52 Weeks Of Prince: Week 03

1980-1981: Dirty Mind

1980-1981: Dirty Mind

It is impossible to talk about “Dirty Mind” as anything other than a turning point in Prince’s career. By comparison “Purple Rain” was merely a continuation of the shift begun here in 1980. Everything about Prince’s work in the future proceeds from late May 1980, when Prince began recording his third album.

Not Quite Paisley Park, But It Got The Job Done

The tour for “Prince” ended on May 3, his final show opening for Rick James. A couple of weeks later recording had begun on the next album. At this point Prince’s songwriting process took on its permanent shape. From now on he would be writing and recording more or less constantly. His first fully functioning home studio made this possible, although the term “fully functioning” is here used very loosely.

In late 1979, Prince moved to a house on North Arm Drive in Orono, MN, and by the time he returned from the Rick James tour, the studio had been installed. Like everyone’s first home studio (my own included), there was a definite element of DIY craziness to the finished product.

I can find no photos of this place online (and if you have some, hit me up), but the details that I have found paint a vivid, if vague, picture. First of all, there was the drum booth. I cannot begin to understand exactly how this worked, so here is some text copied from : http://www.princevault.com/index.php?title=North_Arm_Drive_Home_Studio

I genuinely wish I could find visuals of this, because my imagination cannot really process some of these ideas. Who cuts a cesspool into a hill? Orono is essentially a suburb of the Twin Cities; what bizarre circumstances led to this cesspool? Also, what does it mean to have a “drain of water” in your drum booth? Is it meant to keep…cesspool…liquid...from overflowing? Was the house haunted? It was probably haunted, right?

I have officially reached the limit on the number of times I can type “cesspool” in a day, so we’re going to move right along now.

Also, there was no room for a piano in the “studio” portion of the house, so it was set up in the kitchen. Again, I wish I knew what this place looked like, because it sounds 100% buck wild.

And Now A Brief Word On Studio Construction

From what I can gather about the Arm Drive studio, it seems to me like what happened is when the studio equipment was installed in the house sound quality was not necessarily the first thing on anyone’s mind. Maybe there just wasn’t money to do a better job, or possibly whoever did the installation did not know how to do it right. This, unsurprisingly, can seriously affect the sound captured by the gear.

Protip: If your idea of acoustic treatments is to throw an old mattress on the floor, you're doing it wrong.

For those who don’t know, there are two main forms of sound control in any studio: soundproofing and acoustic treatment. As briefly as possible, the difference is that soundproofing is what you do to keep sounds from the outside getting into the studio, acoustic treatment is what you do to keep sound from getting out and to keep any echoes or unwanted reverberations down. Neither of these tasks were particularly well done in the North Arm Drive studio, but the acoustic treatments (or lack thereof) really created the ambience of the entire “Dirty Mind” album.

Just in terms of the quality of the sound, this album sounds very much like an early 40s Chicago blues record. There’s a lot of noise and leakage. Now, to be fair, from an artistic perspective, the album sounds amazing. It’s completely unique, even among Prince’s albums. The whole thing sounds raw and almost live. The closest thing to this I’ve heard is the Stooges’ magnum opus “Fun House.” The producer of that record wanted to capture the noise and chaos of the band’s live performances, but that just wasn’t possible in a regular studio, so he (and the Stooges, I presume) tore all the acoustic treatments off the walls, ceiling and floor and instead of putting a microphone on a stand, they suspended one from the ceiling on a long cord so Iggy Pop (and the sound in the room) could run around and bounce off the walls as he howled nonsense into the mike. Don't get me wrong, I love that album. You should listen to that one too, but like “Dirty Mind” it’s poorly recorded from a technical standpoint.

That sound quality has led to “Dirty Mind” being described as a bunch of demo recordings that Warner Bros was willing to release in their original form, but I don’t believe that’s true. I think it’s more to do with Prince’s changing approach to his goals as an artist. I have spoken before about the segregation of music at this time, and Prince was increasingly anxious to move past that barrier, almost as if it made him itch. In his original recording contract, Prince specified that he be placed on Warner’s “pop” roster as opposed to the “R & B” roster. In broader terms, he wanted his records played beyond the usual confines of “Black” music. He wanted to be on the pop charts. For a long time this was only partially successful. His sound was definitely moving away from what “Black” radio normally wanted to play, but Prince’s Blackness kept him off pop stations. Something had to give – and it would – but for now, the only thing Prince could do was stay the course.

