Prince tracks runoff poll: non-placing album cuts up through SOTT

"ronnie, talk to russia"

girls & boys

d.m.s.r., but could have gone with automatic, partyup, do it all night, or soft & wet.

also i think i'm the only 'gonna be a beautiful night' stan that i know. i love that live prince funk thing where he just keeps pulling out hooks on top of the same groove and the momentum keeps piling up, and it's nice to have an example of that on record.

yeah it's kind of a 'weak link' on SOTT by default, i never actually mind it or think about skipping it

Play In The Sunshine.

"DMSR," which I forgot to put on my ballot. One of his definitive dance tracks, it's as on-the-one as "Head". "New Position" and "It" are pretty great as well.

Can someone explain the appeal of "Play in the Sunshine" to me? Always struck me as a kiddie throwaway, and the biggest roadblock on SOTT.

play in the sunshine can in no way br dubbed the kidfie throwaway on an album that also features starfish and coffee.

which is the only song on sott that makes me go oh come now, prince.

i like both those songs! "Play In The Sunshine" is fun in a kind of chaotic ramshackle way, feels like one of the few times Prince's drum programming is trying to emulate a splashy session drummer instead of doing more of a pulse/groove thing, and it weirdly works for me.

Forever In My Life. So underrated.

Computer Blue

i LOVE Play In The Sunshine.. especially the 'let's get out of here' 'yeah' bit. dunno why, always just loved it to pieces. and i mean come on, we really all should love our enemies until a gorilla falls off the wall.

"Gotta Broken Heart Again" is such a sweet little thing.

i like "play in the sunshine" too! i only dislike "starfish and coffee." and even that i dont hate, even if i feel like i should be reading along with a little golden book as i listen.

while eating maple syrup and jam

the big backmasked snare going against the tasteful rim tap drums makes "Starfish" sound really cool imo. a lot of slight '80s Prince songs are saved for me by cool production touches like that.

didn't think much of "Forever In My Life" until i saw the rendition in the SOTT movie, which i think is also what convinced me to put it on my wedding playlist alongside "Adore"

^^^^ same reaction. I wish Prince did more I'm-just-strumming-an-electric-guitar numbers during this era.

yeah the version in the film wipes the floor with the album version; flat out amazeballs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VP3tA0lY-k

"Forever In My Life" is so simple, yet devastating, plus the vocal overdubs are the definition of cool

picking just one of these songs is impossible BTW, I could maybe get down to 10

Dan otm re "Forever in My Life". Also he totally pulls some Otis on that joint.

The thing about "Play in the Sunshine" is it's maybe his most restless composition? It's really relentless in the way it keeps mutating into something completely different at every turn.

Anyway, I voted for "Darling Nikki", which, tbh, I'm completely flabbergasted wasn't in the top 10.

(I know, I know, I didn't vote, I can't complain.)

yeah DN is the only song here that was on my ballot and i was surprised it got the shaft

Do Me, Baby takes it

when Craig Kilborn had his show on CBS, he used "Do Me, Baby" as the background music pretty much every single time he introduced a female guest, which would always amuse me

Mel'ssa Morgan also covered in the mid eighties.

DMSR

"It."

All right.

girls & boys

i was pleasantly shocked "darling nikki" wasn't in the top 10

am i the only "international lover" stan?

maybe somebody'll wonder: "who voted 'do it all night'?" That'll be me. Love that song so so so much.

"ronnie, talk to russia"

― king of torts (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Monday, August 8, 2011 1:27 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

this

altho "do me, baby" is prob my favorite outright

"Do It All Night" is great, it and "Uptown" are the two times Dirty Mind really comes alive for me

i love do it all night -- was one of the contenders here!

The first time I heard Dirty Mind I was maybe 17 and the album was only a couple years old and it made me feel more alive than much else I'd ever heard. The way the title track built, especially, felt so...wave-like. These inevitable crests you knew were gonna come and then bam, synth-punch right to the chest. I haven't listened to it in years, but in my mind/heart I love that album end to end.

it really is so good. gotta listen to prince this week.

"Ronnie, Talk to Russia" is nearly the most embarrassing song he recorded in his classic era.

It would be more embarrassing if it were longer.

i was trolling but i still voted for it

because, you know

actual vote would have been "life could be so nice" which has always been my fave classic-era album track for some reason

"Paisley Park" embarrasses me more as a political statement than "Ronnie...," especially in the context of the album in which it rests.

