— 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 and that the calendar is a fabrication but that's a whole other matter) 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, that huge hole in the Ozone Layer and those disgusting slugs on the coast of British Columbia) 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. I can take him in small doses but that's about enough. I can't pretend to like him more than that even if it flies in the face of the critical consensus.
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 since the last time I dealt with it in this space. 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 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 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, that huge hole in the Ozone Layer and those disgusting slugs on the coast of British Columbia) 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. I can take him in small doses but that's about enough. I can't pretend to like him more than that even if it flies in the face of the critical consensus.
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 since the last time I dealt with it in this space. 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 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.
It's odd to think there was a time when one might mistake a Prince record for the organization which Michael Jackson was still ostensibly a member of but it's not quite as crazy as it seems at first glance. For one thing, the sweet, brotherly harmonies of the Jackson 5 may have given them an impressive run of hits in the early part of the seventies but jump forward a decade later and their work had become much more individual. There's also the fact that the vocals on "1999" are divided up between Prince and Revolution members Coleman, Dez Dickerson and Jill Jones. (For my part, I thought it was a trio of singers, not being award of Jones at all; this tells you how much of a Prince fan I am!) Given that the Purple Perv was already known for playing a multitude of instruments and it probably wouldn't have surprised people to discover he was something of a control freak, hearing him share the singing might have surprised a few people. Why would one assume it to be Prince at all? I wouldn't necessarily have guessed the Jacksons but I understand the confusion.
The end of the Cold War is now past 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.
The end of the Cold War is now past 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 Weekend
Kajagoogoo: "Too Shy"
Given that he has to be dragged from the spotlight, it's impossible to imagine Limahl being Too Shy in any situation. (Exactly how many lame British reality shows hosted by Ant & Dec has he been in so far? I honestly have no idea but I'd bet it's in the several "range") Good thing, then, that he's singing about someone else so good on him for not pretending to be the vulnerable, Prince-sized vocalist lost in a sea of much taller and more musical bandmates. And about the rest of Kajagoogoo: well done to that lot for not being the typical above-all-this-pop-nonsense prog rockers that the likes of Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones clearly were; the video makes it look like they're enjoying themselves just as much as Limahl himself. And well done for having a UK number one and a pretty big hit around the world which is still well-remembered to this day. All that said, "Too Shy" isn't all that good. Rimmer hates it but I just mildly dislike it. But, as I say, well done to all concerned.
(Click here to see my original review)