This decision and many others had roots in his desire for fame and recognition, but it was also (and I would be willing to bet more importantly) part of his need for control. Real control, after all, is when you can do what you want to do without having to deal with people pigeonholing you and trying to make you stay in their boxes, right?

The home studio was an extension of that same impulse. He wanted to record what he wanted, when he wanted, at his own pace (read: fast fast fast), and he didn’t want to have restraints placed on him by outside forces. And since the home studio provided that, if the sound quality was a bit rough then so be it. Even that ended up working out in his favor though. More on that later.

Anyway, back to this idea people have that the “Dirty Mind” recordings were supposed to be demos. Maybe that’s what Warner thought, but nothing about Prince’s future career indicates he ever thought of any recording as a “demo” in the strictest sense, especially after he got hold of a home studio.

Plus, remember “For You?” When Warner gave Prince $180k for to produce three albums and he spent $170k on a single album? His budget had to be getting tight by this point, and Warner was probably not in the mood to finance re-recording this album in a proper studio, especially when the artist was willing to put out the album as-is. Finally, there is this quote from Prince on Warner’s reaction to the album:

At this time, Prince’s creative process also began to shift ever so slightly. Until now, Prince had often been (rightly) compared to Stevie Wonder as a kind of one man band. To a certain extent he had encouraged (and would continue to encourage) that comparison. On the other hand, Prince had spent the last year developing his touring band, and they were starting to appear in his music, sometimes as “guest voices,” and, for the first time, as credited collaborators.

A Brief Celebration Of The Good Doctor

Matt Fink, aka Dr Fink, was one of the longest-serving band members Prince ever had. He played keyboards at Prince’s first professional gig on January 5, 1979 and would continue in that position for more than a decade, all the way through to Yokohama on September 10, 1990. Ironically, the final gig with the Revolution was in the same place in 1986.

At the beginning of Fink’s tenure in the band, he wore a traditional black-and-white striped prisoner’s outfit, but that was replaced in 1980 at the insistence of Rick James. Rick, you see, had a bit in his show where he would come out for the song “Bustin’ Out (On Funk)” dressed in the same outfit. Depending on who you ask (Dr Fink’s own account is posted below), either Prince decided Fink should change his look, or Rick James took the opportunity to have another go at Prince, and this time Prince let Rick have what he wanted. Either way, a set of scrubs and a surgical mask was acquired and Dr Fink was born.

Post Rick James Stress Disorder

After touring with Rick James, it makes some sense that Prince and the band would want to retreat for a while, and having a place to hide out and practice must have been something of a relief. At one point, the band’s jam sessions led to Fink coming up with a synth hook that Prince liked, and after rehearsal, Prince apparently stayed up late and made a song out of it, because when the band came back the next day, the song “Dirty Mind” was finished, complete with a shiny new co-writing credit for Dr Fink.

This sort of thing typifies how the album was made, both in the speed, and the fuzziness of the details. With a lot of Prince’s music, exact dates and personnel are available, even for songs that have never been released. The best anyone seems to be able to come up with for this album is: May – June 1980. So yeah, what follows is a brief overview of the album with less detail than I’d like because nobody seems to have kept records on North Arm Drive.

1. Dirty Mind

“Dirty Mind” is a song that clearly signals a break from Prince’s past. Before this, it seemed like Prince’s record collection mostly consisted of Stevie Wonder, Santana, Al Green, Sly Stone and Joni Mitchell. None of those influences are front and center here. The single edit of this song truncates the intro, but on the album version, the pulsing synth and bass drum sound like Gary Numan. It’s robotic, yet organic, and is something no other Prince song has been so far – it’s ominous. It actually sounds dark and almost spooky. Then the hi-hat kicks in and we’re in friendlier, funkier territory. Even so, that feeling of just a little danger never quite leaves the track. Much has been made of the album’s cover art, but there is nothing in that image that is not reflected here.

2. When You Were Mine

“When You Were Mine” was never a commercially released single, yet it’s easily one of Prince’s best songs. The arrangement feels like an early New Wave hit, and honestly, I’m a little surprised Elvis Costello has never covered it. It seems like everyone else has, and quite right too.