DMSR--wish I had voted in this poll!

whiney showed me his ballot and "ronnie" was on it, i was very o_O

for some reason this does not surprise me

I find Ronnie as embarrassing musically as politically.

Going to 2nd Jordan's repping for 'Beautiful Night"--it's just one incredible thing piled on top of another, never understood all the neg on it

Went for Jack U Off, it's just too much fun.

i was trolling but i still voted for it

― king of torts (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Tuesday, August 9, 2011 1:23 AM (15 minutes ago)

I've said this before, but you are history's greatest human

guys i know no one here needs to be reminded of it, but this guy was unreal at his peak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9ceiNKPQgA

hear hear

"ronnie" is one of the hookiest things on 'controversy', after maybe the title track & "jack u off"

the sound quality on this (shit beyond shit) isn't going to convince some dude, but 2:45 to the end on this clip is insane, performance-wise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STEyb7GX4wU

"when you were mine" is a perfectly nice song. i just don't think of it as especially lively (and it being #1 on the poll is kind of a joke).

man wtf were ppl wearing in the 80s

thanks for that video tho strongo

iirc very few people actually dressed like prince in the 80s

every single person that did was a pirate, though

idk my dad would have rocked those pants. but he was a pirate so.

ended up voting the highest-ranked song on my ballot that didn't place, which is "Housequake"

which btw, I can't believe that "Housequake" didn't place, poll is invalid because of this IMO

every single person that did was a pirate, though

― some dude, Monday, August 8, 2011 9:52 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

wanna make a velvet underground joke, feeling too lazy tho

that's what i was doing fyi

oh :[

i always kind of get "Housequake" and "Hot Thing" confused, but it is weird to me that "Hot Thing" placed and "Housequake" didn't

I want a version of "Hot Thing" with that off-key bass drum pitch-corrected. Heresy? The problem is that it keeps coming back around every 4 seconds and clashing with everything else in the song, because it's really loud and like a quarter-tone off. Because it's Prince, I'm sure he noticed it and kept it that way on purpose, but I can't figure out why (dissonance as erotic tension?). It just sounds wrong, and it sucks because otherwise it's a great song.

I think that's officially the most nitpicky nit ever to be picked.

How these:

Sexy Dancer
Do Me, Baby
D.M.S.R.
Computer Blue
Baby I'm A Star
Housequake

didn't even score as high as "Bob George" and "Tambourine" blows my mind.

ended up voting the highest-ranked song on my ballot that didn't place, which is "Housequake"

which btw, I can't believe that "Housequake" didn't place, poll is invalid because of this IMO

― CLUB PISCOPO (DJP), Tuesday, August 9, 2011 1:58 AM (4 hours ago)

^^; "Housequake" was my #6. SHUTUPALREADYDAMN!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

my POX:

Darling Nikki
Slow Love
D.M.S.R.
It's Gonna Be Lonely
Do It All Night
Forever In My Life
Around The World In A Day
Just A Long As We're Together
All The Critics Love U In New York
When We're Dancing Close And Slow

wow i like the ones with long titles

listened to 1999 and Around The World last week, the deep cuts on those albums may not be golden but they're definitely...silver, i guess. "All The Critics Love U In New York" has some of my favorite Prince drum programming and the lyrics are kind of hilarious, don't know why "Condition Of The Heart" did make the poll, probably my least favorite track on that album besides "America."

don't know why "Condition Of The Heart" did make the poll, probably my least favorite track on that album besides "America."

It was my number 1

it made the poll because it's a great song

maybe it's a grower, on the first couple listens idgi

I think you need to first recognize that seventh chords are amazing and wonderful, then wallow in how many of them appear in this song from the arpeggios in the vocal line to the lush vocal harmonies on the refrain to the instrumentation

also you need to accept and understand how awesome the Clara Bow verse is

i gave up wallowing in seventh chords for lent this year

Lent ended Apr 23 so you're good to wallow your balls off

bump!

been going through Per Nilson's "Prince: The First Decade" which is incredibly dry and clumsy (if exhaustively researched). also written in 1994 I think. but it's funny how in the intro he asserts that Prince never gets his due as a musician, that he's dismissed as "derivative" and not in the same league as people like Miles Davis, the Beatles, James Brown and I'm like O RLY my how things have changed.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the full title of the Per Nilsen book is actually Dance Music Sex Romance: Prince: The First Decade, so it's pretty appropriate to bring up just now! but yeah it's not very written, but still super informative and engrossing.

major seventh chords....swoooooon. Condition of the Heart is in my top five for sure--he has some of the best "she's gone away" songs ever