— Dave Rimmer
I turned six in the spring of '83 so I'm probably not the best judge but I can't believe that people were giving much thought to the millennium back then. I recall first hearing about the return of the Hong Kong colony to China a few years later — I was a news buff at a fairly young age — and thinking that 1997 was so way off in the future that it hardly merited consideration.The fact that the year 2000 and the millennium was approaching didn't occur to me until the mid-nineties when everyone began talking about Y2K and, in my pedantic family at least, how 2001 was the year everyone should be recognizing since "there wasn't a year zero". (It never occurred to us that there really had never been a year one either) But to adults it was fast approaching — assuming humanity was going to survive long enough to see it.
The Bomb was something everyone heard about back in the day but it wasn't something I was particularly afraid of. (I was far more scared of volcanoes, giant Pacific Northwest slugs and the hole in the Ozone layer) We never did nuclear war readiness drills in school and Communism may not have seemed quite so threatening at a time when the world of Reagan and Thatcher was so bleak. To the older generation, however, the threat of nuclear war was still very much in the air. While some went out and protested, others were getting down and enjoying those few precious days that they had left. People like Prince.
"1999" is the beginning of Prince's ascendancy to pop's aristocracy. The fun-sized genius had his moments prior to this (as Dave Rimmer mentions, "I Wanna Be Your Lover" is a prime example) but this is where he kicks off the work that he'll always be remembered for. I've long had mixed feelings towards him myself. I admire his willingness to do his thing without thought for anyone else, his immense talent and the fact that he was always so balls out prolific in an era when more and more of his contemporaries were going three or four or five years between albums. As for his music, his songs have never thrilled me quite as much as I feel they ought to (the closest was probably when I first heard either "When Does Cry" or "Purple Rain" and even then I was too young and weirded out by his image) and I've never been too crazy about his weedy voice. Is it too much of a backhanded compliment to suggest that he might be the ultimate artist just to have a nice, all-bases-covered greatest hits package?
Appearing on every good Prince compilation, "1999" is one of those ones I can happily give a listen to, even if I hadn't actually done so prior to this past week for well over a decade. Taking the same snappy melody that he would put to good use on "Manic Monday" a couple years later (I must say I'd never noticed the similarity until the other day but clearly others have picked up on it for some time), he and his soon-to-be-christened band The Revolution pump out a saucy funk rhythm that really provides the blueprints for the emerging new jack swing movement — Janet Jackson's still awesome Rhythm Nation being something repeated plays of this really put me in the mood for. Fantastic and something that Prince may have never bettered.
The end of the Cold War is now nearing its thirtieth anniversary but "1999" is still relevant due to the imminent threat of climate change. It's looking more and more as if the damage is irreversible and it's only going to get worse. Maybe it'll soon be time for humanity to accept that its days are numbered. Partying like it's 2999 might be all we have left.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
I turned six in the spring of '83 so I'm probably not the best judge but I can't believe that people were giving much thought to the millennium back then. I recall first hearing about the return of the Hong Kong colony to China a few years later — I was a news buff at a fairly young age — and thinking that 1997 was so way off in the future that it hardly merited consideration.The fact that the year 2000 and the millennium was approaching didn't occur to me until the mid-nineties when everyone began talking about Y2K and, in my pedantic family at least, how 2001 was the year everyone should be recognizing since "there wasn't a year zero". (It never occurred to us that there really had never been a year one either) But to adults it was fast approaching — assuming humanity was going to survive long enough to see it.
The Bomb was something everyone heard about back in the day but it wasn't something I was particularly afraid of. (I was far more scared of volcanoes, giant Pacific Northwest slugs and the hole in the Ozone layer) We never did nuclear war readiness drills in school and Communism may not have seemed quite so threatening at a time when the world of Reagan and Thatcher was so bleak. To the older generation, however, the threat of nuclear war was still very much in the air. While some went out and protested, others were getting down and enjoying those few precious days that they had left. People like Prince.
"1999" is the beginning of Prince's ascendancy to pop's aristocracy. The fun-sized genius had his moments prior to this (as Dave Rimmer mentions, "I Wanna Be Your Lover" is a prime example) but this is where he kicks off the work that he'll always be remembered for. I've long had mixed feelings towards him myself. I admire his willingness to do his thing without thought for anyone else, his immense talent and the fact that he was always so balls out prolific in an era when more and more of his contemporaries were going three or four or five years between albums. As for his music, his songs have never thrilled me quite as much as I feel they ought to (the closest was probably when I first heard either "When Does Cry" or "Purple Rain" and even then I was too young and weirded out by his image) and I've never been too crazy about his weedy voice. Is it too much of a backhanded compliment to suggest that he might be the ultimate artist just to have a nice, all-bases-covered greatest hits package?
Appearing on every good Prince compilation, "1999" is one of those ones I can happily give a listen to, even if I hadn't actually done so prior to this past week for well over a decade. Taking the same snappy melody that he would put to good use on "Manic Monday" a couple years later (I must say I'd never noticed the similarity until the other day but clearly others have picked up on it for some time), he and his soon-to-be-christened band The Revolution pump out a saucy funk rhythm that really provides the blueprints for the emerging new jack swing movement — Janet Jackson's still awesome Rhythm Nation being something repeated plays of this really put me in the mood for. Fantastic and something that Prince may have never bettered.
The end of the Cold War is now nearing its thirtieth anniversary but "1999" is still relevant due to the imminent threat of climate change. It's looking more and more as if the damage is irreversible and it's only going to get worse. Maybe it'll soon be time for humanity to accept that its days are numbered. Partying like it's 2999 might be all we have left.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Belle Stars: "Sign of the Times"
Between "1999" and Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" and Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" and U2's "New Year's Day" there may not have been a more quintessentially eighties singles review page in ver Hits than this fortnight's — even if they're offset by a reissue of The Beatles' "Please Please Me" and something called "Vintage English Rock & Roll" by That Hideous Strength, whoever they are. Missing out on the eighties retro nights, however, is The Belle Stars and their almost-a-future-Prince-song-title "Sign of the Times". The Belles had been a on cover version kick with their three previous singles and their penchant for studying the classics paid off grandly on this wonderfully catchy number. Rimmer is guardedly impressed, saying it's a "cover in disguise" and isn't especially into the spoken word bits but to these ears its an easy runner-up SOTF. The sound of The Belle Stars getting it right, even if only the once.
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