Prince's most groundbreaking single of the 80s...?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Indigo Lines, Dec 15, 2018.

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  1. ganma

    ganma Senior Member

    Location:
    Earth
    U Got The Look. That track has a real distinctive sound. Great catchy chorus, edgy guitar. Distinctive vocal style and duet trade off. And some jazzy Allan Holdsworth style lines thrown in for good measure.
     
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  2. artfromtex

    artfromtex Honky Tonkin' Metal-Head

    Location:
    Fort Worth, TX
    I think the folks who nominated "When Doves Cry" have made a rock solid case. Although it is not my favorite of the available options, it gets my vote as well.
     
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  3. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    Recall someone saying that Prince was the Beatles of the 80's - all of the Beatles rolled into one super talented artist
     
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  4. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    I’d go with “Sign o’ The Times. Had any major pop artist directly discussed AIDS in song at that point in time (early 1987)? Much less had a major hit single with it?
     
  5. Dr. Luther's Assistant

    Dr. Luther's Assistant dancing about architecture

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, but I've always been partial to I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man.

    I'm assuming that it was a single. (Although now that I think about it, it probably would've had to have been like the 3rd or 4th single off of the album.)

    Anyway -- monster pop song.
    Damn-near perfect.
     
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  6. CBS 65780

    CBS 65780 "Could I do one more immediately?"

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    The Bangles Manic Monday

    .... and I am deadly serious.
    After the majority of all the songs mentioned, 1999, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain, and all they encompassed in terms of 'what the hell is this?' originality, the guy writes a perfect pop single of normal length, standard 'verse chorus x 2, bridge, back into chorus' structure, with no guitar solo, and sung by girls. I was in the middle of an Around The World In A Day obsession (indeed Raspberry Beret ticks a lot of the same boxes) when it came out, and to me it qualifies as / was groundbreaking cos it was like, "This guy can do anything."
     
  7. fitzysbuna

    fitzysbuna Senior Member

    Location:
    Australia
    Batdance !
     
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  8. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    Around The World In A Day is a great album. "Paisley Park" my favourite
     
  9. Michelle66

    Michelle66 Senior Member

    The video is even more groundbreaking when you remove its music..! :D

     
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  10. johnnyyen

    johnnyyen Senior Member

    Location:
    Scotland
  11. Merrick

    Merrick The return of the Thin White Duke

    Location:
    Portland
    Prince broke all kinds of ground in the ‘80s, but “When Doves Cry” is like a transmission from a whole other planet. Strange, spare, atmospheric, evocative, yet relentlessly catchy. No bass on a dance record! A number one hit record no less. “When Doves Cry” is a moment of pure creative impulse and artistry. It carries a grand vision with no boundaries. It was and remains undeniably Prince and undeniably the song most associated with Prince.
     
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  12. Dhreview16

    Dhreview16 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    As others have said, what Prince single wasn’t groundbreaking in some way ? For me, lyrically, it’s Sign of the Times. I still remember being shocked (and awed) by it. That’s the lead off single from the new/upcoming Prince album ? Really ? Wow...Like Marvin’s What’s Going On, sadly just as relevant today as 30 years ago. We’d had the 1999 album, and we’d all bought Purple Rain and helped make him a superstar, we had largely forgotten Around the World in a Day, we either loved or couldn’t quite get our heads around Parade (I love it still), and some wondered if he had lost it, but then he hit us with Sign of the Times. Oh my....he was simply hitting his peak, with his career best (even if it should have been a triple album or whatever).
     
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  13. Zongadude

    Zongadude Music is the best

    Location:
    France
    Well, that's almost the description of "Take me with U" ;)
     
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  14. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    I love that song. I'm not a big Prince fan. But "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" is one of his records I always really liked. I had a writing teacher once, the avant garde novelist Harry Matthews, who told us, "Don't be afraid to be an as***** in your writing." To me the lyric of "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" has that emotionally fearless quality -- it's a story of a guy who encounters a crying women the father of whose child has up and left them, and our narrator tells her straight out, I sympathize honey, but nope, I'll be happy to have sex with you, but I won't be there for you like that. That's a really interesting record. And it has that great instrumental hook line. I much prefer the version he did for the video, with the horns, over the album version, with the long bluesy noodling episode that just seems to break the song's momentum and add nothing..
     
  15. Dr. Luther's Assistant

    Dr. Luther's Assistant dancing about architecture

    Location:
    San Francisco

    I was actually going to say that, but I haven't really heard that version since I saw the movie in a theater, back in the day.

    Now I've got to track it down -- if only just to confirm my recollection.
     
  16. Basenote66

    Basenote66 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I did, and still think Doves is his most out there single. The backing track is just SO sparse a lot of the song is just about his voice - he only really starts to fill the track toward the end with more keyboards, and some guitar guitar work - the vocalising over the end is just amazing.

    I’m an ex bass player to tend to listen out for bass lines, and I think I read there was one originally in mind for the track but it wasn’t used. I can’t imagine a bass line that would work or improve it though. The bass is in the drum pattern.

    Sign and Kiss are also pretty sparse, cut from the same cloth I think - though Kiss has the funky guitar thing going.

    So Doves for me, but most of the suggestions here are incredible singles/songs too.
     
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  17. INSW

    INSW Senior Member

    Location:
    Georgia
    My vote goes to When Doves Cry, but here's this:

     
  18. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Great one. I remember even Joe Satriani talking about it in a guitar magazine interview.
     
  19. INSW

    INSW Senior Member

    Location:
    Georgia
    Everyone else really should've just closed the doors and gone on to another line of work after him.
     
  20. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    In the place of that random bluesy jam, Prince takes a great solo over the hook repeated by the horns, and the whole thing is taken at a much pepppier tempo. It's much better than the recording on the album I think. I find a lot of Prince's records of the '80s sound, chintzy (and a lot of the double entendre or would-be "shocking" records are just corny), then again, I've lived through the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10, and the '80s was the worst sounding (and dressing) era for pop music out of all of them. I literally can't go back and listen to a lot of the pop music of the '80s, and this '80s sonic revival that's been going on his been killing me. But this version really humanized the performance of the song and gave it some guts that I think is lacking on the record. And it's tighter and more focused.

    I never really liked the Sign O the Times album, that's really where I kind of gave up even following Prince's career, but some of the songs from it, like this one, knocked me out in a different context. "If I Was Your Girlfriend" is another one. Really interesting different central trope, a more empathetic than a lot of Prince's come-on songs. An idea that kind of flipped expectations. And the album version is really great, but I think the video had a different live performan, with just a falsetto and straight R&B vocal, not studio manipulated, and with just the '70s style funk vamp ans the underpinning, the the Prince-y synth line only hinted at and low in the arrangement where it does appear. And it's much better than the studio version to my ears

     
  21. INSW

    INSW Senior Member

    Location:
    Georgia
    SOTT is great, the 80's White Album, but the envisioned Crystal Ball would have been something else.

    He could've released a half dozen mind blowing triple albums.
     
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  22. Dr. Luther's Assistant

    Dr. Luther's Assistant dancing about architecture

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Ah.
    Thanks, chervokas.

    I showed that to my daughter a couple of years back, I now realize. So I wasn't going merely on a 30+ years recollection.

    It's very good.
     
  23. Chemguy

    Chemguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Western Canada
    Or U2’s, The Fly. Just too bizarre to be on the radio!
     
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  24. D-Holmes86

    D-Holmes86 Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Liverpool
    When Doves Cry...easily!
     
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