52 Weeks Of Prince: Week 0

I am the world’s second biggest Prince fan. The world’s biggest Prince fan is a woman I’ve never met, but I have seen her at literally every Prince show I’ve ever been to, and in at two concert videos. This is particularly impressive when you consider the times and distances involved. I first saw Prince live in early January 1998 in Evansville, IN. She was there. I also saw her on video from Paisley Park recorded in late November 1999 (a distance of roughly 700 miles). She is seen on video again from a concert in Las Vegas recorded on December 15, 2002 (from Minneapolis to Vegas is about 1700 miles). The last time I saw her was at the House Of Blues in Chicago in July 2004.

I know it’s her because she has this pair of jeans with the album cover to “Graffiti Bridge,” arguably Prince’s worst album, airbrushed all over them. Every time I’ve seen her she’s been wearing those jeans.

Image: Warner Bros / NPG Records. Jeans lady not pictured because I fear the wrath of the Estate if I start posting screen caps from DVDs.

My fandom will never be able to compete with her bonkers custom-airbrushed fashion sense. It used to bother me, but these days I’m more settled and at peace with who I am. The woman with the Graffiti Bridge jeans (and, apparently, a lot of disposable income) will always be a bigger fan than me.

Anyway.

Even if I will never hold a candle to the Graffiti Bridge jeans lady, my fandom is well known among my friends and loved ones. When Prince died, people I hadn’t heard from in years reached out with messages of condolence. Since then, people mostly want to talk about Prince around this time of year. It’s almost like clockwork, every time Prince’s birthday rolls around someone is foolish enough to ask “I’d love to listen to some Prince, but there is so much of it. Where do I start?”

Many people who know me well avoid asking me this because they’re afraid of my impassioned, long-winded response. To be fair, that fear is completely justified. Read on at your peril, and in full knowledge that only the woman with the Graffiti Bridge jeans is a more rabid fan of this music than I am. I’m going to try hard for brevity but this introduction is already more than 200 words long, so I’m pretty much already failing to reign it in.

You have been warned.

"Too many hits!"

-Prince, Live in Los Angeles 2009

My sweaty-palmed geekery aside, it’s not easy to briefly, yet thoroughly talk about a career as long and prolific as Prince’s. In his life, Prince released something like two thousand songs, more than fifty albums and God only knows how many singles. And even that is only stuff officially released during his lifetime. It’s entirely possible that the vault at Paisley Park has the other half of his life’s work just waiting to be released. The release of a fully recorded, sequenced and subsequently stored away and forgotten album from 2011 speaks volumes about this possibility. As much material is out there, the stuff that was never put out into the world remains an irresistible mystery to me.

But that’s neither here nor there. For now, let’s set down some guidelines for how I will approach this project. As indicated in the title, this project should last one year, and by and large here are my rules:

1. Every week I will put up at least one post about Prince’s music. For the purposes of this series, “Prince’s music” is defined as music Prince is mostly responsible for in terms of composition and production. What I really want to do with this series is to be able to talk about as much of the material as possible. So, this means not only will I cover the main body of work, I will also talk about other projects for which Prince was a driving force. The most important of these projects will be albums by The Time, but any other albums, bands or projects that I think fall under the banner of “Prince” will also be up for grabs.

2. The project will progress chronologically. We will start with Prince’s first album in 1978 and move on through time from there. As a rule of thumb, each weekly post will cover about a year, but there will need to be some wiggle room here because once Paisley Park opened in 1987, the amount of material Prince produced in a year absolutely exploded. The output of 1993-1998 especially is so enormous I will probably need more than a single week for some of those years.

Also, the term “chronologically” may mean one of two things. Generally speaking, I will talk about the music in terms of when it was released, but occasionally it will make more sense to talk about when something was recorded instead. The most obvious example of this is the case of The Black Album. It was recorded and compiled in 1986 and 1987. It was originally intended for release in late 1987, but was never officially released until 1994. While the story behind that is interesting, in terms of Prince’s development as an artist it makes more sense to talk about The Black Album as a product of 1987, so that’s where I will talk about it.

3. I will talk about unreleased material, but only insofar as it sheds light onto the stuff that Prince intentionally released. There are two reasons for this. First, if you like this music, I want to encourage you to buy it legally, and I do not want to do anything to reduce demand for the stuff that’s still in the vault. Seriously, I want to do everything I can to encourage the Estate to empty the vault as quickly as possible. Secondly, Prince is one of the most widely and thoroughly bootlegged artists in the history of recorded music. Even if I wanted to talk about bootleg concerts, that would inflate the scope of this project beyond my ability to talk about it. Suffice to say, if you want bootleg shows, you will be able to find them. I may talk about them here or there, but as a rule, I’m going to try to pretend they do not exist.

