Howling At The Moon - The Punk Panther's Album Reviews

  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 re

  Recorded and released three or four years before  Prince  seriously broke big, this is actually one of my favourite albums of his. Firstly, despite not being remastered (as is the case with most of his albums, unfortunately) the sound quality is excellent - good stereo, nice warm bass sound, no overwhelming tinniness.  I Wanna Be Your Lover  is an excellent, catchy song that was a hit in the USA but nowhere else, surprisingly, as it is a good one. I guess it didn't fit in the UK at the time, with all the new wave-ska-post punk material dominating the charts. Disco had been and gone and funk was not hitting the charts yet. In many ways, the material on this album was several years ahead of its time. Songs like this would have been hits by 1983-84. The album, Prince's second, is an appealing collection of disco-funk tracks, characterised, of course, by Prince's unique vocal style and, as was to be his thing, some searing electric guitar parts in amongst the disco-funk rhyth

  This was Prince’s third album and once again he played all the instruments himself, resulting in an attractive mix of funk, pop, soul, rock and new wave. It is a short album, at less than thirty minutes, but it was one that started to get Prince properly noticed and it was here that he really started to go full on with the blatantly sexual lyrics. No double entendres for him, he said what was on his “dirty mind”. Also, he poses shamelessly in his skimpy undies on the cover.   Dirty Mind   is a big thumping piece of early eighties disco-pop-funk, driven along by synthesiser riffs so typical of the time and pounding drums. Prince’s vocals are seductive and insistent, despite their falsetto tones.  Van Halen  surely used the riff on  Jump  three years later.  When You Were Mine  is irresistibly catchy, loaded to the brim with poppy hooks. The drum sound is reassuringly “proper” and the organ breaks are very new wave (think  Blondie  or  Elvis Costello & The Attractions ).   Do It Al

  Building on the saucy, sexualised new-wave influenced funk from 1980,  Dirty Mind , Prince returned the following year with what was pretty much more of the same, to an extent.  It was also the first album to fully feature Prince's muse  Lisa Coleman  on keyboards. In comparison to the previous album, though, Prince seems to concentrating more on the groove of the songs than on their inventiveness, which sort of initially laid the foundations for  1999 , although it is not as hook-laden as that album. There is also nothing as blatantly taboo-challenging as  Sister  or  Head  on here either. If anything, Prince ditches the no-holds-barred controversial eroticism for a political conscience, certainly on some tracks.  Controversy  is a seven-minute plus funky jam of an opener that utilised what was becoming a trademark sound by now. The funky guitar throughout the track is compelling. He introduces some religious "controversy" by curiously narrating  The Lord's Prayer

  After two electric funk-disco albums in  For You  and  Prince , followed by two more funk-rock-electro-soul fusion offerings in the impressive, underrated  Dirty Mind  and  Controversy , Prince finally made it huge with this double album of only eleven (not many for a double album) extended tracks of synthesiser-driven  "computer rock" .  Neither in late 1982, or now, can I describe myself as a proper Prince fan. I have a whole load of his albums, because I feel I ought to experience them as opposed to them actually floating my boat. I have never truly got the purple one, despite seemingly everyone else around me acknowledging his genius. So, that is the position I am writing from. I could never quite get, how, in those eighties years, people who didn't like rock music as a rule seemed to love Prince's often lengthy electric guitar noodling. I still don't. They love contemporary r'n'b yet they also love the extended indulgence of  Purple Rain .  The othe

  Following on from the programmed electro funk, synthesised, innovative but indulgent  1999 ,  Prince  changed his approach considerably in firstly employing a full band,  The Revolution , and secondly by diversifying his sound to include rock, heavy metal, electric guitars, pounding "proper" drums, acoustic guitars and psychedelia all mixed together in a cornucopia that was far more poppy than his output thus far.  It was a more varied and consequently more attractive album than  1999 .   It was his rockiest album to date and, as I mentioned in the review for  1999 , I found it mystifying (and still do) how people who listened to a daily diet of r'n'b-style soul and chart pop were suddenly claiming that  Purple Rain , with its lengthy, extended rock guitar ending, was their favourite song of all time. Bizarre. I never understood that.  Regarding its sound, all Prince albums are poorly produced, if you ask me, but this one's latest remaster gets away with it a bi

  This, for many, was  Prince ’s crowning achievement - his  London Calling ,  White Album ,  Songs In The Key Of Life  or  Exile On Main Street , a sprawling, diverse double album that spanned genres and influences. As usual with Prince by now, it merged funk, soul, gospel, rap with rock, psychedelia, blues and folk to great effect.  Personally, I have always found a little too eclectic and find that I prefer other albums of his, but there is no doubting its influence, both contemporary and in later years. It was recorded without  The Revolution  for the first time since 1982’s 1999 album, with Prince playing most instruments himself. There are still a fair few musicians involved, however, it is not all one man band stuff.  Regarding the tracks, I will deal with them in the four x four tracks sections of the original double album.  Sign O’ The Times   is a triumph of a track to open with, overflowing with brooding atmosphere, chilling apocalyptic warnings and an insistent but low-key

  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

After the vast soundscape of  Sign O' The Times , Prince returned in 1988 with a genuine oddity - an album with no distinction between tracks. I have listed the tracks as nine distinct entities, which is in effect what they are, but they are not separated otherwise and flow into each other, playing as one whole. It replaced the hastily-binned  Black Album  for reasons that nobody ever really knew. It is pretty much played by Prince with help from various musicians from track to track.  Eye No  is a brassy, funky and lively introduction to the album and  Alphabet Street  was the album's most obviously poppy section. It was a single. It is driven along by infectious, funky percussion and I have to say at this point as well that there is clear improvement in sound quality from earlier albums. It does go on a bit too long, though.  Glam Slam  is sort of psychedelic, with sounds swirling all over the place. Its production is frustratingly muffled compared to the previous track.  Ann