Prince: For You - 1978

 

This was Prince’s unheralded, overlooked debut album from 1978 that went well under the radar, what with all that punk, new wave and conventional disco around. 

Dig into it deeper, though, and you can hear how it would influence much eighties soul-dance music. He hadn’t really developed an image as yet, however, with none of that purple stuff having materialised. Only Soft And Wet hinted at his later-to-be trademark sexual sauciness. Songwriting-wise it was mainly rather standard fare at this point. 

For You is a brief vocal harmony opener that leads into the electro-funk of In Love. This sort of thing was actually quite ahead of its time in 1978, updating disco rhythms to include synthesisers and a bit of a jazzy influence. Prince was a studio one-man band, playing all the instruments himself, Stevie Wonder-style, something that would become de rigeur by the mid-eighties, when Prince-style programmed electro pop-funk was all over the place. In that way, this was quite a revolutionary album.

Soft And Wet was his first single and was what we would come to expect from early Prince - infectious falsetto vocals over an insistent electrically funky, pounding mid-pace disco-ish beat. Prince-funk was quite a unique thing at the time, but it became hugely influential. Crazy You is a short, acoustic Latin-ish groove that showed Prince’s innate ability to diversify when you weren’t expecting it.  It always kept his albums fresh and interesting. The brassy disco funk returns on the energetic Just As Long As We’re Together. It is an attractive, catchy number with some intoxicating percussion half way through. The track has an impressive, extended disco-esque instrumental ending.

Baby is a pleasant enough slow, romantic soulful number with a laid-back groove to it. My Love Is Forever is very late seventies easy-going disco in its vibe. This sort of thing would be all over the airwaves by the mid-eighties as artists like Chaka Khan caught on to the electro-synth soul thing. It features some Prince guitar more than most of the album’s tracks do. So Blue is an acoustic guitar-driven slow and gently soulful number. I quite like it, after a few listens, it does the trick. It exemplifies versatility once again. 

The upbeat guitar funk of I’m Yours immediately brings to mind Santana from the same period as Prince finally shows us that he really can play a mean guitar.  It finishes the album on a real high note. Look, this was pleasant enough stuff, quite a varied album, but it didn’t really hint at the innovative material that would to come. It is not an album that ever particularly gets me thinking that I will dig it out.