"When Doves Cry" or "Kiss."
It's simple. I slap 'em around a bit, torture 'em, make their lives hell...Sure, the nice guys'll run away,but every now and then you'll find a prince like Spike who gets off on it.
Buffy ,'Get It Done'
Buffista Music 4: Needs More Cowbell!
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
DavidS - Jan 02, 2013 5:00:37 am PST #5428 of 6436
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
amyth - Jan 02, 2013 5:08:46 am PST #5429 of 6436
And none of us deserving the cruelty or the grace -- Leonard Cohen
I think "When Doves Cry."
Tom Scola - Jan 02, 2013 5:12:12 am PST #5430 of 6436
Mr. Scola’s wardrobe by Botany 500
"When Doves Cry" or "Kiss."
Not apocalyptic enough.
Jesse - Jan 02, 2013 5:24:21 am PST #5431 of 6436
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
"When Doves Cry" has the great screaming at the end, though.
Glamcookie - Jan 02, 2013 5:27:29 am PST #5432 of 6436
I know my own heart and understand my fellow man. But I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say I am like no one in the whole world. - Anne Lister
Probably "When Doves Cry," but man I love "Lets Go Crazy." "Dearly beloved..." Who am I kidding, I loved a lot of Prince, especially Erotic City and the Parade album.
Volans - Jan 02, 2013 6:47:43 am PST #5433 of 6436
move out and draw fire
Little Red Corvette is the ur-Prince song, but he really matured into his full Prince-ness with When Doves Cry
DavidS - Jan 02, 2013 7:08:32 am PST #5434 of 6436
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Best Prince B-side? "Seventeen Days."
tommyrot - Jan 02, 2013 7:14:11 am PST #5435 of 6436
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
ION, check this out: [link]
A letter from Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol about the album cover art for Sticky Fingers (which Warhol did).
My favorite bit: "...and please write back saying how much money you would like."
billytea - Jan 02, 2013 12:15:30 pm PST #5436 of 6436
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.
Thanks everyone. I hadn't even thought of "Let's Go Crazy". It's a good suggestion though. I'd mostly been bouncing between "1999" and "Kiss", though if it were for myself, "Little Red Corvette" all the way. (So to speak.) I think, though, that "When Doves Cry" has to be the winner. (But I like Tom's point about the apocalyptitude of a lot of Prince's early stuff, I'd never noticed that before.)
What this is for: while we were on our cruise, Biyi joined the ship's Christmas choir. Reading through their playlist was an instructive experience:
"White Christmas", good choice... "All I Want For Christmas Is You", cheesy, but fair enough... "Eye Of The Tiger"? The Hell?
Leaving aside the unanswered question of what Survivor was doing in there (and whether a choir with a median age of 60+ can credibly pull off the slow fist-pump), the more important point is the Biyi really liked this song. The most important point is that she'd never heard it before. So, resolving that it's about time Biyi was introduced to the music of the 80s, I've been pulling together some playlists to record for her. Categories:
Rock
Ballads
Pop (2 CDs)
New Wave
For the most part, I'm trying to limit any one artist to one song, and it's still been extraordinarily difficult to get the list down to just five CDs. (It was originally supposed to be four.) Prince was one about which I was dithering, hence the question.
Volans - Jan 02, 2013 2:17:33 pm PST #5437 of 6436
move out and draw fire
Well now, that context actually changes my answer. "When Doves Cry" is it from a musicology perspective, but if you're introducing someone to Prince and one taste has to represent the whole buffet, I think it's "1999."
The opening chords, the musical intricacy, the very Prince vocal style, the apoclyptic-ness, the percussion track, the funk rhythm, it's the whole package.
Plus, it captures the "one minute to midnight" aspect of life in the 80s that is so impossible to explain to people who didn't live it.