Cosmic Jokers s/t
Prince Dirty Mind
Prince 1999

"Little Red Corvette" is sounding so good right now... nothing can kill this song... listen to the production on the verses, those synth atmospheres, that ill drum machine that occasionally clatters and snaps like some new kind of 1982 dub, to say nothing about the vocals and ill extended metaphors over the top ("I guess I must be dumb/She had a pocketful of horses/Trojans, some of them used")... and I can't even begin to discuss a song from the future like "Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)"... as revolutionary as the nervous punked-out garage synth/farfisa/guitar sound of Dirty Mind is, I always thought the songwriting was about 30-35% corny, a slightly higher percentage than usual for His Purpleness... I mean, it's still a great album... things really pick up on Side Two... "Head" has the best stone groove and the dirtiest lyrics, basically as far as that particular kind of catty funk falsetto songwriting can go. The choked and hushed Dirty Mind falsetto stands alone in Prince's career and really the history of music, like he is indeed whispering the lyrics to you, because they are indeed dirty secrets. I think album closer "Partyup" is the masterpiece though, the way the sparse chicken-scratch guitar and piano stick to that swinging bass line... it's a pretty heavy antiwar song too.... and Morris Day gets a cowriting credit!