Prince - 1999
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 27.10.1982 US / 7.3.1983 UK
"The sky was all purple, there were people running everywhere, trying to run from the destruction, you know I didn't even care....2000 party over oops, out of time, so tonight i'm gonna party like it's 1999"
We left Prince in 1992 as the Love Symbol, and we're going back 10 years in time, to 1982 and the album "1999". If you're confused, it certainly has to do with the costume artist Prince Rogers Nelson, whose fifth album, "1999", was released on October 27, 1982.
To cut a long story short, early-80s Prince was a curious, sensual, party-loving artist and musical explorer, and still an artist at the beginning of his road. Prince, sitting among his own people, read the headlines about the Cold War and Reagan's struggle against the reigning Russian bear (Brezhnev). Half a year before the album came out, the Falklands War broke out between Britain and Argentina, and the list of uprisings and the number of wars around the world kept growing. No wonder people fantasize about 1999, it's surely better than 1982.
With this whole list of worries, Prince walked into the studio, and having begun to explore and incorporate electronics already on the previous album, "Controversy", on "1999" he continues down the same path, aided by his partner on the previous album, guitarist Dez Dickerson, who also provided backing vocals on the hit "Little Red Corvette".
This is the first Prince album on which his new backing band, "The Revolution", receives credit. The group was founded by Prince back in 1979, but members of the original lineup who played with him were replaced over time, some out of bitterness toward Prince, others because of personal problems or a desire to advance their own musical careers.
Alongside Prince, the album features guitarist Dez Dickerson and the singers Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin, Jill Jones and Denise Matthews (Vanity), with Prince playing the rest of the instruments.
Despite Dickerson's wonderful guitar solo on "Little Red Corvette", this whole album is of course focused on funk, which was the dominant element on his previous albums too, and on the heavy use of synthesizers and drum machines. You can get a lot of the synth on the third track, "Delirious", and the fifth, "D.M.S.R.".
From the very first seconds you can tell where this album is positioned, as a metallic/robotic sound addresses us while reassuring us: "Don't worry, I won't hurt you, I only want to have some fun".
In the first part of the album Prince gives the listener a good time, inviting us all to a party just before the end of the world arrives. Despite the fun electro-funk beat of "1999", the song deals with Prince's fears of nuclear war. He speaks of Judgment Day, and then tells us: drop everything, imagine you're at a party in 1999, just before the year 2000, because in the end we're all going to die someday, right?
In the rest of the album Prince reveals himself as pop's evil genius, especially in the song "Let's Pretend We're Married".
Prince keeps getting better at writing lyrics and at the way he presents his heightened sexual appetite to the listener. At times the songs on the album border on the sleazy, but everyone forgives him, because after all this is Prince, the man who is a magnet for people.
And note the ballad that closes the album, "International Lover", a slow love song in which Prince sometimes sounds a bit like James Brown. For this song he also received his first Grammy nomination, in 1984.
This is Prince's first album to really succeed commercially, entering the top 10 of the American albums chart (No. 9) and selling about four million copies in the US alone.
The album's critical and commercial success marked the beginning of Prince's road to public fame.
The album cover includes elements from the cover of Prince's previous album, "Controversy" (the eyes, the pin and the pieces of the jacket). In addition, the name "The Revolution" appears here with reversed letters, acknowledging his new/old backing band, and Prince, being Prince, couldn't resist adding a bit of sexual imagery to the cover as well (the numeral 1).
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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