#11: Prince - Dirty Mind

As a guy who only really knows Purple Rain, Dirty Mind, Prince's third record, was a bit startling. Instead of richly-instrumented tracks with a little bit of air here and there, these tracks are all surprisingly minimalist, although not necessarily sparse.

Especially interesting is how little guitar makes an impression. For a guy who can play guitar pretty much as well as anyone, it's curious to hear him focusing on the percussive elements and featuring keyboards as much as anything else. Of course, none of this is to say that it's bad or of lesser quality, but it's a new sound to me.

I don't own any Manowar albums yet, so I think this is the only album I own featuring a guy in bikini briefs on the cover. Opener "Dirty Mind" features lyrics that would be a harbinger of "Take Me With U," and "When You Were Mine" is very new wave - it could easily be the backing track for a Cars song. For the most part, the vocals are more precise and he doesn't emote all over the place, so nothing nearly as furious as "The Beautiful Ones," my favorite Prince track so far, comes across here.

This is one of the records where Prince played just about everything on his own, which is particularly interesting on a track like "Do It All Night," which, unlike the rest of the record, had pretty elaborate instrumentation going on. If I could play any one instrument this well, I'd be set.

At this point, I only own three Prince records: Dirty Mind, Purple Rain, and 1999, the latter of which I bought a month ago and still haven't listened to. For some reason, I see Prince as a bit of an impenetrable wall, so I get nervous about diving into one of his records. I'm a wuss. I also found out that the CD version of 1999 leaves off a track, which bums me out a little, but I'll get around to it before long. But for now, after a pair of listens, Dirty Mind has shown me that I shouldn't harbor so much trepidation about exploring Prince records that are thus far unfamiliar.

"Dirty Mind" - I keep waiting for the keyboard intro to segue into "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees. That song rules.




This has nothing to do with this record, but it's Prince playing guitar better than just about everyone ever. When I used to work at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this footage was on a looped tape in one section of the museum, and on my break, I'd stand and watch the video play until it got to this part. Goddamn incredible. This made me want to buy a Telecaster.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

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