Ex Post Facto: Albums That Your Aunt Listened to While Taking a Sexy Bath
By Ji H Chong
A&F Editor

Prince
1999
Warner Brothers
1983

"I was dreamin' when I wrote this / Forgive me if it goes astray"

Music is really the most versatile art form out there. Well, unless you want to be a pretentious pseudo-intellectual and tautologically claim art is everything and everything is art. I don't even know what I just said but I used some big words - hooray for my liberal arts edjumacation!

Anyway, music can be used to make super-intelligent babies that will eventually grow up to become the Alpha rulers of a brave new world.

It can also be used to wage aural war on adversaries who have holed themselves up in the ruins of Helms Deep. Smoke them out with really bad music is the idea. After all, as Sun Tzu says in The Art of War, "The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities ... It is best to win without fighting." Although if you grow weary of waiting, it's also totally cool to set the fortress ablaze and wait for the occupants trapped inside to die a horrible flaming death.

Prince, who is one of two black people living in Minnesota according to Chris Rock, truly understood how music could capture and reflect both the best and worst of our predetermined, insignificant lives. At first listen, 1999 may seem to be a one-dimensional 70 minute pick-up line from the artist who I'm pretty sure is once again called Prince but it is oh so much more.

1999 kicks off with "1999," contrary to common industry practice to put the songs that will receive the heaviest play at slot 5 (see The Chronic - "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang;" Like Water for Chocolate - "The Light;" Stankonia - "Ms. Jackson") or slot 7 (see Bad - "Man in the Mirror;" Pinkerton - "El Scorcho") or especially slot 10 (see Doggystyle - "Who Am I (What's My Name)?;" Chocolate Factory - "Ignition (Remix);" Presents the Carnival Featuring the Refugee Allstars - "Gone Till November;" Ready to Die - "Juicy"). One of the preceding songs is not like the others, guessing which one would be so much fun, hun (as they might say in Dundalk, Maryland).

Anyway, "1999" obviously is most fresh in our collective memory from when radio stations the world over played the song much more frequently than usual during the Gregorian calendar year of 1999. In celebration of New Year's especially, but also in celebration of graduation from high school (SENIORS!), celebration of birthdays, and celebration of desperate drunken debauchery in clubs, shameless DJs shamelessly played the song over and over as a mere party song to get people moving.

But "1999"includes lyrics such as "But when I woke up this mornin' / Coulda sworn it was judgment day / The sky was all purple / there were people runnin' everywhere / Tryin' to run from the destruction."

True, "1999" is ostensibly a musical statement of a "Carpe Diem" ethos but serious issues including war and racism simmer beneath the facade of upbeat tempo and overt sexuality throughout the album.

In his allmusic.com review of 1999, Stephen Thomas Erlewine describes "Lady Cab Driver" as the "culmination of all of his [Prince's] sexual fantasies," but Erlewine must not have listened to what Prince actually says during the song. Although the bridge features sensuous moaning as a background accompaniment, the lyrics actually go "This is for the cab you have to drive for no money at all / This is for why I wasn't born like my brother, handsome and tall / This is for politicians who are bored and believe in war ... / This is for discrimination and egotists who think supreme."

Don't worry though, 1999 isn't all that serious. After having fed myself a steady diet over the past three months of melancholy soul and R&B songs where someone wished it would rain to hide the tears or someone was going half crazy because he couldn't get a lady out of his mind, it was refreshing to hear the Artist do what he does best in "International Lover:"

"Good evening. This is your pilot Prince speaking. / You're flying aboard the Seduction 747 / And this plane is fully equipped with anything your body desires / If for any reason there is a loss in cabin pressure / I will automatically drop down to apply more."