Today’s disc is the 1988 single from Prince – Alphabet St. I’m guessing this record was once in a plain black sleeve because I don’t think I ever had a picture cover for it. I didn’t buy it in the ’80s, probably more like the early ’90s for DJing purposes. I know some people are devoted Prince fans (the live shows were amazing, fans will tell you) but to be honest I’ve not, as yet, been quite that way inclined. I remember my brother loving Little Red Corvette when it came out in 1983 (and it was played at a sister’s funeral in 2022 so it’s obviously a family favourite) but to be honest a good part of Prince’s music from that era did very little for me (ditto a lot of 1980s music really). I’ve always liked some of his individual songs and I tried to watch the film Purple Rain around 1984 but didn’t make it to the end. Did anyone?
On the whole it’s Prince’s funk tracks, like Alphabet St., that I’ve most enjoyed*. I can’t remember when or how we bought it but this one was something we played a lot when we were booked to DJ in smaller rooms in clubs (backrooms, bars etc.). With the main room full of house, trance or whatever, on the whole people wanted something different in the smaller room and DJs tried various ways of approaching this. Some just played what we (in the record shop) called ‘backroom classics’. These were tried and tested disco classics and pop faves from across the ages like Shannon’s Let the Music Play and Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell. In the record shop we joked about making up backroom classics ready-to-go packs to sell to people who’d just got their first booking for a smaller room (snidey yes, but that’s practically in the job description when you work in a record shop). Daisy and I tried to avoid playing too many of the obvious tunes (not unusual, lots of DJs do that) but it could be tricky to find things that didn’t feel overplayed but that still made people whoop and holler (that’s the kind of club we played in most often – whoopy hollery places). This track though – funky as hell but not particularly played in clubs (that I heard in the 1990s anyway):
A short and sweet post today – back tomorrow with a Bristol accent.
*If you’re interested my other favourite Prince tracks are probably Sign o’ the Times, U Got the Look, Kiss (that was played a lot in clubs, the original and covers) and If I Was Your Girlfriend. I’m also partial to the sort of sister song to that one that came along a few years later (If I Were A Boy by Beyonce). I looked it up just now and found it was written by Toby Gad and singer/songwriter BC Jean (it was written for the latter to record for her own album – hear her singing it here, quite a different version). BC Jean is also in a band with and married to Mark Ballas (son of Shirley, judge on the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing TV show) so it would seem that everything comes back to Strictly (I wrote far too many posts about the show, another family favourite, back here).
For the first intro post to this series of discs go here.
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