A column dedicated to great songs, old and new.
June 7, 2005
Written by Prince
From Dirty Mind, Warner Brothers Records, 1980
This column is rated R.
Like every other R&B fan in the late 70s, I first encountered Prince's music through his debut album, For You, and the follow-up, Prince, which featured the radio hits "Soft and Wet" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover", respectively. I liked his sound quite a bit (particularly the drumming and synth sounds on Prince), but I had no idea that behind the gauzy, teen-idol image of the first two releases, there was a trailblazing maverick who would transform pop music numerous times in numerous ways. Prince's 1980 album, Dirty Mind, was the first clue (for me, anyway) that he had no plans to lead a conventional career.
Dirty Mind
Prince
After the safe perfection of his first two records, the raw, new-wave-tinged pop-funk of Dirty Mind was completely unexpected, and exciting to hear. The pop music alchemy which would later become Prince's trademark is all over Dirty Mind in blueprint form: funk grooves, power-pop riffs, layered synthesizers, guitar parts equally rooted in rock and soul. The lyrics are pointed, pushy, intense, and... occasionally filthy as hell.
"Head" is one of the filthy ones. The storyline in the song is by turns erotic and amusing. It's about a would-be bride on her way to her wedding, who can't resist fellating Prince 'cause he's "such a hunk." The, ahem, cockiness of this proposed scenario creates a sexually charged prosody when matched with the swaggering funk of the music: sexy liquid bass, tasty synth hooks, ugly-face drums and guitar. Prince's vocal sounds so in-the-moment, you pity the guy who had to clean the vocal booth when he was done.
My favorite part of the song, however, is Dr. Fink's wild, freakboy synthesizer solo, which comes in at around 3:04. This thing --packed with deft runs, out-there squawks and squeals, and just about everything else---literally knocked me out when I first heard it. I listened to "Head" a lot when I first started experimenting with keyboards, and it inspired me to learn more about synthesizers and electronic music in general. It also confirmed for me that I'd have to get someone as amazing as Dr. Fink on keyboards when I put a band together, and fortunately, I did: Paul Ruxton is one of a scant few keyboardists who can share a stage with Dr. Fink and not end up crying like a baby. As a matter of fact, in the p-tac vault we have a track where Paul and Dr. Fink go toe-to-toe, gleefully trading fours on dueling synthesizers. It'll come out someday.
As for Prince, I know that these days he doesn't think much of his older, risqué songs, and I respect the conversion experience which brought him to that point. Because he is so willing to shed his past, it's almost too easy to forget that none of his contemporaries (or his heroes, for that matter) were making risk-taking funk like "Head" in 1980. Considering how vast his influence has been on pop/funk music and on my work specifically, I could easily fill up the rest of the V-C-V columns with just Prince songs.
But I figure one will do, for now. Happy Birthday, Prince.
pcm
Purchase:
Dirty Mind
at Amazon.com
at Tower
Records