4. Mostly this series will consist of my opinions, but I will also need lots of fact checking. My main source for this will be www.princevault.com . They are probably the most comprehensive source of factual information about Prince’s music on the internet. Recording dates, personnel, tour information and tons of other stuff will be cross-checked with princevault. If I have doubts whether a band, record or composition should fall under the umbrella of “Prince,” princevault’s listings will be used to determine its eligibility.

5. Finally, there is the issue of access to the material. I don’t expect anyone to buy these records solely on my recommendation. So how do you listen to this stuff without access to my music collection? The best way I know of right now is to get a Tidal subscription. This was the only streaming service Prince had any dealings with in his lifetime, and it now has a pretty complete discography available. So if you have any interest in the music, Tidal is probably the best place to listen to it.

The Stuff That Cannot Be Dealt With Chronologically

So let’s start with the obvious. There are a few compilations out there, two of which are of use to the new listener. I do feel like I have to be That Guy for a second and tell you that “Best Of” albums are never great for any artist, especially one like Prince, who was incredibly prolific and almost never cared much about commercial appeal. That said, let’s be real here: you’re probably going to start with a compilation album. Bearing that in mind, here are my thoughts.

Image: Warner Bros / NPG Records

The Very Best Of Prince

Skip it. I’m dead serious, do not buy this album. Released in 2001, it covers only the years 1979-1991 and features the least interesting single edits. Just skip it. I don’t even know why this useless album exists other than to fill the hearts of Prince superfans with contempt. Seriously, 80% of my motivation for writing this section is to steer you away from this steaming pile. It’s just great music, presented in the worst possible way. Avoid at all costs. I even hate the cover art. Just no.

Ultimate Prince

Personally, I like this compilation, but this is not the best entry point. On CD, Ultimate is a two disc album. The first disc has songs that would be found on any greatest hits list, but the second disc is where my main interest in this set lies. Back in the 80’s the idea of “remixes” had not yet evolved into the free-wheeling excesses of 90’s dance tracks. These remixes are mostly just longer, often over produced versions of the song you already know. Normally these could only be found on 12-inch singles that were long out of print by the time this compilation was released. If you’re trying to get into Prince, it’s hard for me to say you need the seven minute version of “Let’s Go Crazy.” However, if you do end up wanting to get into some of the more obscure stuff later on, this one is worth it just for the inclusion of the extended version of “She’s Always In My Hair,” one of Prince’s greatest B-Sides.

4Ever

This is a superior version of “The Very Best Of” and it had more input from Prince than any compilation listed above. The edits are definitely not the best, but at least it’s comprehensive. If you don’t go for my preferred compilations, definitely go for this one. Plus, it includes “Moonbeam Levels” an interesting unreleased ballad from the early 80’s that’s difficult to get elsewhere.

The Hits / The B-Sides

This is really where you should start. This is a three-disc set, (as of this writing, never released on vinyl) two of which are (as the title suggests)a pretty comprehensive greatest hits collection, and the third (again, unsurprisingly) is a collection of B-Sides. The reason this one is so good as a jumping off point is the inclusion of that third disc. Prince, as I said, recorded an enormous amount of music, and in order to get some of it out there, he released a large number of non-album B-Sides that would be A-Sides for any other artist. Highlights of that third disc include “17 Days” and “How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore?”

All that said, there are a few previously unreleased songs on there, the best of them being the fantastic “Pink Cashmere” and the mighty “Peach.”

Anthology

I cannot in good conscience recommend this one over The Hits, but to be perfectly honest, my personal favorites are here. I understand if it makes more sense to get a compilation that has “Purple Rain” on it, but hear me out.

This is a mostly a compilation of the stuff Prince recorded during and after his exit from Warner Bros, and it does a good job of showcasing the wide range of styles and subjects he covered during the second half of his career. Once he didn’t have a record company restraining his release schedule, Prince finally felt free to release music that covered a ton of genres of music that he might have shied away from if he could only manage to get one record a year out the door. So hear you get stuff from his acoustic album, his piano album, and a track from his album of jazz explorations. It shows off his best work, and his best bands. Alas, this one is digital only, but it’s still so worth it.

Plus tons of tracks from “The Gold Experience.” Gotta love that. So yeah, get this one and “The Hits / The B-Sides” and you’ll at least get a sense of which parts of Prince’s career will interest you the most.

Anyway, those are the compilations. And if you want to call it quits there, I can understand. But for those of you who listen to the compilations and feel like you want to explore further, come back next week and I’ll start digging into Prince’s discography. I can promise you it will be an interesting year, and at some point you’ll find at least one or two albums that will be not only great listens, but will open up doors to lots of other artists you will like as well. See you next week!