign.
So the question is – what do we do? What do we, those of us who pushed change for months, who made the concept of change strong, and powerful, and so very clearly inevitable, do to grab our fire back?
It’s simple. We differentiate. Because if what McCain is offering is “change”, do we really want to be associated with that? Do we want our movement to really be swirled in with the muck and gunk of the Republican party platform that’s lead us to be hated around the world? Despised by our allies and enemies alike. The party that’s destroyed our economy, who has stretched our military so thin, made our dollar and strength dissipate so far that we can no longer stand up to countries like Bolivia or Venezuela.
McCain augmented the concept of change with a word – a word that had some cache associated with it – and was a great marketing ploy: reform
But reform just means to change things slightly. To keep things the same, but make a few modifications. Is that what we want? Is that what we want our agent, our ambassador Barack Obama, to bring to Washington? That sort of mindset? No, we want more. And the words change and reform are too weak.
What we want, what we need, what we desire is something more powerful. Something that’s been coming a long time. Something that is necessary for America to turn the corner into the future, and turn back the tide of the massive the wealth transfer to China, Russia and the Middle East, leaving our own workers and our own country in the gutter.
We demand REVOLUTION.
Let that sink in for a second, let it grow on you. I’ll wait.
Done? Good. Because we don’t have a lot of time to waste. There’s more to this whole thing than just some election, some “silly” game as Barack Obama has called it. What’s going on here is the absolute fate of our great nation, and we’re facing a ruling class that doesn’t care about the people. No longer is America a country “For the People and By the People” as it was originally established. Instead it’s a country where the people work to make the corporations stronger, even as they take our jobs away, remove our manufacturing, squash ingenuity in the small business sector, and stifle the innovation that’s always made America that shining beacon just over the horizon.
We need REVOLUTION.
Not the kind where we raise up arms against our brothers. Our country is stable, strong, and though recent information may be hinting at fraudulent voter practices rearing their ugly heads once again, our peaceful nation can enact a revolution using nothing more than a chad pushed all the way through a piece of paper. Because if enough of us want it, if enough of us push and strive for it, if enough of us hit the pavement and demand it, no amount of voter fraud or slanderous ads full of lies and deceit will be able to stop the the coming maelstrom.
Our upcoming election is larger than one issue. Or two issues. Or even a dozen issues. It’s about every issue, every facet of our lives, every person in our country, and the roads we’re going down. We have an American spirit, a love for freedom that goes beyond anything the world can imagine. We rose against the British when it seemed impossible. We fought our own brothers over land and slavery when it was necessary for true change to take place.
Revolution is nothing new for America. Revolution is America. Barack Obama, I ask you to take on this mantle of Revolution. To send a message to the cheap seats, the high dollar seats, the valleys, the mountains, the suburbs, the urban areas, and the farms of America.
If you’re unhappy with your lot in life, you must embrace someone who will act on your behalf. Who will work to be your agent of change. Who will be your Ambassador of Revolution.
Who would have thought that when the 2008 Presidential Elections rolled around, we’d have such a clear choice: the past or the future.
Really, there’s no other way to think about it.
On one hand, you have the youngest candidate to ever run for the office of President of the United States. Barack Obama. Plus he’s the first black candidate nominated by a major American party. Plus he’s a liberal. Plus he’s only been as a senator for a few short years. Plus he’s one of the most amazingly powerful orators this country has ever seen. He’s exciting. He’s fresh. And every single one of his policies is a complete and distinct break from the present administration. You have a candidate whose decision to forego PAC and lobbyist money has in one day already changed the way the Democratic National Committee operates.
On the other hand you’ve got good ol’ John McCain. A man I supported back in 2000 when the Republican primaries were happening, when we were all looking for the person to take control after Bill Clinton. If elected he would be the oldest first-term President in US history. His viewpoints continue to push the status quo on Iraq, on taxes, on the treatment of Americans in comparison to corporations. He’s sided with Bush’s policies 95% of the time during the last year and his speeches are rarely rousing and typically full of gaffes.
Obama draws 30,000+ people to his speeches. McCain is lucky to get 300.
OH Wait! Gimme More!
