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Controversy Prince album
Warner Bros. Records
albumThy will be done.
Prince titled his fourth album Controversy in response to the negative press levied on his previous LP Dirty Mind for being so overtly racy, and in anticipation of a similar reception with Controversy. The title track daringly inserts the Lord’s Prayer as a verse, the first time it had appeared in popular music let alone at the halfway point of a deep groove funk track. Whilst sex remained Prince’s central theme, Controversy juxtaposes two contrasting narratives: sex and political commentary. The album was branded disjointed when reviewed in the music press of the day. Being that Controversy was the first album under his newly extended contract with Warner Bros Records, its intent was to pivot Prince toward the white mainstream with a deliberately refreshed stylistic approach.
After writing much of the album while on the road with Dirty Mind Tour, Prince spent the spring and summer of 1981 laying down tracks for Controversy, his first solo project recorded at his ranch Kiowa Trail home studio on Lake Riley, Minnesota, where he lived from 1981 to 1985. Final mixing was carried out at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, when he recorded Private Joy as the album’s late addition. This was also the first song Prince created using his newly acquired Linn LM-1 drum sampler, an expensive piece of kit and which became an iconic feature in his output for many years.
Like his previous albums, Prince plays all the instruments solo, excepting Jack U Off which was recorded with his touring band. The first track recorded for Controversy, Do Me, Baby was a co-creation by Prince (who wrote the lyrics) and his first band member André Cymone (creating the melody) in February 1978 during those formative studio sessions as jobbing musicians for 94 East. Cymone quit Prince’s band in the summer of 1981 and was thereby denied writing credit for Do Me, Baby in the album’s cover. The recording sessions moved to Hollywood Sound Recorders in August 1981 to rework the tracks Let’s Work, Jack U Off, Do Me, Baby and Ronnie, Talk To Russia.
Controversy produced three commercial singles: Controversy, Let’s Work and Do Me, Baby, although only the title track managed to chart. Albeit peaking at 70 in the Billboard Hot 100, Controversy landed the top spot in the Disco chart and scored Prince his first ever number one single. Impressively, it held the position for six weeks. A fourth single Sexuality backed with Controversy received limited released in West Germany, Australia and Japan on 16 October 1981 but failed to chart.
In what initially appeared to be a stroke of convenient timing, a few days prior to the release of Controversy, The Rolling Stones had booked Prince as opening act for their two LA dates at the Memorial Coliseum as part of their US tour promoting Tattoo You. The first show was staged on 9 October 1981 but Prince was poorly received by the predominately white-rock audience and was ruthlessly pelted with food and bottles, forcing him and the band offstage after a few songs. Prince immediately flew back home to Minneapolis, and required a call from Mick Jagger himself to convince him to return to play the second gig. Prince did come back for the 11 October show but was again was booed from the stage quick into his setlist. Controversy went on sale three days later on 14 October 1981 and was supported by the Controversy Tour which launched on 20 November.
The Memorial Coliseum ordeal appeared to galvanised Prince to rethink his stage act, and his subsequent Controversy Tour introduced all the theatrical hallmarks of his future touring shows. With Prince still at the fringes of mainstream music, in 1981 Controversy sold 400,000 units and peaked at number 21 in the Billboard album chart, and at number 3 in the R&B equivalent. Controversy eventually certified Platinum on 11 January 1985 on surpassing 1 million sales due to Prince’s later success with Purple Rain. The same sequence of events happened in the UK, whereas although Controversy did not make its album chart his subsequent international fame sparked a surge of interest in his back catalogue and fuelled steady sales of the LP and its eventual certification from the BPI on achieving Silver status on 17 November 1989. This certification was eventually upgraded to Gold on 17 March 2014.
The political narrative of Controversy was introduced to present Prince as a more socially conscious artist, opposed to sexual hedonism that occupied his previous material. This is led with the track Annie Christian, a fictional character created by Prince to depict Satan and evil deeds (Annie Christian / Antichrist) in reference to the main topical events of the day – particularly gun control amid the backdrop of the high profile two year-long murder spree across Atlanta that claimed the lives of 28 African-American children, and the 8 December 1980 shooting of John Lennon, as well as the assassination attempt on President Regan on 30 March 1981. The death of Lennon left a profound affect on Prince, having performed his Dirty Mind Tour at The Ritz in Manhattan on the day of Lennon’s murder. Controversy also notes the global geopolitical situation, which in Ronnie, Talk To Russia Prince appeals to the president to de-escalate the growing threat of nuclear Armageddon with the Soviet Union. Let’s Work gives a nod to the Afro-America community of Minneapolis and was worked into an extended version by Morris Day and released as a single, although failed to chart. Its B-side reissued Gotta Stop (Messin’ About) a studio outtake from Prince’s preceding album. Sexuality expands the theme of sexual freedom set with Prince’s third LP Dirty Mind, the lewd fascinations continue in Do Me, Baby, Private Joy and Jack U Off.
Controversy marks the evolutionary point in Prince career, pivoting him toward his major breakthrough with 1999 which not only struck the mainstream but with its following LP, influenced the next decade of music. In this moment Jamie Starr was born, the pseudonym under which Prince produced and developed spin-off acts The Time and Vanity 6 to test his expanding output without risk to his own accelerating career and build his own genre of electro-funk – the ‘Minneapolis sound’. Controversy is therefore a seminal record. Critics may have not warmed to Controversy at the time, in subsequent years the dismissive attitude toward it has softened. In July 2022, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the title track nineteenth in their 200 greatest dance songs of all time, remarking it as “Prince’s most outright stomping groove, with quicksilver guitar flurries at the groove’s edges that make everything glide.” Prince’s quazi-political, sound experimenting fourth LP stood the artist on the precipice of stardom, and 80s music was never the same again.
