Happy 45th Anniversary to Prince’s eponymous second studio album Prince, originally released October 19, 1979.
Five months and $170,000 is a lot of time and money to put into a debut album for a self-produced artist who is still a teenager. It’s even more when the record doesn’t deliver a hit. Such was the position Prince found himself in after his debut record For You (1978) failed to light the fires his talent demanded.
The protracted, meticulous process of his first album and its subsequent underwhelming performance did serve a purpose though. Forged from these fires of disappointment came a new process that would stay with him for the duration of his career. Just five weeks were necessary to record his second album, at a quarter of the cost ($35,000), and thus was his incredibly agile, rarely-sleeping, never-dawdling process birthed. In an interview with Ebony magazine in 1986, he made the facts explicit: “I tried to do the best second time around and make a hit and do it for the least amount of money.” It was quick. It was cheap(er). But was it a hit?
In a reversal of what happens so often, his sophomore album was a much bigger success than his debut. The album peaked at #22 on the Billboard chart and #3 on the R&B chart, making it a much bigger deal than For You. It was spearheaded by a single that also gave him his biggest success thus far in the shape of “I Wanna Be Your Lover” that reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot Soul Singles.
Though the law of diminishing returns applied to the next two singles released from the project (“Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” and “Still Waiting”), the album did well enough to usher in an infamous debut appearance on American Bandstand. If you read ten different books about Prince, you’ll probably find ten different explanations as to the root cause of the awkward exchange between Prince and presenter Dick Clark, but I prefer to take my version from Matt Thorne’s mighty tome about the artist.
Both Gayle Chapman and Dez Dickerson confirmed that Prince instructed the band not to talk to Clark backstage. This enigmatic approach was compounded by some pretty facile and ever so slightly insulting questions and assumptions, which led to a long-lasting attitude to interviews—namely that Prince would not engage in idle chit chat with interviewers. That it lasted the majority of his career demonstrates the depth of feeling the experience evoked.
Listen to the Album & Watch the Official Videos:
Given the presence of bona fide hits and the chastening experience at the hands of the media, it is clear that this period of Prince’s career was a hugely formative one that demonstrated bold steps forward in his artistic endeavors and modus operandi. But when I reflect back on this album, I view it through slightly rose-tinted glasses because the best songs here are so strong.
In general, the up-tempo songs succeed far better than the slower ones. The front-loading of the album with two monsters in the shape of the joyously ebullient “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and guitar-driven jam “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” go some way to making the album a huge success. That these are followed up by a funk jam that has endured, in “Sexy Dancer,” further roots it in the memory. And as a man always more likely to pay attention to the music than the (slightly dubious) lyrics, “Bambi” has always been a thrilling guitar ride and “I Feel For You” is as jaunty a pop tune as he ever wrote.
Yet the ballads feel lightweight and saccharine, compared to the intensity of later efforts in that direction. It feels, to me at any rate, that he is yet to hit his stride with his balladry—they lack a level of maturity that is not surprising given his still tender years. Of the four here, “When We’re Dancing Close and Slow” and “It’s Gonna Be Lonely” are my favorites, as they have more space to breathe and maintain a consistent atmosphere that appeals to me. The other two (“Still Waiting” and “With You”) are too sentimental and slightly, dare I say it, corny sounding to resonate with me.
That grumble notwithstanding, the leap in quality between his debut and this record is marked and the difference between them can be gleaned from the respective titles. With his debut, For You, it seemed just that—a chance to show to others what he could do. He wanted to prove he could do the technically proficient things that some doubted of him. On Prince though, this was a truer expression of himself and accordingly it connected with people in much greater ways.
If nothing else, this album is a reminder of the necessity of patience in artist development. In these days of immediacy and instant gratification, it is worth remembering that even a musical behemoth like Prince needed time to marinate and develop. It may not be perfect but it is a stellar step on the path to greatness. It wouldn’t be a long wait for greatness though—his next album, Dirty Mind (1980),would arrive less than a year later and it would blow the doors off and begin his steep ascent to heights few others have ever reached.
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