and Vanity 6. Yet regardless of the jive that he hath wrought, Prince himself does more than merely get down and talk dirty. Beneath all his kinky propositions resides a tantalizing utopian philosophy of humanism through hedonism that suggests once you've broken all the rules, you'll find some real values. All you've got to do is act naturally.
Prince's quasi-religious faith in this vision of social freedom through sensual anarchy makes even his most preposterous utterances sound earnest. On the title track of 1999, which opens this two-LP set of artfully arranged synthesizer pop, Prince ponders no less than the future of the entire planet, shaking his booty disapprovingly at the threat of nuclear annihilation. Although that one exuberant dance-along raises more big questions than Prince can answer on the other three and a half sides combined, the entire enterprise is charged with his unflagging will to survive – and a feisty determination to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, given the daily news, we may die.
Before "1999" whooshes into life, Prince assumes an electronically altered, basso-profundo voice and impersonates the imagined authoritative tone of God himself, creator of libidos as well as souls, prefacing the song's Judgment Day scenario with this reassurance: "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I only want you to have some fun." This intro serves Prince well, since 1999 lacks the tight focus of Dirty Mind, his best and most concise LP, which had the feel of emotionally volatile autobiography disguised as vividly descriptive sexual fantasy. Yet the new album doesn't fall prey to the conceptual confusion that plagued the second side of Controversy, during which Prince raced from politics to passion, funk groove to rock blitz, as if there weren't room enough for all his inspiration. This time there is, and then some.
Prince develops eleven songs, basically a single album's worth of material, over the four sides of 1999, with each side comprising two or three extended tracks. Both discs are distinguished by palpably individual moods – the first contains the funkiest, most playful cuts, while the second is made up of slower, more introspective pieces. Two tracks, "D.M.S.R." and "All the Critics Love U in New York," qualify as unadulterated filler, and gone are any attempts at the classic three-minute pop song – Dirty Mind's "When You Were Mine" was the last word on that, I guess. On 1999, size counts.
Having graduated in record time from postdisco garage rock to high-tech studio wizardry, Prince works like a colorblind technician
