Prince: Controversy (1981)

(Warner Bros.)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

It would be easy to accuse Prince of stagnation here. Controversy, his fourth album, is the first not to significantly advance on its predecessor; in most respects, it's an extension of Dirty Mind, and not even really a deepening -- it leaps and whispers and seduces in mostly the same ways, and in an identical format. Naturally, its production and elclectic stylistic leaping is less surprising than it was a year earlier, but the album has legs: it doesn't have an out-and-out murderous groove like "When You Were Mine," but its songwriting is more consistent (save the baffling "Sister" sequel "Ronnie, Talk to Russia") and the arrangements more durable and open -- ideal, prophetically, for opening up into full-band play. No doubt Dirty Mind is the superior record, but Controversy is worth just as many return trips, and may be even more rewarding in the long run.

Controversy is the unfortunate home of two of Prince's least memorable singles of the '80s, "Sexuality" and "Let's Work," but both are more fitting and evocative in the record's context: "Sexuality" is a reasonably fun, if occasionally bizarre, bridge between two juggernauts: the title track, an utterly classic humanist cutdown of tabloid culture (with some of Prince's cleverest lyrics to date, a litany of rude and cooing questions: "Am I black or white, am I straight or gay?... Was it good for you? Was I what you wanted me to be?"), and "Do Me, Baby," the orgasm to which all of Prince's prior slowjams (particularly those on his underrated self-titled album) had been leading. "Controversy" and "Do Me, Baby" run seven minutes each on the LP; the extension of the former is dubious when compared to the hot-beyond-belief 45, but "Do Me" runs wild with the extra time, offering a preview of ingeniously left-field Prince fadeouts to come. Controversy may mark the point when Prince found a truly efficient method of allowing his loverboy conceits and his avant garde pop extremities to share real estate. Even "Soft and Wet" and "When We're Dancing Close and Slow," highlights of his first two albums, sound puny next to "Do Me, Baby."

On side two, it's simple enough to draw straight lines to Dirty Mind cuts: the mindbending should-have-been-single "Private Joy" revises the otherworldly funk of "Head"; the teasingly taboo "Sister" becomes the musically intriguing, lyrically failed "Ronnie, Talk to Russia; and the catchy but vapid "Let's Work" represents Prince's space-filling perception of what a radio song sounds like, much like "Do It All Night." But as the album draws to a close, Prince pulls the rug out and reveals the true innovations that deserve to stand on a pedestal with Dirty Mind: "Annie Christian" runs menace and unkempt, almost dangerous sensuality under its snakelike groove, casting a light ahead not just to 1999 but to Sign o' the Times. And the album's best cut, the unapologetically explicit and unfit for radio "Jack U Off" forecasts the stunning genre-melt and frankness plus undeniable pop appeal of Purple Rain. A massive and confounding crowd-pleaser, "Jack U Off" summarizes everything Prince can do as of 1981. And it's a fucking lot.

Controversy is a great Prince album, but in the narrative of his career it's only an interlude between two landmarks. Dirty Mind had set the stage for an earth-shaking career, and 1999 would begin to fulfill the promise and prove Prince to be one of the greatest performers to ever grace the pop music stage. Seen in retrospect, Controversy is just more evidence of his brilliance; heard in conjunction with Dirty Mind, it sounds like a torrential rain of maverick madness -- just the thing that he was about to unrestrain himself enough to offer all at once.

[SEE ALSO:]
Dirty Mind (1980)