By 1985, having been so inventive and ground-breaking on his previous albums, Prince, true to form I guess, surprised everyone by going back to 1967 and releasing a somewhat derivative album highly influenced by sixties psychedelia even down to the Beatles/Satanic Majesties influenced cover. Prince himself denied the direct influence, but that has to remain questionable. The tracks are all much shorter, and all that lusty sex has been replaced by mysticism and quasi-religious imagery and the music is nothing like the pounding electro funk of previous albums.
This time it is full of acoustic guitars, dreamy strings, bright keyboards, psychedelic guitars and those archetypal sixties Eastern sounds. Because this had all been done before the album can attract accusations of a lack of authenticity, but, on the other hand, it was a very unusual offering that challenged its listeners. Like David Bowie, Prince could never be accused of standing still, often changing his approach. It is from this album onwards, however, that the perception of Prince changed for many people, from his being a lovable, horny so-and-so to a bit of a weirdo.
Around The World In A Day is a pleasant mix of George Harrison-Brian Jones-esque Eastern and acoustic sounds together with a catchy hook but it is hardly original. I have to say, though, that I like it a lot - there is an attractiveness to its hippyish vibe and clever instrumentation. Paisley Park is a sixties-influenced tuneful psychedelic-ish number that sounds like something from The Kinks or The Small Faces in their hippy periods. Its introduction sounds strangely like The Lion Sleeps Tonight too. The line "Paisley Park is in your heart" was so Penny Lane, wasn't it, with a bit of Itchycoo Park thrown in. All very 1966-67.
Condition Of The Heart has nearly three minutes of gentle, ambient instrumental noodling before Prince’s laid-back vocals arrive. It is attractive in its own understated. beguiling way, but is very low-key. It grows on you, though, and was definitely like nothing he had done before.
The poppy Raspberry Beret was the album's big hit single and is full of hooks, especially on its chorus which you find yourself singing all day. It has some fetching violin sounds swirling around in the background. It suffers from a bit of a murky, muffled sound, I feel. Tambourine is a return to the shuffling, deep funky rhythms of earlier material and is the first track on the album that people would be able to properly recognise as Prince.
America begins with the sort of fuzzy guitar U2 would come to use so much and is a vibrant funky workout of a song. Steven Van Zandt's work over the next few years would be hugely influenced by this.
Pop Life is an appealing, melodic diatribe against celebrity culture. It is smoothly soulful. These last three tracks have been more what you would have expected from Prince, to an extent and the next two can be similarly categorised. So, it is probably only the first three that really fit in with the hippy-Eastern-psychedelic thing as Raspberry Beret is too poppy, but they have helped give the album its over-riding reputation.
The Ladder begins very much in semi-dramatic, heavily orchestrated Purple Rain style and has a slow semi-spoke vocal that is both mournful and uplifting simultaneously. Some saxophone arrives too, an instrumental not often utilised by Prince.
Some more fuzzy, scratchy guitar introduces Temptation, a song which sees Prince mentioning sex (and his favourite wetness) for probably the first time. It is a muscular, chugging piece of slow, heavyish rock with a bizarre ending with Prince being admonished by God. It is at eight minutes plus, by far the album's longest track. Actually, the album is not quite as impenetrable as many have deemed it to be. Given a chance it has its appeal, for sure.
