Prince
Sign O' The Times
»
|
NATN Recommended
Prince
Sign O' The Times
Warner Bros., 1987
RiYL: Ween, Terence Trent D'Arby, Madonna, The Beatles |
The power of weirdness should never be underestimated, though. Björk's made an entire career out of being the strange little ice princess we all know and love, legions of disaffected Gen-Xers have flocked to find a wardrobe just like the one hanging in Beck's closet. But Prince is sexy weird. Dirty weird. Nasty weird. We like to poke fun of Prince, but we need him. Sometimes the mood requires music that just makes you want to get up and freak the closest person (or object) in sight.
But for all his considerable, um, talents, Prince has never really made a perfect album. Dirty Mind is too idiosyncratic, Purple Rain is too over the top, and 1999 starts off with three great singles and peters out quickly. But Sign O' The Times comes close, a two-disc set that shows off Prince's influences and styles better than any of his other work.
Disc one is heavy on the funk. The title track, the closest Prince ever came to a social commentary aside from that "Why does everybody have the bomb?" bit, kicks things off on a low note. But Prince just as quickly jumps off of the stump and moves into pop mode with "Play In The Sunshine," the throbbing "Housequake" ("Shut up already! Damn!"), and the instantly appealing "Starfish And Coffee."
Even when the melodies aren't getting to you, Prince's singular lyrics and vocal inflections ("I ordered, 'Yeah, let me get a fruit cocktail, I ain't too hungry' / She said, 'Sounds like a real man to me'") keep things amusing at the least. However, when "Forever In My Life" rolls around to conclude the first disc, you might find yourself cutting it off early so you can get to the hook-heavy second disc.
The second disc in itself just might be the best thing Prince ever recorded. Solid musically and lyrically all the way through, it also shows off Prince's varied personalities amazingly as well. "If I Was Your Girlfriend" takes Prince's androgynous persona to its logical extreme ("...would you let me dress you -- I mean help you pick out your clothes?") better than any other song I can think of. "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night," recorded live in Paris, shows off The Revolution's considerable improv skills over the course of a nine-minute jam.
But my personal favorite would probably be "I Could Never Take the Place Of Your Man," which is not only one of the best songs in Prince's repertoire, but one of only a handful which actually shows, beneath all of his bravado, any real reservoir of maturity (despite whether one considers that to be a good or bad thing in his music).
Throughout the '90s, we've been forced by Prince to endure the adoption of an illegible symbol and a pretentious moniker as its replacement, as well as an entire catalogue of sub par releases. It's a shame that Prince has essentially become a parody of himself, as his '80s work really does stand as an impressive blend of funk and rock that hasn't been equalled since. Sign O' The Times might just be the most impressive of all.
DEVON REED |