203: ♥ or $

Kiss single (1986)
Not to be confused with Love nor $, ♥ or $ is the Under The Cherry Moon plot summed up in four characters. A seven minute (go full-length or go home) funk mantra where Prince says he could play for days and sounds like he does. Time begins to lose meaning. Somewhere along the way, Eric Leeds makes his debut (as do titular hieroglyphs) but underneath the sax flourishes and guitar overdubs lies a trance-inducing, hypnotic beat and incantation, a full year before techno started to twinkle in Derrick May’s eye. While you’re getting your joy in repetition on, Prince is speaking to your lizard brain and rewiring your neurons – who knows what secrets he’s engraving on your amygdala? There’s a reason it wasn’t included on 1993’s B-sides compilation and it wasn’t down to quality control.