Track Listing

1. I Wanna Be Your Lover
2. Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad
3. Sexy Dancer
4. When We're Dancing Close And Slow
5. With You
6. Bambi
7. Still Waiting
8. I Feel For You
9. It's Gonna Be Lonely

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41219 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
Like his 1978 debut, FOR YOU, Prince composed, played, sang, produced and arranged all the songs on his 1979 follow-up,simply titled PRINCE. While PRINCE features a number of great dance songs, it also gave his future audience an idea of what they could expect from a talent many consider the finest pop composer of the 1980s. Barely into his 20's, Prince already possessed a remarkable musical vocabulary and subterranean understanding of an untold number of musical genres--ones he was rapidly combining in a way no one had heard before. On the rocker "Bambi", Prince shows off his dazzling, heavy metal-styled guitar work, while on "Still Waiting" and thenow-pop standard "I Feel For You", he displays the kind of gentleness reminiscent of the best of Smokey Robinson or Stevie Wonder.
Though PRINCE did yield the #1 R&B hit, "I Wanna Be Your Lover"--it also cracked the Top 40 on the pop charts--it wasn't until his next release that his highness truly captured the American consciousness. PRINCE stands as a remarkable release by an emerging talent of immeasurable innovation.

Customer Reviews

"The first real Prince album!"
This was the first Prince album released in the UK, and the second released in the States. The first in the states was "For You", but this is a much better album than that. It contains the R&B classic "I Wanna Be Your Lover", but the most catchy song on the album is "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" It is a pure example that showed how Prince would exploed in the 1980's. Also featured on this album that was not released as a single but should have been is "I Feel For You", which would end being Chaka Khan's biggest hit worldwide. Two other great songs to note are "With You", which Prince would give Jill Jones to perform 8 years later. Last, but not least, is "Still Waiting". That's a highlight for the then young 21 year old at the time. A unique album. Thanks for reading.

More interesting then anything else.
Prince (his second album) provides a fascinating listening experience,particularly coming to it after the acknowledged run of classic LPs from 1980's Dirty Mind to 1987's Sign O' The Times.
You can see the makings of a genius songwriter in some of the songs here-the poppy likes of I Wanna Be Your Lover (extended 3 minutes longer than the single version),Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad? and especially the brilliant Bambi which combines heavy metal guitar with falsetto and a lyric in which Prince attempts to 'turn' a lesbian.There is enough here to show why Warner Bros. agreed to give him complete artistic control,despite one or two bogstandard efforts towards the end.

Prince's second album is one that should not go unoticed...
Prince's self-titled album is the follow up to his debut 'For You'.
But whilst 'For You' was an album which Prince spent month after month trying to perfect, 'Prince' is an album that was recorded and over-dubbed in six weeks and cost half as much to produce, resulting in an excellent album that has a sparse, lean sound.

In many ways the songs on the album follow the same blueprint as those on 'For You', what's different though is the melodies...they're stronger than before and instantly recognisable.
The actual range of the music on 'Prince' also stands out; ballads, acoustic numbers, guitar-driven rockers, and Prince's first ever all-out-funk song...Prince goes through alot of styles in one album, as fans would know.

The one song that may stand out most to the majority of people would be 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' , which became Prince's first chart hit, a pop-funk song with a wonderully simple yet catchy guitar hook, the track ends with a nice little instrumental coda which echoes what was soon to be known as the 'Minneapolis Sound'.

'Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?' was the album's second release, it didn't fare as well as 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' on the charts though, which is a shame because it's an excellent track very similar to the opening cut, but the main difference is that the guitar dominates here rather than playing simple fills in the background.

'Sexy Dancer' , as stated above, is Prince's first funk number.
Driven by a terrific bassline and interspersed with everything from handclaps to heavy breathing, the track remains one of the standout songs on the album and what it lacks in lyrical quality it more than makes up for in pure-purple-funkiness.
As impressive is 'Bambi'; a track which has become a fan favourite over the years and is probably Prince's first ever truly great rock song. Opening with a powerful guitar riff the track contains screaming guitar passages and frenzied vocals from Prince.

Of the two conventional ballads on the album, 'When We're Dancing Close & Slow' is by far the most impressive.
A wonderully intimate song, the track is very simple containing little more than nice little piano trickles, and a lovely acoustic guitar hook but it remains one of Prince's most outstanding ballads from his early years.
'With You' (the albums second ballad) is drenched in sweetness and is probably the weakest track on the album, but it does contain a great vocal performance from Prince and it is an undeniably charming song.

'Still Waiting' is one of those Prince songs that you can't help but smile when you hear it. Sung very, very well; the track is a simplistic, mid-tempo ballad and is the catchiest song on the album.

That brings us now to, what I feel to be, the two strongest songs on the album: 'I Feel For You' and 'It's Gonna Be Lonely'.
'I Feel For You' (made famous by Chaka Khan) is a classic pop-funk song filled with some excellent keyboard work from Prince and it's hard to see why it wasn't chosen to be released as a single.
'It's Gonna Be Lonely' starts out as a subdued ballad and eventually builds to a powerful climax through some, again, brilliant vocal work from Prince. The track has a full sound unlike some of the other tracks and is (barring 'Bambi') the punchiest song on the record.

As an album 'Prince' is indefinitly more impressive than ANY other record around at its time and it remains one of Prince's most underrated albums ever. I urge anyone to buy it.