Did you catch Prince on Friday’s episode of “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon”? Holy cow – the Purple One performed the new “Screwdriver” with his backing band, 3rd Eye Girl, then followed that up with a second song, “Bambi,” from 1979.
This video is only the first song, which may or may not be from the new album, 3rd Eye Girl.
There was just no denying it, by 1978 two things were obvious: one, the Loss Leaders had definitely gone uptown. And two, our buddies in Burbank were definitely in denial over the Disco Monster, at that time raging on radio stations across the country.
Check out this copy from Collectus Interruptus, the only sampler from ‘78: “This is unequivocable party music. Danceable R&B by some of its premier practitioners – none of them, curiously, traversing the well-traveled terrain of disco.” This was to introduce artists like Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, the husband-wife team who wrote monster hits for Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross before jumping to Warner Bros. in the early ’70s. Despite the denial, “Don’t Cost You Nothing” from Ashford & Simpson sounds suspiciously like disco. And you can’t blame ‘em; pretty much everyone from the Bee Gees to the Rolling Stones to Kiss at least dipped their toes into the disco waters in 1978.
Collectus Interruptus also featured funk from Bootsy’s Rubber Band and the definitive “Bootzilla”, a tasty “Night People” from the great New Orleans master Allen Toussaint and selections from franchise players Gordon Lightfoot, Gary Wright, George Benson and Seals & Crofts. But it’s an interesting sampler in that you can hear the first stirrings of a few contenders that would soon rise to tame the disco monster: there’s “Soft and Wet,” from the debut LP of an 18-year-old named Prince, the brothers Van Halen introduce themselves with “Runnin’ With The Devil” and this little band outta New Yawk, the Ramones, going to “Rockaway Beach.”
Prince is one of the most prolific artists in music history. Thirty-one albums in 30 years. That’s a lot of music. His latest 3-disc (one is a collection of songs written and produced by Prince for his new protege, Bria Valente) collection, Lotusflow3r/MPLSoUNDs, is funky, sassy, in places, brilliant, and shows off the fact that he is an incredible guitarist.
On Lotusflow3r, Prince’s gets all political and religious (he’s now a Jehovah’s Witness) on the excellent “Colonized Mind,” which features a smoking guitar solo. He channels James Brown on the ultra-funky “Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful,” and Jimi Hendrix on “Boom. He gets mellow and rockin’ all at the same time on the Tommy James tune “Crimson and Clover” that also features a little “Wild Thing” thrown in for good measure.
MPLSoUND’s features a lot of songs that could have appeared on older Prince albums. It opens up with the funky, sassy “(There’ll Never B) Another Like Me” that sounds like a Sign O’ The Times outtake. “Chocolate Box” and “Dance 4 Me” could’ve been 1999 b-sides, “U’re Gonna C Me” is reminiscent of the Purple Rain era and the funky “Ol’ Skool Company” is screaming for those classic 80s Prince lyrics that descriptively talked about getting laid.
As for the Bria Valente disc, I haven’t listened to it. I’ll get to it eventually. As for Prince, he’s knocked it out of the Paisley Park with this excellent collection.
30 Days Out 