Controversy (Prince album)
Controversy is the fourth studio album by American recording artist Prince, released on October 14, 1981 by Warner Bros. Records, it was produced by Prince, written by him, he performed most of the instruments on its recording. Controversy opens with the title track, which raises questions that were being asked about Prince at the time, including his race and sexuality; the song "flirts with blasphemy" by including a chant of The Lord's Prayer. "Do Me, Baby" is an "extended bump-n-grind" ballad with explicitly sexual lyrics, "Ronnie, Talk to Russia" is a politically charged plea to President Ronald Reagan. "Private Joy" is a bouncy bubblegum pop-funk tune, "showing off Prince's lighter side", followed by "Annie Christian", which lists historical events such as the murder of African-American children in Atlanta and the death of John Lennon. The album's final song, is a synthesized rockabilly-style track; this was the first of his albums to associate Prince with the color purple as well as the first to use sensational spelling in his song titles.
In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone magazine, music critic Stephen Holden wrote that "Prince's first three records were so erotically self-absorbed that they suggested the reveries of a licentious young libertine. On Controversy, that libertine proclaims unfettered sexuality as the fundamental condition of a new, more loving society than the bellicose, overtechnologized America of Ronald Reagan." He went on to say, "Despite all the contradictions and hyperbole in Prince's playboy philosophy, I still find his message refreshingly relevant." Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic in a favorable review for The Village Voice, in which he wrote that its "socially conscious songs are catchy enough, but they spring from the mind of a rather confused young fellow, while his politics get better when he sticks to his favorite subject, s-e-x, nothing here is as far-out and on-the-money as'Head' or'Sister' or the magnificent'When You Were Mine.'"According to Blender magazine's Keith Harris, Controversy is "Prince's first attempt to get you to love him for his mind, not just his body", as it "refines the propulsive funk of previous albums and adds treatises on religion, nuclear war and Abscam."
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic remarked that it "continues in the same vein of new wave-tinged funk on Dirty Mind, emphasizing Prince's fascination with synthesizers and synthesizing disparate pop music genres". Controversy was voted the eighth best album of the year in the 1981 Pazz & Jop, an annual critics poll run by The Village Voice. All songs written except where noted. Adapted from the AllMusic credits. Prince – lead vocals, all other instruments, arranger Lisa Coleman – sitar, backing vocals, keyboards Dr. Fink – keyboards Bobby Z. – drums "Controversy""Controversy" "When You Were Mine""Let's Work""Let's Work" "Ronnie, Talk to Russia" "Gotta Stop""Do Me, Baby""Do Me, Baby" "Private Joy""Sexuality""Sexuality" "Controversy" "I Wanna Be Your Lover" Ronald Reagan in music Nathan Brackett, Christian Hoard. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely Revised and Updated 4th Edition. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. Controversy at Discogs
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were "danced songs". Ballads were characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Ireland and Britain from the medieval period until the 19th century, they were used across Europe, in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABCB repeated, in alternating 8 and 6 syllable lines. Many ballads were sold as single sheet broadsides; the form was used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is used for any love song the sentimental ballad of pop or rock, although the term is associated with the concept of a stylized storytelling song or poem when used as a title for other media such as a film; the ballad derives its name from medieval French dance songs or "ballares", from which'ballet' is derived, as did the alternative rival form that became the French ballade.
As a narrative song, their theme and function may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of storytelling that can be seen in poems such as Beowulf. Musically they were influenced by the Minnelieder of the Minnesang tradition; the earliest example of a recognizable ballad in form in England is "Judas" in a 13th-century manuscript. Ballads were written to accompany dances, so were composed in couplets with refrains in alternate lines; these refrains would have been sung by the dancers in time with the dance. Most northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, known as ballad meter. Only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed, taken to suggest that ballads consisted of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables; this can be seen in this stanza from "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet": The horse | fair Ann | et rode | upon | He amb | led like | the wind |, With sil | ver he | was shod | before, With burn | ing gold | behind |.
There is considerable variation on this pattern in every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad difficult. In southern and eastern Europe, in countries that derive their tradition from them, ballad structure differs like Spanish romanceros, which are octosyllabic and use consonance rather than rhyme. Ballads are influenced by the regions in which they originate and use the common dialect of the people. Scotland's ballads in particular, both in theme and language, are characterised by their distinctive tradition exhibiting some pre-Christian influences in the inclusion of supernatural elements such as travel to the Fairy Kingdom in the Scots ballad "Tam Lin"; the ballads do not correct version. The ballads remained an oral tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors such as Bishop Thomas Percy to publish volumes of popular ballads. In all traditions most ballads are narrative in nature, with a self-contained story concise, rely on imagery, rather than description, which can be tragic, romantic or comic.
