Prince
Dirty Mind

THE REVIEW

DIRTY THOUGHTS 

"There's something about u, baby. It happens all the time.
Whenever I'm around u, baby. I get a dirty mind.."

 In the night that is both whore and mother, swallowing blissfully the desire of the day and spitting it back out as sinful lust, a sinister figure in a long dark trench coat roams with sharp and nervous steps, through the fumes and the violet reflection of neon lights, on the living filth of the sidewalks. The tyrannical streets of this multi-ethnic city, at the dawn of a greedy decade, are like little bridges suspended over the future, the circular beat of Mother Africa a jimmy to unlock every possible barrier or inhibition to the blues of the fathers, to soul, to funk, to rock. That tiny figure of nerves and blood now stands in a corner, illuminated by an old streetlamp, waiting on vertiginous stiletto heels for a yellow taxi to take her away. From the stench of filthy taverns and animal sexual instincts, from cowardly places of crime and perdition.

 It's 1980 and after a couple of partially successful attempts, but rather raw on a stylistic level, that iconoclastic, ambiguous, arrogant creature can finally drop the mask and fully embrace its arsenal of auto-erotic falsettos, fishnet stockings, and lace panties to crossover into a virgin sound (!), which will be imprinted indelibly in the ear of the common listener, encompassing all humanly possible from the still young History of rock'n'roll and rhythm & blues. The Prince of Minneapolis, the sprite of post-modern funk, the Artist who will decide one day not to have a name: ladies and gentlemen, Prince. Dirty Mind is the germ that will infect the world to come, written, produced, and played by the civil Roger Nelson; the opening of the title track a hypnotic and syncopated disco/funk rhythm, bathed in the murky and dark waters of new-wave lyrics, an anthem to the perpetually horny teenage pig existing in all of us. Or in the verses of When You Were Mine, mediating the 1950s nostalgia of contemporary Cars and attempts at synthetic pop-soul, while the explicit Head ("..But you're such a hunk. So full of spunk. I'll give you head, til you're burning up. Head, til you get enough. Head, til your love is red. Head, love you til you're dead.." ) is a cybernetic expressionist funk, with a liquid, penetrating bass and keyboards sharpened by psychedelic nails. Pure popular avant-garde, a polar bear dancing on the dance floor, so extraordinarily personal that today guys like Daft Punk, to write it, would be willing to disguise themselves with the faces of Sarkozy and Carla Bruni. The brief incest of Sister ("..My sister never made love to anyone else but me. She's the reason for my, uh, sexuality. She showed me where it's supposed to go. A blow job doesn't mean blow. Incest is everything it's said to be. Oh, sister..Don't put