I read an article about Prince shopping his music around to different record labels in the late 70’s. Legend has it that one of his conditions was that he had to have complete creative control over pretty much every aspect of the record: writing/arranging the music, playing all the instruments, even directing the album art. Warner Bros. was the only label that was willing to let him do that. They might have regretted that move when on his second self-titled album, Prince appeared on the back cover, naked on a pegasus. Yes, a pegasus. And the shit looked real. No matter how you feel about naked dudes on a pegasus, he’s obviously a creative genius of a rare kind. Dirty Mind (1980) was his next album and it is a banger. As the title implies, this is a raunchy, dirty, freaky and funky masterpiece of 80’s pop/rock/funk. Stephen Erlewine writes, “Prince left nothing to hide—before its release, no other rock or funk record was ever quite as explicit as Dirty Mind, with its gleeful tales of oral sex, threesomes, and even incest.” It also appears, again, that Prince was in full creative control of all aspects of the project. Including styling himself for the cover shot in uh. . .uhmm. . . some kind of high-riding speedo thing. The crew shot is official with Dr. Fink himself (who is credited with the title track) holding it down with the signature surgical mask. Andre has his fly halfway down and Lisa is probably naked underneath that trenchcoat. Just one listen to the first ten seconds of “Uptown”, and you can tell that this crew was on their own shit and doing their thing exactly the way they wanted to do it. “White, Black, Puerto Rican / Everybody just a freakin!” But were is Wendy?
Posted on October 20, 2007 at 02:31 PM | Comment (2 comments)
