#minneapolis sound

[haveyouheardthisband]

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Dirty Computer • Crazy, Classic, Life • Take A Byte • Jane's Dream • Screwed • Django Jane • Pynk • Make Me Feel • I Got The Juice • I Like That • Don't Judge Me • Stevie's Dream • So Afraid • Americans

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[jewishpopculture]

Denise Matthews, a.k.a. Vanity, on the cover of Jet magazine in 1988.

Vanity was an R&B star and actress in the 80's and 90's, and a former protégé of Prince. She is best remembered for her hit "Nasty Girl" as a member of her eponymous girl group Vanity 6, as well as her solo hits, including "Mechanical Emotion" and "Under the Influence". She was also the star of the 80's films "The Last Dragon" and "Action Jackson", both quite successful at the box office.

Born in Canada to a Jewish mother of Polish and German descent, and a father of African American descent, she later converted to Christianity. She famously dropped the stage name Vanity, and renounced her career in entertainment to dedicate her time to preaching.

Despite this, her fans never forgot her, and her work in entertainment has reached younger generations, with millions watching her R&B clips on YouTube. Some in the Jewish community will always remember her as one of our greatest rock stars of the 80's.

Matthews sadly passed away in 2016 at the age of 57.

[disease]

PRINCE // MAKE-UP ['81] COVER of VANITY 6 [ORIGINALS, rel. 2019]

[ardathksheyna]

Fishnets

Tripped across this in my Facebook feed and my musically-tuned brain immediately thought of this old gem by Morris Day.

[musiquariumology]

Prince - Dinner With Delores (Official Music Video)

[kanjiklubb]

minneapolis sound

[kuruten]

SONG 16 (948)

URBAN CONTEMPORARY + SOUL + QUIET STORM + POST-DISCO + MINNEAPOLIS SOUND + FUNK + DISCO + CLASSIC SOUL

[mondoradiowmse]

08/14/24 Mondo Radio Playlist

Here's the playlist for this week's edition of Mondo Radio, which you can download or stream here. This episode: "Nasty World", featuring the Minneapolis sound and more. If you dig it, don't forget to also follow the show on Facebook and Twitter!

Artist - Song - Album

94 East - If You See Me - Purple Snow: Forecasting The Minneapolis Sound

Earth, Wind & Fire - I've Had Enough (Live) - Prince's Jukebox: The Songs That Inspired The Man

Stevie Wonder - Superstition (Live) - Prince's Jukebox: The Songs That Inspired The Man

André Cymone - Somebody Said - Purple Snow: Forecasting The Minneapolis Sound

Prince - Sexy Dancer - Prince

Lipps, Inc. - Funkytown - Seventies Disco Ball

Prince - Uptown - Dirty Mind

Sheena Easton - Sugar Walls - The Best Of Sheena Easton

Sheena Easton - Strut - The Best Of Sheena Easton

William Goldstein - Changing Currents - Oceanscape

Sheila E. - Shortberry Strawcake - The Glamorous Life

Sheila E. - The Glamorous Life - The Glamorous Life

Prince And The Revolution - Baby I'm A Star - Purple Rain

Prince And The Revolution - The Beautiful Ones - Purple Rain

The Time - Ice Cream Castles - Ice Cream Castle

Morris Day - Daydreaming - Daydreaming

Rockie Robbins - Emergency - Beverly Hills Cop (Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Prince With Sheena Easton - The Arms Of Orion - Batman (Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The Family - The Screams Of Passion - Girl 6 (Music From The Motion Picture)

The Jets - Rocket 2 U - The Best Of The Jets

Ready For The World - Oh Sheila - The Best Of Ready For The World

Vanity 6 - Nasty Girl - Girl 6 (Music From The Motion Picture)

Wendy And Lisa - Sideshow - Wendy And Lisa

St. Paul - Maybe In Another World - Down To The Wire

Ingrid Chavez - Hippy Blood (Funky House Edit) - Hippy Blood (Single)

Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation - Rhythm Nation 1814

[haveyouheardthisband]

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Let's Go Crazy • Take Me with U • The Beautiful Ones • Computer Blue • Darling Nikki • When Doves Cry • I Would Die 4 U • Baby I'm a Star • Purple Rain

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[mywifeleftme]

83: The Family // The Family

The Family The Family 1985, Paisley Park

Prince wrote songs like newspaper cartoonists churn out comics, an untamed profligacy that would eventually bring him into open warfare with his own label and exile him to the pop wilderness. In his halcyon mid-‘80s days though, he channeled his productivity into a network of puppet acts for whom he would pseudonymously write and produce. This isn’t so different from, say, Smokey Robinson being simultaneously a top performer at Motown and a major songwriter for other artists, except that the Purple One was such an idiosyncratic weirdo that you can always tell right away who’s behind the curtain. Prince treated his protégés more like costumes to wear than collaborators. With Vanity and (to a lesser extent) Sheila E. we got Prince as a Woman; through Morris Day, the racially and sexually ambiguous Artist released his most decidedly Black, hetero music; and with The Family’s lead singer St. Paul we got White Prince. Look at this guy!

