Feb 22, 2009
As I've gotten older I've found myself less interested in what is considered new and fresh in the music industry and have started to instead work my way backward, discovering artists that I've only been influenced by sub-conciously or second-handedly. Today I'll be writing about Prince in this, the first of a series of posts about this process of discovery.
As with most children, my music taste developed out of what my parents listened to. While this meant I was served healthy doses of The Beatles, Paul Simon and Billy Joel, I was not extolled the virtues of Prince in my formative years. In later years, I became aware of his talent and influence through tasteful family members – and more recently through some new friends I made while traveling in the UK.
The following is an analysis of my three favourite Prince songs.
With a running time of only 2 minutes 58 seconds, I Wanna Be Your Lover fits all the requirements of modern pop music. However, the steady, metronomic rhythm flows in such a way that it's almost as if the song goes on forever – I feel like I could play a vocal-less version on almost endless repeat without ever tiring of it.
This said, Prince's vocal abilities are seldom showcased as well as they are on I Wanna Be our Lover – the casual and matter-of-fact delivery belies an incredible ability to sing at and sustain such a high pitch.
While string arrangements in popular music are hardly a new idea, the execution in Raspberry Beret is at a level far and above what many others have and will try to achieve in a pop song. This coupled with a driving bass line and subtle usage of keyboards creates a score any musician would be proud to be able to claim they had written.
The vocal narrative is consistent with Prince's methodology on other tracks, however the twisting segue's and imagery created in Raspberry beret are in many ways superior to other examples taken from his back-catalouge.
While not one of his bigger hits, I've found Money Don't Matter 2 Night to be a sleeper, in that the slow groove not only manages to squeeze it's way into the crevices of one's psyche but also has the ability to stay there and cultivate it's influence over time.
The vocal delivery again follows a narrative style, dealing with issues of poverty and greed. Prince tackles the lower octaves of his extended vocal range in the track, and does so with tremendous success, however the real standout are the layered backing vocals provided by Prince himself that tip the song over the edge from great to phenomenal. The usage of high-pitched short bursts of energy and barbershop style repetition seem incongruous to Money Don't Matter 2 Night's subject matter, but somehow manage to not only fit in but also augment the sombre, despairing mood of the track.