Cover story
Prince is stood in front of a collection of fabricated newspaper headlines glued to the background setup at his home in Chanhassen, in this iconic shot taken by Allen Beaulieu who art worked Prince’s fake headlines for ‘The Controversy Daily’. Beaulieu also snapped the cover photos for Dirty Mind and Vanity 6 and the first two albums for The Time. Prince’s relationship with Beaulieu was close, his work is later seen on the cover of Piano & A Microphone 1983. The very first shot captured in this session was the one chosen for the Controversy album cover, albeit the original photo was touched up to give Prince and smoother complexion and a warm filter added. The newspaper clippings behind Prince set out a more sophisticated narrative for the album, a creative departure from its sex-fused predecessor Dirty Mind. Bare chests and thongs gone, this time Prince is smartly dressed sporting a shirt and trench coat (bespoke creations by Andre Cymone’s sister Sylvia) – he wears make-up in the look of a dandy New Romantic, which soon became the hallmark of The Revolution era. Packaged with the LP was the notorious folded poster of Prince drenched and naked, except for a posing pouch, in his home shower, shot by Beaulieu.
Performers
- Vocals / all Instr
- Prince
- Keyboards
- Matt "Dr." Fink Jack U Off
- Lisa Coleman Jack U Off
- Drums
- Bobby Z. Jack U Off
Data
- Producer
- Prince
- Label
- Warner Bros. Records
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records
- Cover/Design
- Allen Beaulieu
- Released
- 44 years ago on 14 October 1981
- Reissued
- 4 February 2022
- Running Time
- 37:18
- US Chart Peak
- 21
- US R&B Peak
- 3
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- Prince Album
- #4
- Orig. Formats
-
Tracklist
- Controversy [feat. Lisa Coleman] (7:14)
- Sexuality (4:20)
- Do Me, Baby (7:47) 1
- Private Joy (4:25)
- Ronnie, Talk To Russia [feat. Lisa Coleman] (1:48)
- Let's Work (3:57)
- Annie Christian (4:21)
- Jack U Off [feat. Lisa Coleman] (3:12)
Released as a single
1 Lyrics by André Cymone.
Singles from Controversy
Controversy
Warner Bros. Records
- Released
- 2 September 1981
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 70
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- Cover/Art
- Allen Beaulieu
- Format
-
- Controversy [Edit] (3:35)
- When You Were Mine (3:44)
Controversy
Warner Bros. Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 9 October 1981
- Distribution
- WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- No Release
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- Cover/Art
- Allen Beaulieu
- Format
-
- Controversy (7:14)
- When You Were Mine (3:44)
Let's Work
Warner Bros. Records
- Released
- 6 January 1982
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 104
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- Cover/Art
- Allen Beaulieu
- Format
-
- Let's Work [Edit] (2:56)
- Ronnie Talk To Russia [feat. Lisa Coleman] (1:48)
Let's Work
Warner Bros. Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 17 February 1982
- Distribution
- WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- No Release
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- Cover/Art
- Allen Beaulieu
- Format
-
- Let’s Work [Dance Remix] [extended version by Morris Day] (8:02)
- Ronnie, Talk To Russia [feat. Lisa Coleman] (1:48)
Let's Work
Warner Bros. Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 17 February 1982
- US Chart Peak
- 104
- UK Chart Peak
- No Release
- Cover/Art
- Allen Beaulieu
- Format
-
- Let’s Work [Dance Remix] [extended version by Morris Day] (8:02)
- Gotta Stop (Messin’ About) (2:55)
Do Me, Baby
Warner Bros. Records
- Released
- 16 July 1982
- US Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- UK Chart Peak
- No Release
- Cover/Art
- Generic sleeve
- Format
-
- Do Me, Baby [Edit] (3:57)
- Private Joy (4:25)
Supporting tour
Controversy album review
It is for some impossible to imagine Prince existed before his 1999 album. There was not only life before 1982 but a bold generation at that. Controversy is both massively and foolishly underrated. Considered by many as an album with a split personality, Prince underlines the roots that in later LPs superbly fused black with white music in a way which would redefine modern music. Simply put, Controversy is the seminal moment which stood Prince at the verge of global stardom. The title track, still able to pack a punch today, daringly throws in The Lord’s Prayer to set out to cause controversy, not in a blasphemous way but so delightfully sensual. In that vein Controversy follows the same path where the very dirty Dirty Mind left off in 1980. Prince lets his pervy side rip with Sexuality and Jack U Off, to then slow with the soft Do Me, Baby. In the drive to be arty, Controversy tackles the hot topics of the day: Cold War (Ronnie, Talk To Russia) and gun control (the perplexing Annie Christian). The top tracks are the fun Private Joy and the rallying Let’s Work. Controversy is equally raucous and serious and laid way to propel Prince from fringe obscurity. Although the subject matter is of its time, the album is not dated at all.
The music is funky and the theme is freedom, Prince LPs got more serious after this. Post Dirty Mind, Prince had become an underground music celeb in the making. With Controversy his path to stardom was at a crossroads. What direction would be next? 1999 and stardom of course! Consider the two-faced Controversy the purple evolutionary creature before Prince’s truly Revolutionary age.
Controversy is rated 4 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.
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