I know I’m a little late - 41 years, in fact - but I just have to talk about this album and create its comeback. It’s just too perfect to be overlooked.
So there are a couple of well-known songs on this album, like ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’ and ‘I Feel For You’, but believe me, there’s so much more than that and it’s lying behind that beautiful blue album cover.
Let’s start off with the album’s second song after ‘I Wanna Be your Lover’, ‘Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?’. As well as being a bit of a mouthful to say, the song showcases Prince’s guitar skills that perhaps go amiss later on in his discography. The track is high-energy, playful and upholds that acoustic, raw naïvety that can be seen in 70s soul music.
But the song that has the most vigour is the rock-influenced ‘Bambi’, whose energy is topped up with every lick of the guitar. Paired with Prince’s high vocals, the electric guitar is reminiscent of rock songs at the time, except with a more flamboyant twist (this is Prince, of course). During the brief lull in the guitar playing, Prince sings in a breathy, flirtatious tone that gives the song his own original touch.
There is one song in particular that I wanted wanted to write about for SO long. It is genius and one of the most underrated songs I know: ‘It’s Gonna Be Lonely’. The soulful melody shows the beginning of Prince’s R&B progression, but his light, high-pitched vocals create a tenderness and rawness that makes the song so listenable - when I first heard it, it was on repeat for weeks. To better this, I discovered that Mac Demarco created a cover of the song, perfectly capturing its fragility but putting a slightly exaggerated and humorous tone onto it - not to mention the dancing man sporting a balaclava in the back. Both versions of the song are just so great. Towards the end, when intensity is building up, is the best part to dramatically sing out loud and irritate your neighbours.
It’s only a short blog post this time, but I just had to get it out there that this is one of my favourite albums. You NEED to listen to it.
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