Themes concerning rural laborers and their sexuality are common, there are many ballads based on the Robin Hood legend. Another common feature of ballads is repetition, sometimes of fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of entire stanzas. Scholars of ballads have been divided into "communalists", such as Johann Gottfried Herder and the Brothers Grimm, who argue that ballads are communal compositions, "individualists" such as Cecil Sharp, who assert that there was one single original author. Communalists tend to see more recent printed, broadside ballads of known authorship as a debased form of the genre, while individualists see variants as corruptions of an original text. More scholars have pointed to the interchange of oral and written forms of the ballad; the transmission of ballads comprises a key stage in their re-composition. In romantic terms this process is dramatized as a narrative of degeneration away from the pure'folk memory' or'immemorial tradition'.
In the introduction to Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border the romantic poet and historical novelist Walter Scott argued a need to'remove obvious corruptions' in order to attempt to restore a supposed original. For Scott, the process of multiple recitations'incurs the risk of impertinent interpolations from the conceit of one rehearser, unintelligible blunders from the stupidity of another, omissions to be regretted, from the want of memory of a third.' John Robert Moore noted'a natural tendency to oblivescence'. According to Scott, transcribed ballads have a'flatness and insipidity' compared to their oral counterparts. European Ballads have been classified into three major groups: traditional and literary. In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European British and Irish songs, and'Native American ballads
A-side and B-side
The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78, 45, 331⁄3 rpm phonograph records, or cassettes, whether singles, extended plays, or long-playing records. The A-side featured the recording that the artist, record producer, or the record company intended to receive the initial promotional effort and receive radio airplay to become a "hit" record; the B-side is a secondary recording that has a history of its own: some artists released B-sides that were considered as strong as the A-side and became hits in their own right. Others took the opposite approach: producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side. Music recordings have moved away from records onto other formats such as CDs and digital downloads, which do not have "sides", but the terms are still used to describe the type of content, with B-side sometimes standing for "bonus" track.
The first sound recordings at the end of the 19th century were made on cylinder records, which had a single round surface capable of holding two minutes of sound. Early shellac disc records records only had recordings on one side of the disc, with a similar capacity. Double-sided recordings, with one selection on each side, were introduced in Europe by Columbia Records in 1908, by 1910 most record labels had adopted the format in both Europe and the United States. There were no record charts until the 1930s, radio stations did not play recorded music until the 1950s. In this time, A-sides and B-sides existed. In June 1948, Columbia Records introduced the modern 331⁄3 rpm long-playing microgroove vinyl record for commercial sales, its rival RCA Victor, responded the next year with the seven-inch 45 rpm vinylite record, which would replace the 78 for single record releases; the term "single" came into popular use with the advent of vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side and which would be a B-side.
Under this random system, many artists had so-called "double-sided hits", where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts, or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. By the early sixties, the song on the A-side was the song that the record company wanted radio stations to play, as 45 rpm single records dominated the market in terms of cash sales, it was not until 1968, for example, that the total production of albums on a unit basis surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s, stereo versions of pop and rock songs began to appear on 45s; the majority of the 45s were played on AM radio stations, which were not equipped for stereo broadcast at the time, so stereo was not a priority. However, the FM rock stations did not like to play monaural content, so the record companies adopted a protocol for DJ versions with the mono version of the song on one side, stereo version of the same song on the other.
By the early 1970s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, instrumental versions or inferior recordings were placed. In order to further ensure that radio stations played the side that the record companies had chosen, it was common for the promotional copies of a single to have the "plug side" on both sides of the disc. With the decline of 45 rpm vinyl records, after the introduction of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. At first, cassette singles would have one song on each side of the cassette, matching the arrangement of vinyl records, but cassette maxi-singles, containing more than two songs, became more popular. Cassette singles were phased out beginning in the late 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became extinct, as the remaining dominant medium, the compact disc, lacked an equivalent physical distinction.
However, the term "B-side" is still used to refer to the "bonus" tracks or "coupling" tracks on a CD single. With the advent of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other physical media have declined, the term "B-side" is now less used. Songs that were not part of an artist's collection of albums are made available through the same downloadable catalogs as tracks from their albums, are referred to as "unreleased", "bonus", "non-album", "rare", "outtakes" or "exclusive" tracks, the latter in the case of a song being available from a certain provider of music. B-side songs may be released on the same record as a single to provide extra "value for money". There are several types of material released in this way, including a different version, or, in a concept record, a song that does not fit into the story lin
Twelve-inch single
The twelve-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing and shorter playing time compared to LPs. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the mastering engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, thus better sound quality; this record type is used in disco and dance music genres, where DJs use them to play in clubs. They are played at either 45 rpm. Twelve-inch singles have much shorter playing time than full-length LPs, thus require fewer grooves per inch; this extra space permits a broader dynamic range or louder recording level as the grooves' excursions can be much greater in amplitude in the bass frequencies important for dance music. Many record companies began producing 12-inch singles at 33 1⁄3 rpm, although 45 rpm gives better treble response and was used on many twelve-inch singles in the UK; the gramophone records cut for dance-floor DJs came into existence with the advent of recorded Jamaican mento music in the 1950s. By at least 1956 it was standard practice by Jamaican sound systems owners to give their "selecter" DJs acetate or flexi disc dubs of exclusive mento and Jamaican rhythm and blues recordings before they were issued commercially.
