338: Push

Diamonds and Pearls (1991)
A creation that could have only come out the mind of Prince. Which other performer, in a song about personal motivation, would rap a verse name-checking the album’s tracklist to then conclude with the line “snatching up kiddies like a circus clown”? The Vincent Price laugh that follows this non sequitur is for me the track’s highlight – the sound of Prince weirding himself out – and the song should have ended there, because for all Rosie Gaines’ strengths, rapping isn’t one of them. But there’s plenty here to distract you away from personal bugbears. Push is the answer to the question ‘how would The Family’s High Fashion sound if it was ingested and filtered through a civet cat, then rolled in a shredded Carmen Electra album? It’s a multi-ball melee. In fact there’s so much going on it’s incredibly easy to miss the touches of class that Clare Fischer’s strings provide. A dissonant grace amid the madness that I’ve listened to about a hundred times but only just noticed.