Prince

Sandwiched between two classic Prince albums, Controversy is overlooked, and that's not unfair: the hooks aren't memorable, the funk is a bit thin and the political overtones seem ham-fisted. But a sub par Prince album is still a work of genius. The title tracks fuses spirituality and sexuality, while the uncanny "Do Me, Baby" subverts typical pop gender roles.

It should come as little surprise that on his fourth album, Prince has made his inflammatory
and explicit sexuality the basis of an amusingly jive but attractive social agenda. Once
you've exalted brother-sister incest (Dirty Mind's "Sister"), not to mention nearly every
other sexual possibility, how else can you get people's attention? Prince's first three
records were so erotically self-absorbed that they suggested the reveries of a li... More >

Maybe Dirty Mind wasn't a tour de force after all; maybe it was dumb luck. The socially conscious songs are catchy enough, but they spring from the mind of a rather confused young fellow, and while his politics get better when he sticks to his favorite subject, which is s-e-x, nothing here is as far-out and on-the-money as "Head" or "Sister" or the magnificent "When You Were Mine." In fact, for a while I thought the best new song was "Jack U Off," an utter throwaway. But that was before the confused young fellow climbed onto the sofa with me and my sweetie during "Do Me, Baby." (Grade - A-)