5 keepers
keeper avg .625
With only 8 songs at just over 30 minutes there's little room for fluff on Prince's third album. On the title song****, "Do It All Night"****, and "Uptown"**** Prince enhances his energetic disco (of "I Feel For You") with new wave synth that would set the course for pop music for next decade. On the appropriately funky (and lyrically on-the-nose) "Head"**** Prince holds back instrumentally most of the time for greater emphasis, only to equal Jimi Hendrix for sonic aggression with a scorcher of a synth solo, a rare feat (or let's say it's what Hendrix might have been doing if he was born 15 years later). On the similar but topical "Partyup"**** Prince chants the song's ending breakdown "You gonna have to fight your own damn war 'Cause we don't wanna fight no more," driving home the song's political message ("They got the draft I just laugh, party up, Fightin' war is such a fuckin' bore, party up"). Not that what's on Prince's mind is ever a question, as his lyrics referencing threesomes, oral sex, and incest would influence increasingly explicit lyrics in mainstream music (it is said).
The remaining three songs kind of alternate to break up the dance party a little, slowing down with the relaxed 60's soul "Gotta Broken Heart Again" and the restrained 50's rock "When You Were Mine." In contrast, "Sister" is played at punk tempo, and actually closely resembles Queen's (pre-punk) "Sheer Heart Attack" (yes, Queen started recording that song in 1974). As Prince recorded nearly all the instruments on the album himself (like all Prince albums before Purple Rain) there's a sameness (or consistency) to the songs sonically speaking - a minor quibble as that in itself is impressive.
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