It’s Prince’s first foray into more classic modes of Rock n Roll. In the late 90’s, Prince claimed he had written the song after hearing John Lennon. If so (and let’s be real here, there’s no guarantee of that being true) it was probably a Beatles tune, because the drums definitely have that post-Mersey swing that Ringo Starr still does so well.

This song also has something in common with almost everything else on the album: it represents Prince’s first major efforts into creating music that transcended genre by simply ignoring the boundaries between different kinds of music. Ultimately, Prince wanted to do for pop music what Miles Davis wanted to do for jazz: erase all the boundaries. Neither were successful, but they both did well enough to not only expand the boundaries of their audiences, but also expand the audience’s musical palate. One of the most rewarding things about listening to Prince’s music for the last twenty years are the literally dozens of other artists and genres his music points to. All that starts here, both in this song and this album. They are both absolutely classic material.

3. Do It All Night

Prince was perhaps the greatest songwriter of his generation, but subtlety was something he enjoyed if he could, but did not rely upon to generate interest. He’s not alone in this. Paul McCartney once entitled a song “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?,” so Prince had to settle for “Do It All Night.” The music definitely is more of a 1980s pop composition than anything on the album so far, but like every other song on the album, a boundary is pushed, this time lyrically. The thing is, so much of the rest of the record pushes those boundaries so much harder and usually more effectively, this catchy little tune almost disappears, in spite of the infectious hook.

4. Gotta Broken Heart Again

In deference to the rule that you have to put one ballad on each side of an LP, “Gotta Broken Heart Again” closes out the first side. Far more than any other song on this album, it has the feeling of a throwback to his earlier material. The song seems to have been around for a couple of years, although apparently it never got recorded, making it the first of many times Prince would reach into his ever-expanding trove of unreleased material for something that could be freshened up. I’m not sure it was the best idea to do that on this album. It feels jarring to hear a song that easily could have been on “For You” suddenly showing up here. It’s not a bad song by any means, I’m just not sure this was the best home for it.

5. Uptown

“Uptown” is the first of Prince’s many “utopian” tracks, and as with so many of them, he cast Minneapolis in the role of the utopia. Prince genuinely loved his hometown, and believed it to be an example to the rest of the world how to allow cultures to mingle together and celebrate each other, rather than integrate. In Prince’s version of Minneapolis everyone can “do whatever they please” because “it’s all about being free.” Even if it’s not a realistic portrayal of the of race in the late 20th Century, as a statement of ideals, it’s a good one. Plus you can dance to it.

Uptown, is in fact a real area of Minneapolis, centered on a place called Calhoun Square, which we will have an opportunity to visit in the 90s.

6. Head

Aw jeez. Yeah. Speaking of pushing the boundaries of lyrics, there’s this song called “Head.” Yeah, it’s about oral sex. Everybody’s doin’ it, apparently. Morning noon and night. Few songs in Prince’s catalog are more calculated to shock than this one. It actually drove the keyboardist, Gayle Chapman, out of the band. She just would not say those words. Her replacement, Lisa Coleman, would, and her first contribution to Prince’s work would be her least important. Lisa was and is an amazingly talented, highly trained keyboardist who was one of Prince’s most important and valued collaborators for the next six years, and she had a profound effect on how Prince played keys for the rest of his life. For now, though, her role is limited to helping Prince be more Rick James than Rick James.

If you're surprised this guy could write a song like "Head" I'm pretty sure that's on you.

7. Sister

Remember last paragraph when I said “Head” was almost the most intentionally shocking song in the catalog? Well, “Sister” has no competition in that regard. It’s absolutely about incest. Here are the least NSFW lyrics in the song:

The oddest thing about this song is how rarely people talk about how much of a punk song this is. Deliberately offensive, as fast and simply played as possible, sparse arrangement, short running time and low production value. I could be describing Prince in 1980 or The Ramones in 1976. The influence seems to be intentional, but the lyrical content maybe kept people from widely recognizing it.

8. Partyup

“Partyup” closes out the record. While the song that opened the album contained a co-writing credit for Dr Fink, the person who created the groove for this song did not receive credit. Prince offered his old high school friend Morris Day a choice. In exchange for the groove , Morris could have some money, or Prince would get him a record deal. Morris took the record deal, and in so doing made the rest of this blog series more complicated to write, but more on that next week.

