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Dirty Mind
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1999
Controversy
Warner Bros. Records
My sexual preferences really aren’t any of their business.
The album is so named because of the negative press the previous album Dirty Mind received for being so racy and Prince anticipating a similar response in that Controversy continues the sexual theme.
Controversy is an album of contrasting themes: both sexual and serious. It was because of these two themes the album was considered disjointed by critics of the day. Controversy sold 400,000 copies and peaked at number 21 in the Billboard charts. It was later certified Platinum by the RIAA. Annie Christian is the name of a character created by Prince to depict Satan and evil deeds (Annie Christian / Antichrist) and to make reference to key events of the day, in particular gun control (the murder of 28 African-American children in Atlanta, and the shooting of John Lennon: Prince had been performing at The Ritz in New York for the Dirty Mind Tour on the day of the murder).
Performers
- All instruments
- Prince
- Keyboards
- Matt "Dr." Fink Jack U Off
- Drums
- Bobby Z. Jack U Off
Data
- Producer
- Prince
- Label
- Warner Bros. Records
- Distributor
- Warner Bros. Records
- Cover Art
- Allen Beaulieu
- Released
- 38 years ago, on 13 November 1981
- Running Time
- 37:18
- US Chart Peak
- 21
- UK Chart Peak
- -
- Prince Album
- #4
Tracklist
- Controversy (7:14) 1
- Sexuality (4:20)
- Do Me, Baby (7:47) 1 2
- Private Joy (4:25)
- Ronnie, Talk To Russia [feat. Lisa Coleman] (1:48)
- Let's Work (3:57) 1
- Annie Christian (4:21)
- Jack U Off (3:12)
1 Released as singles.
2 Written by André Cymone.
Singles from Controversy
Controversy
Warner Bros. Records
- Released
- 2 September 1981
- US Chart Peak
- 70
- UK Chart Peak
- -
- Controversy [Edit] (3:35)
- When You Were Mine (3:44)
Sexuality
Warner Bros. Records
- Released
- 14 October 1981
- US Chart Peak
- No Release
- UK Chart Peak
- No Release
- Sexuality (4:20)
- Controversy [Edit] (3:35)
Let's Work
Warner Bros. Records
- Released
- 6 January 1982
- US Chart Peak
- 104
- UK Chart Peak
- -
- Let's Work [Edit] (2:56)
- Ronnie Talk To Russia [feat. Lisa Coleman] (1:48)
Do Me, Baby
Warner Bros. Records
- Released
- 16 July 1982
- US Chart Peak
- -
- UK Chart Peak
- No Release
- Do Me, Baby [Edit] (3:57)
- Private Joy (4:25)
Supporting tour
Controversy – review
We enter uncharted territory for non-Prince fans. It is for some impossible to imagine that Prince existed before his 1999 album. Yet there was not only life but a glorious one it was too. Controversy is both massively and foolishly overlooked. Considered by many as an album with a split personality Prince underlines the roots that would in later albums superbly fuse black with white music in a way that would redefine modern music. The title track, still able to pack a punch even today, sets the album back off down the same controversial path where the very dirty, Dirty Mind left us in 1980. Prince lets his pervy side rear its head with Sexuality and Jack U Off, to then slow down nicely with Do Me, Baby. The album then changes theme to the issues of the day: Cold War (Ronnie Talk To Russia) and gun control (the perplexing Annie Christian). However the top tracks are wonderful, Private Joy and the rallying Let’s Work. Controversy is fun, raucous and charged, laying the way to propel Prince out of obscurity. And although the subject matter is of its time, the album has not dated at all. The albums got more serious after this so consider the two-faced Controversy the evolutionary creature before Prince’s Revolutionary age.
Controversy is reviewed by Goldies Parade.
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