Bob: I’m not quite through my first listen, but I checked allmusic’s review since I knew they rated this higher than For You.
“Expanding the urban R&B and funk approach of his debut, Prince is a considerably more accomplished record than his first effort, featuring the first signs of his adventurous, sexy signature sound.”
Did allmusic and I even listen to the same records? For You was overall more adventurous and had more clues about what was to come in a few years. Yeah, “Bambi” does bring in more rock sound, but it kind of reminds me more of a Kiss song than “When Doves Cry.”
“I Feel for You” is probably the Prince-iest track.
Without Prince’s falsetto, I think this record would feel really flat. It’s not enough to save Prince, but it’s better than nothing.
If I could sum up each of the first two records in a sentence, it would be: For You was more ambition than direction and Prince is more direction than ambition. I prefer the former.
Of course, we’ll see how my initial thoughts hold up through the rest of the week.
Chuck: I read the paragraph you quoted while I was in the first few tracks and I completely agreed with Allmusic. “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” are leaps and bounds beyond For You, and have the sexy funkiness (or funky sexiness?) that I remember discovering when I was a teenager.
But the album devolves. “Sexy Dancer” is good but loses steam, “When We’re Dancing Close and Slow” sputters, and “With You” grinds to a boring halt. It’s nice to hear early hints of his falsetto scream and fiery guitar on “Bambi”, but you’re right that the song is nothing special.
On my first listen, the songwriting is significantly better than the previous record. “Still Waiting” is a solid song with a good chorus, even if it feels out of place. I had no idea “I Wanna Be Your Lover” was his first hit (62 million plays on Spotify?!?!), but it makes sense: there’s a distinct verse, prechorus, and chorus, and simple touches like the guitar on the downbeats add a nice drive behind his falsetto. It’s obvious why “I Feel for You” became a hit for Chaka Khan. With the slightly faster tempo and the harmonies and the cheesy ‘80s drum machines, her performance is undeniably better than Prince’s, but other than the “let me rock you Chaka Khan” bit, she didn’t stray far from the core of his song.
The album starts strong, sputters in the middle, and almost recovers. It strikes me more as a demo than an album, because it showcases a set of songs that could probably be hits in the right hands.
Bob: I listened again in headphones and the production is a lot better on Prince than on For You. What I really liked on the first record was that the opening track said, “Hey, this record is different” and then it went and tried some interesting ideas with some success. It didn’t fully flesh them out, but it was creating a formula, not following one. The second record is less obvious in that way and feels somewhat safer for it. That being said though, there are some cool things that were just not hearable on the speaker of my phone that I can hear in headphones. My first listen to For You was a pleasant surprise and I was excited to listen again. I had the opposite reaction to my first listen to Prince, but the second listen is better so far (I think headphones have a lot to do with that). I would put both records in the 3-3.5 range, but for different reasons.
Both times, “Bambi” got me excited at first. I think the main riff has a bit of a Joe Walsh vibe (hence the initial excitement), but the vocals are more like bad hair metal than Prince’s hard rock scream. It’s the only track where vocals are not the best part. Over the four minutes, I bet I waffle between loving and hating it five times.
Chuck: Prince is more polished all the way around, especially the production and the songwriting. I can see how that appears to come at the cost of experimentation, especially given how For You opens. He experiments here, though, it’s just a bit more subtle.
“Sexy Dancer” and “When We’re Dancing Close and Slow” are my big revelations today. “Sexy Dancer” is terrible when I measure it against pop songs, but as a funk jam, it’s awesome. Imagine Larry Levan spinning this at the Paradise Garage at 3am, and the song takes on a totally different feeling. The vocals in the beginning, the heavy breathing, the recurring funk guitar over “I want your body, want your body” … it just wants to be on a joyously sweaty dance floor. I only wish he’d pushed the chant “Sexy dancer / do that sexy dance”, because that refrain could have turned this into a funk legend. This could be a stellar 10-minute remix.
While I get the idea of slowing it down after “Sexy Dancer,” “When We’re Dancing” just drops off a cliff. The song is good though. This is the kind of song that would be amazing in the background when you’re having one of those slow, romantic moments of connection with someone in the dark after a long buildup. It’s an easy song to miss but what I originally thought was a throwaway is turning into one of the album’s stars.
Maybe you ruined “Bambi” with your Kiss analogy, because now all I hear is a throwaway Kiss track. I agree it gets me excited every time it starts, but it falls short every time. Like “I’m Yours” from For You, the riff sucks you in, but then it just dies when it gets to the body of the song. The chorus tries to pick things up but he still sounds like he’s faking it. His scream isn’t there yet.
Chuck: Back to the “Sexy dancer / do that sexy dance” refrain, I started thinking of the “sexy motherfucker, shaking that ass” hook from 1992. That’s a terrible song (though the arrangement with the horns and the organ is rock solid) but he created a vocal hook from really dumb lyrics that I remember 30 years later. I wish he’d created the same kind of hook here, because this just lends itself to being the earworm that sticks with you long after you’ve left the dancefloor.
Bob: After a few more listens, I think you really summed the record up best with, “The album starts strong, sputters in the middle, and almost recovers.” The opening track definitely grew on me (particularly in headphones) and it might be the best track thus far in his career. There are a few other good ones and some that just failed to get going. And it really did almost recover over the last two tracks, but there was just something missing.
It made me think a bit about the records that push limits and then the ones that let things settle. Both are really necessary and I think we’ll hear that again in Prince’s career (e.g., Around the World in a Day and Parade).
Chuck: There is a joy in the intro of the first track that makes me happy and excited every time I hear it. For You opened by telling you were going to hear something unexpected, but Prince opens by telling you that you’re about to hear some joy. I dig that.
As for pushing limits and letting things settle, you’re absolutely right. I rarely think of music in that way, but like all things in life, there’s an ebb and flow to great music.