Prince - Prince

As an opening to Prince's music, at least outside of my minimal experience with the artist broadly speaking, this self titled debut oozes with some of the disco and funk-inspired R&B that was coming out of this time period. Prince differentiates himself from an obvious pop comparison like Michael Jackson, however, in many ways.

One of the biggest differences in Prince's sound was the infusion of rock-based guitar, like the shredding finale of the track Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad? or the hard rock of Bambi. The fact that Prince so early in his career is already piecing together a ton of elements that not only would pervade his own sound but would start to rear into popular music is worth praising the artist for. The additional portion of this is just how many developed sounds he is able to collect into one album, and even at times one song. He bucks all concepts of genre with funk, rock, pop, soul, and again even the ever-present disco portions of the late 70s. All these regions of sound actually come together in a way that doesn't feel forced; Prince just sounds like he's making the music he wants to make and is having a sexy fun time with it.

Not everything had come together quite yet. Prince wasn't the most dynamic vocalist, from my perspective, at this point in his career. He had some audacious sound, to be sure, and was absolutely teeming with energy from every end imaginable. But there are certainly points where it doesn't sound like Prince had full control over just how far he could take his eccentric vocal range and could have gone even deeper into his wild nature.

The seeds were planted on this self-titled album. Prince was on his way up, to be certain. It wouldn't be until the 80s that he would become a mega-star, but I'm almost certain a few heads were turned on this album leading up to the decade he would take over.

Favorite track: Bambi