MPLSound (2009)
2001’s Supercute felt like the final chapter in a subset of Prince songs where he lusts after a dancing girl. The way he hid behind a third-person perspective (“she comes to see him, him as in me”) you sensed he no longer felt comfortable playing the role of a voyeur of women half his age. He even sung about not wanting to see you dance in The Dance three years later. Then, in the year Sexy Dancer entered her fourth decade, Hot Thing became older than its girl of barely 21 and Sexy MF reached the age of consent in Minnesota, Prince once again pens an ode to a sexy dancer, telling her she gets him hot. The old urges are still there. But unlike on his self titled album where he loses the power of speech and heavy breathes over a simple raw groove, here he retains his faculties to describe the subject of his gaze and her attire in detail while the music gets increasingly more baroque. The power dynamic has changed. He’s not a relatively unknown youngster in thrall of a force of nature beyond his control, he’s a king looking down at a courtesan cavorting for him. It’s the tension between this situation and his latter-day beliefs that make Dance 4 Me one of his greatest songs of the 2000s. The Camille voice is a sure sign he wants to distance himself from the lyrics and he can throw in as many hallelujahs as he likes but it only serves to highlight the funky nastiness that gushes out when Prince overrides the better angels of his nature.
Tag: MPLSound
236: Ol’ Skool Company
MPLSound (2009)
Prince berates it back to the old school with a funky Camille grumblefest. Camille is now old and cranky and complaining about wealth inequality, the current state of music and, ironically, people who complain. For somebody telling us they’d rather not reminisce, they spend a lot of time getting nostalgic about music and traditional family values back in the day. I guess that Better With Time sentiment of the preceding song didn’t last long. If Ol’ Skool Company was an acapella it would be a pitched-up Grandpa Simpson telling those pesky kids to get off his lawn, but luckily, like with Musicology, Prince flashes his credentials. A meaty Minneapolis Sound beat reminds us whose genre it is, and when the gripes stop and the guitar sings I forgive all contradictions and build a pyre of my entire CD collection in solidarity.
422: Chocolate Box
MPLSound (2009)
With a nod to Messrs Shakespeare and Gump, shall I compare thee to a box of chocolates? Here Prince offers us an assorted selection of Synth Swirls, Disco Tom-Toms, Guitar Plucks and Drum Snaps. There’s a retro Q-Tip Creme, a flavour that was everywhere in the nineties but leaves little impression here. A Chilli Chocolate that induces involuntary panting. A Nutty Cheer that tastes of B-A-N-A-N-A-S. And a medley of flavours that seem like synthesised favourites from your youth – Eighties Classic and Neptunes Crunch – but adroitly handled by a master (the master) chocolatier. To wring the last dregs of life from this metaphor it’s also sadly true that after repeated consumption of this particular box you start to feel a bit nauseous. I don’t advise consuming ten in a row like I just have.
455: Valentina
MPLSound (2009)
In 2009 Prince wrote Valentina about wanting to (and we can only assume this is euphemistically) party with Salma Hayek and haven written well over a thousand songs by that point (including a similar proposition to Ms. Crawford in Cindy C) he was obviously looking for a new lyrical angle. And oh boy did he find it. In a pervy take on Hey Jude the song is addressed to Hayek’s baby daughter, Valentina, asking her to tell her mama to give him a call after “she’s all worn out from those late night feedings”. Ooookay then. Luckily it’s more goofy than creepy (unless of course you’re Salma) and it’s good to see that Prince still has the knack of courting controversy in these more permissible times. There’s a lazy summer haze permeating throughout and the lumbering beat is audibly feeling the effect of one too many pool party margaritas. It’s fun but the real action starts when it leaves Hey Macarena territory and a soaring Santana-style guitar makes its entrance, vivid in red velvet and ermine, lending the track a regal air that it doesn’t deserve. An eagle resting atop a pink inflatable cactus, devouring a pool noodle.