“Partyup” is also Prince’s first political song. In January of 1980, Jimmy Carter reinstated what is called the Selective Service system. It is not the draft. I know this because the soldiers who came to my school and made every male over a certain age register for it told me so. They were very emphatic about that.

I’m glad they told me this, because if they hadn’t, I would absolutely have known without a doubt that it is the draft. Because what happens is, every male has to register, and then for a period of some years (ages 18 to 26) you remain in the system and nothing happens.

Unless of course, the United States goes to war and the powers that be decide that they need to draft people. Then they use the Selective Service System, which is not a permanent conscription system which the government has simply never used to conscript anyone, even though all the infrastructure is in place. Nope. Not the Draft.

This upset some people.

Many of them young men between the ages of 18 to 26 who were alive during the Viet Nam war and didn’t fancy being Selected to Serve. As opposed to not fancying being Drafted. Very different.

Anyway, When Prince says “They got the draft, I just wanna laugh and party up” that’s what he’s talking about. Same with “Because of their half-baked mistakes / We get ice cream, no cake / All lies, no truth / Is it fair to kill the youth?”

The long chant at the end where Prince screams “You’re gonna have to fight your own damn war,” leaves little room for ambiguity.

All The Critics Love U

“Dirty Mind” did not sell well. Especially later in his career Prince cultivated the image of an artist who cared more about artistic achievement more than any kind of monetary gain. This was never as true as he would have us believe, but it was not without a large degree of truth. “Dirty Mind” is definitely evidence of Prince’s willingness to make artistic decisions that were at odds with commercial realities. It’s also important to note that he released this album just before his contract was up for renewal, before his reputation could be expected to take major setbacks. Prince was betting that even though the sales would be low, the album would still be “successful” in other ways.

His bet paid off. “Dirty Mind” made Prince a critical darling. Even the highly influential and notoriously poison - penned Robert Christgau loved it, famously suggesting in his review that “Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home.”

The sound quality of the album actually propelled the reputation of the album in some circles. Even the recordings sounded “dirty” as opposed to the hermetically sealed perfection of, for example, Paul McCartney’s latest. As much as I love Paul McCartney’s solo work, it is somewhat telling that people still remember “Dirty Mind” while nobody thought about McCartney’s 1980 album (McCartney II) for decades until last year when “McCartney III” was released. Prince was now on the radar in critical spheres. He became someone to watch.

Of course, there was also the element of deliberate controversy attached to the album. Even the album cover courted outrage. A man wearing a pair of black briefs and a trench coat in front of stripped set of box springs propped up to resemble a barbed wire fence would attract a certain kind of attention. And I’m sure he knew that. Prince was neither the first nor the last musician who would knowingly manufacture an image that would horrify midwestern vanilla cube-people. The difference in this case is usually these things are built and designed to last for just long enough to get attention. Awards shows are a popular place for them, especially if you’re promoting your first sexually-themed album. Very few of those people prolong that moment by taking the outfit from the album cover on tour, which is exactly what Prince did.

Taking The Show On The Road

The Dirty Mind Tour lasted about five months, and it was Prince’s first attempt to headline an entire tour, probably at least partly due to not wanting to repeat anything like the Rick James tour.

Legend has it that after the last tour, his management told Prince he couldn’t go on stage wearing spandex trousers with no underwear anymore. Which may have inspired Prince to go on the next tour wearing underwear and basically nothing else.

Looking at the setlists, it is somewhat surprising in its typicality. For an artist on tour supporting his third album, especially in the late 70s or early 80s, you would expect to hear most or all of the new album, with one or two singles from the prior albums thrown in, and that’s exactly what Prince did. So lacking any officially released recordings of the tour, sadly there isn’t much more to say in terms of the material.

The band, however, warrants a quick mention. At this point, most of what will eventually become the Revolution is already in place. Bobby Z (drums), Dr Fink (keys), Dez Dickerson (guitar) and Andre Cymone (bass)all return from the last tour, and Lisa Coleman has taken over on keys from Gayle Chapman. The band would remain in almost exactly this shape for the next six years, with two replacements later on that would make all the difference.

All the essential components of Prince’s career have finally all come into place, so next week, we will (obviously) not be covering an album credited to “Prince.” Fair warning. But I solemnly swear the album is a classic.

NEXT WEEK: Morris Day swaggers onto the scene and The Time is born.