Lookit him!

Anyway, the Family were scraped together from the remains of the Time after Morris Day had tired of Prince’s domineering control, with bassist Paul Peterson promoted to lead vocal duties and joined by Prince’s sometime-girlfriend Susannah Melvoin as a secondary singer. The idea was to present the group as an independent project (Prince is only credited on the packaging for some incidental photography), but the result is Minneapolis Sound (almost literally) by numbers. While Day and Sheila E. were Prince’s peers (or elders) and had their own charisma, the younger St. Paul and his collaborators are completely subsumed by their mentor. It’s not St. Paul’s fault; I doubt he was given much choice other than to do the bargain Prince impression he trots out here. But these machines are built for one driver, and St. Paul lacks the shrieking charisma to make them go. It’s impossible to listen to a song like “High Fashion,” with its big-spending shit talk (“She had the nerve to ask what kinda car I had / I said, ‘Honey, I’m ridin’ in back of a Rolls Royce limo / Custom-painted PLAID!’”) and not wish the man had just taken it for a spin himself.

Still, this is Prince at the height of his powers, and he’s doing the kind of immediately pleasurable pop-funk things that were in increasingly short supply on his own albums of the period. You can easily throw on side one at a party and it’ll keep things moving. Yet the minimal, synthy ballads tucked away on side two represent a better use of the Family’s powers. The sublime “Nothing Compares 2 U” makes its first appearance here, and despite being essentially thrown away (though Prince was wise enough to specifically retain the publishing on it), it is several orders of magnitude greater than anything else here. This rendition is even more austere than Prince’s demo or Sinead O’Connor’s later hit: the arrangement is reminiscent of the intro to “Let’s Go Crazy,” only this time we stay in the futuristic cathedral, with St. Paul and Melvoin harmonizing over dream sequence keys and piercing blasts of sax. Though it will never be considered the definitive version of the song, it stands on its own as an intriguing oddity and a fine example of the deconstructed forms Prince experimented with throughout his career.

As a post-script, it won’t be too long before Prince Beefology is as accepted an academic specialization as the feuds of Alexander Pope. Nearly all of Prince’s proteges eventually fell out with him, and the Artist’s petty reactions have the flavour of a restaurant owner freaking out because no one wants to work for minimum wage. You can hear him hissing disses at Morris Day low in the mix on “Mutiny”; when St. Paul himself split in 1985, Prince added the song to his tour setlist and led audience chants of “St. Paul, punk of the month” (Thirty years later, Peterson has at least found a way to have fun with it). I don’t know how well he ever really understood other people, which may’ve been why when he wrote for them it almost never left them in a position to enjoy their own success without his continued involvement.

The Family has only once been officially issued on CD and was never repressed on vinyl, so if you’re hunting for a copy you’ll have to score a vintage one. Fortunately, it’s common enough that you shouldn’t have to spend a mint on it. In the realm of Prince rarities, it could be a lot worse.

83/365

[ardathksheyna]

Looking Forward; Looking Back

I've hit that point in my life where I either returning to certain points in my past to pick up those parts of me that I left behind, or maybe it's me simply remembering all the personas I tried on over the years.

From 5th Grade until I dropped out in high-school, I was a band geek. Looking back on it, I now know that I was only a band geek because I wanted to impress my dad. Regardless of the reasons, being part of a school band and being involved in music was a valuable experience—one that gave me an ear for identifying musical styles, if nothing else.

Side-note: it seems to be a common progression for people who have music experience to go into software engineering. Purely anecdotal, though. I'm speaking from my own experiences, and those of people I went to college with. Either way—not bad for a high-school drop-out to become a software engineer, even though I did a lot of stumbling around.

So, fast-forward to sometime at the start of 2002 when I'd mostly forgotten all about school band—it had nearly been ten years as I had dropped out in '93.

Anyway, 2002 is when I first heard Stand Back by Stevie Nicks. That keyboard in the background sounded familiar but I couldn't put my finger on why it sounded familiar. At the time, I chalked it up to it being a huge part of it was that style was common in the mid '80s for reasons that I think we all know why.

It wasn't until 2016 that I'd learned that it was Prince playing keyboards on Stand Back. Then it fucking clicked and I realized why the keyboard work sounded so familiar. As for the other reason why it was familiar—the Minneapolis Sound is essentially what defined mid '80s R&B, and to a lesser extent, pop.

So aside from remembering my background in music, I wonder what other roles I've long since forgotten about that I'll relearn and resurrect as I get older?

[musiquariumology]

Watch "Another Lonely Christmas (Extended Version) (2017 Remaster)" on YouTube

[o-the-mts]

DEEP DIVE - Album Review: 1999 by Prince and the Revolution (1982)

I am doing a deep dive into the work of the musical artist Prince.  Each week until December I will post my thoughts on albums released by Prince (and his bands and side projects) focusing on one year of his career.  This week I’m reviewing 1999 from 1982. Album: 1999 Artist: Prince and the Revolution Release Date: October 27, 1982 Label: Warner Bros. Favorite Tracks: 1999 Little Red…