Updating this blog is not my favorite thing to do. So to encourage myself to blog more often and keep my folks updated on what’s going ons with me, I’m gonna start making lists when I can’t think of anything else to write about. Look for more lists in the future! (If you have a potential topic, please e-mail me, because I run out of ideas pretty fast and I can imagine sometime pretty soon writing “Top 5 Favorite Top 5 Lists.”)

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If you know me, then you know I have an affinity for the musician Prince. It’s a little weird, because I can’t really identify what speaks to me so much about his music besides its awesome-ness. So there’s really no better topic for my first list than my favorite songs by Prince.

In descending order (scroll to the bottom for an imeem.com playlist, if you have an imeem account, you can hear every song.):

10. Musicology (2004)
For a long time, Prince’s main flaw – at least to me – was his misunderstanding of hip hop. Although he rapped in songs dating back to the 1990s, he was pretty terrible at it. This song was like his signal to the world that he was through trying to “get” hip hop, and return to what he knows best, and that’s funk. He namechecks Doug E Fresh, Chuck D and Jam Master Jay, and how they appreciate(d) the real old school like Sly, James Brown, and Earth, Wind & Fire. And that bass groove is so filthy and clean at the same time.

9. Let’s Go Crazy (1984)
I wasn’t gonna put years down, but when I noticed the first two songs on this list were released 20 years apart, I felt like I needed to acknowledge that Prince has been the man for like my entire lifetime. Everything about this song is dope, from the spoken word intro that makes no sense and the organ flourishes, then the drum machine kicks in, then that rockin guitar riff…I could describe the whole song to you, but if you get it, then you get it. And if you don’t, then you are a disgrace.

8. Cream (1991)
This was not among my favorite Prince songs until I saw him in concert a few years ago. You know, I always thought of this song with like backup dancers and him making bedroom eyes at everyone in his vicinity and stuff, but at the show, he sat on a rotating stool alone on stage and accompanied himself on acoustic guitar – and that was it. And the part in the song when he goes “You are fine” – and the audience sang along with him, he stopped and goes “I can tell you really mean that don’t you?” At that point, I felt like the radio dj that Chris Rock plays in the movie “Pootie Tang,” when he starts breaking up his studio and yelling “Pootie too good! Pootie too good!”

To make it even more g, he claims he wrote it front of a mirror, so apparently it’s about himself.

7. Adore (1987)
This is not really one of his most memorable or anthemic songs. “Darling Nikki” almost made it onto this list, but I decided because that song is about resentment and serves to spill dirty secrets, it could stand to count in my Top 20 instead of Top 10, you know? So on the flip, “Adore” is all about love. I think what is so amazing to me about this is that it’s lyrically pretty weak (“heavenly angels crying up above/ tears of joy pouring down on us”) but it’s the vocal delivery that makes it. That dude really sounds in love! And just like real love, it ain’t all serious neither, like when he says he’d forgive her for anything, she could even “smash up my ride…well maybe not the ride.” Ha!

6. How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? (1993, but recorded in 1982)
I know Alicia Keys covered this song at Prince’s invitation. (He was upset though that she used a swear word in her version.) I have never heard it. As much as I like Alicia Keys, I really think Prince’s version could not possibly be improved upon. It’s a good example of his versatility, he can do the banging dance stuff and the rock anthem stuff, and the slithery funk stuff, but he can also do stripped-down straight SING stuff. DAMN. I know I’m supposed to be pretty good with words and stuff, but I can’t describe this.

5. Purple Rain (1984)
I surprised myself that this is ranked so low for me. But I think this is the greatest rock anthem in history. I feel like I could write a thesis about this song, but the short version of my theory is that it is his attempt to make real life connections with the people around him the only way he knows how, which is by singing about them. It’s just the only way he knows how to get across a full range of emotion.

When he closed the halftime show at the Super Bowl with this a few years ago, I didn’t watch the rest of the game, because as far as I was concerned, both teams already lost to Prince.

4. Little Red Corvette (1983)
“I guess I shoulda known by the way you parked your car sideways that it wouldn’t last.” Man, tha’ts how you start a song, isn’t it? And the gutteral scream he lets out a little past halfway through, he just uses his voice perfectly here. (I am aware that the closer I get to my favorite Prince song, the more incoherent and fanboy-ish these get. Whatever hater.)

3. Nothing Compares 2 U (1993)
Sinead O’Connor’s version is very good, but as good as it is, it does Not Compare 2 Prince’s version. He wrote this song for the Family in the 80s, O’Connor redid it in 1990, and Prince didn’t release a version of it until the live duet with Rosie Gaines came out in 1993. So even though it was the last one to come out, it is the definitive version for me. Kinda funny, because Rosie is actually the star of the show. Like that part where she gets egged on by Prince: “He said ‘Rosie, try and have fun no matter what you do – [can you tell me why?] – cuz he-e-e-e-e-e’s a fool.” Wooooooooo damn!

2. Beautiful Ones (1984)
Damn! This song starts out with that mellifluous falsetto he uses so well, but by the end every word he screams is dripping with anguish. I don’t know of any other song that includes such opposite emotions. (“One Mic” by Nas hinted at this kind of contrast, but the gulf between soft and hard in that song doesn’t come close to the one here.) “Do you want him! Or do you want me! Cuz I want you!” DAMN.

1. I Would Die 4 U (1984)
I think this song is perfect.

Tags: music

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