Album title: Controversy
Artiste: Prince
Genre: Pop/funk/new wave
Year: 1981
Label: Warner Bros
Producer: Prince
Chronological position: Fourth album
Notes:
Album chart position: 21 (US)
Singles: “Controversy”, “Let's work”, “Do me baby”, “Sexuality”
Lineup: Prince: Everything (with assistance on one or two tracks from Lisa Coleman, Doctor Fink and Bobby Z)
After a brief and steamy bromance, I'm now treading much more carefully as the first hot flushes of love fade and cooler heads prevail. With the honeymoon period of the first two albums over, my disappointment with
Dirty Mind was total, so I'm hedging my bets much more with this one, though it does lead up to some stellar releases and presages Prince at the height of his power and fame, so maybe it will be a big improvement. We'll see.
Review begins
Continuing the synthesised funk that would somewhat become Prince's trademark, the title track opens and it's, for Prince, a monster seven-minuter kicking off this album, and there is plenty of guitar I'm glad to hear, though the lyric seems a little weak. Mind you, kicking the Catholic Church in the nuts is a move always guaranteed to score points with me, and his intonation of the Lord's Prayer in an deep, almost gravelly voice is good to hear. Other than that, it's a little, well, a lot repetitive. I would say he's running out of ideas but as I outlined in the intro, this is just before he really hit the big time, and we all know how big he got, so let's give him a chance and see what he can show us on this album. “Controversy” is definitely way too long though. Interesting rap there near the end. Not bad. “Sexuality” (getting a little literal with the titles there, O Purple One!) is a faster bass-driven romp, with the falsetto vocal clearly on form. Nice piano work, reminds me of Bowie on
Let's Dance. Maybe.Sort of a spoken word piece (not a rap this time) with some fine funky guitar.
Really nice soul ballad then in “Do me, baby” (um) with those great multi-tracked backing vocals he used on the first two albums, nice electric piano, Prince really pushing his vocals to their incredible limit here, again sounding like a whole backing section. Superb, and it's been a while since I said that of a Prince song. Feels good. More a kind of disco meets new wave feel about “Private joy”, very uptempo and bouncy. Great guitar solo; this song is a lot of fun. Speaking of controversy, Prince gets political next, in “Ronnie, talk to Russia”, and it's just a madcap fun romp like something out of a musical or something, with wild frenetic keyboards, searing guitar and the kind of beat that just makes you want to body-pop or headbang. Simple, but simply fun. The
faux gunshots are hilarious.
Sounds a bit Kool and the Gang then for “Let's work”, bit of a throwaway track really, while he's back sniping at religion for “Annie Christian”, interesting idea in a sort of low-key musical backing with a sort of shouted vocal, kind of metallic pushed to the foreground. I guess there's a play on words where Annie could be any, so he could be saying “any Christian”. Interesting. Controversial, certainly. Different without a doubt. The handclaps almost recall gospel music, which is kind of ironic, perhaps intentionally so. And we end on “Jack U off”, where Prince goes all rockabilly again with a whistling keyboard leading the line, kind of a play on the likes of
Grease. Interesting, but ultimately a little of damp squib as a closer I feel.
Track listing and ratings
Controversy
Sexuality
Do me baby
Private joy
Ronnie, talk to Russia
Let's work
Annie Christian
Jack U off
Afterword:
A whole lot better than the previous album, while this has not exactly rekindled the love affair I began with Prince on the first two albums (and which continued through
1999 and subsequent albums) it has helped me rediscover my faith in the guy, and hope that, again despite what everyone else seems to think about it,
Dirty Mind was an unsightly blip on an otherwise spotless career. As was once said by Chris Barrie, “Lovely, my loves: we're back on track!” Mind you, still no big hit singles, but like Prince himself most of the time, they were coming...
Rating: 