Songs such as Theophilus Beckford's "Easy Snappin'" were played as exclusives by Sir Coxson's Downbeat sound system for years before they were released in 1959 – only to become major local hits pressed in the UK by Island Records and Blue Beat Records as early as 1960. As the 1960s creativity bloomed along, with the development of multitrack recording facilities, special mixes of rocksteady and early reggae tunes were given as exclusives to dancehall DJs and selecters. With the 1967 Jamaican invention of remix, called dub on the island, those "specials" became valuable items sold to allied sound system DJs, who could draw crowds with their exclusive hits; the popularity of remix sound engineer King Tubby, who singlehandedly invented and perfected dub remixes from as early as 1967, led to more exclusive dub plates being cut. By 10-inch records were used to cut those dubs. By 1971, most reggae singles issued in Jamaica included on their B-side a dub remix of the A-side, many of them first tested as exclusive "dub plates" on dances.
Those dubs included drum and bass-oriented remixes used by sound system selecters. The 10-inch acetate "specials" would remain popular until at least the 2000s in Jamaica. Several Jamaican DJs such as DJ Kool Herc exported much of the hip hop dance culture from Jamaica to the Bronx in the early 1970s, including the common Jamaican practice of DJs rapping over instrumental dub remixes of hit songs leading to the advent of rap culture in the United States. Most the widespread use of exclusive dub acetates in Jamaica led American DJs to do the same. In the United States, the twelve-inch single gramophone record came into popularity with the advent of disco music in the 1970s after earlier market experiments. In early 1970, Cycle/Ampex Records test-marketed a twelve-inch single by Buddy Fite, featuring "Glad Rag Doll" backed with "For Once in My Life"; the experiment aimed to energize the struggling singles market, offering a new option for consumers who had stopped buying traditional singles. The record was pressed at 33 rpm, with identical run times to the seven-inch 45 rpm pressing of the single.
Several hundred copies were made available for sale for 98 cents each at two Tower Records stores. Another early twelve-inch single was released in 1973 by soul/R&B musician/songwriter/producer Jerry Williams, Jr. a.k.a. Swamp Dogg. Twelve-inch promotional copies of "Straight From My Heart" were released on his own Swamp Dogg Presents label, with distribution by Jamie/Guyden Distribution Corporation, it was manufactured by Jamie Record Co. of Pennsylvania. The B-side of the record is blank; the first large-format single made for DJs was a ten-inch acetate used by a mix engineer in need of a Friday-night test copy for famed disco mixer Tom Moulton. The song was; as no 7-inch acetates could be found, a 10–inch blank was used. Upon completion, found that such a large disc with only a couple of inches worth of grooves on it made him feel silly wasting all that space, he asked Rodríguez to re-cut it so that the grooves looked more spread out and ran to the normal center of the disc. Rodriguez told him.
Because of the wider spacing of the grooves, not only was a louder sound possible but a wider overall dynamic range as well. This was noticed to give a more favorable sound for discothèque play. Moulton's position as the premiere mixer and "fix it man" for pop singles ensured that this fortunate accident would become industry practice; this would have been a natural evolution: as dance tracks became much longer than had been the average for a pop song, the DJ in the club wanted sufficient dynamic range, the format would have enlarged from the seven-inch single eventually. The broad visual spacing of the grooves on the twelve-inch made it easy for the DJ in locating the approximate area of the "breaks" on the disc's surface in dim club light. A quick study of any DJs favorite discs will reveal mild wear in
Let's Work
"Let's Work" was the second single from the 1981 album, Controversy, by Prince. The song originates from a dance called "the Rock" that local kids were doing at the time in Minneapolis. Prince responded with a track called "Let's Rock", wished to release it as a single. Warner Bros. refused, a disappointed Prince did not include the song on Controversy, saying the phase had passed. Instead, the song was updated with new lyrics and new music and became "Let's Work"—one of his most popular dance numbers to date; the song is based on a funky bass line and features a shouted title throughout the song and relies on keyboards to create a sexy groove in the verses and quick solos for the choruses. The lyrics are a tease, equating "working" with having sex; the song was backed with "Talk to Russia", which precedes it on the Controversy album. The extended remix features instrumental solos, Morris Day on drums samples from "Controversy" and "Annie Christian", two other songs from the same album, extra, more insistent lyrics.
Prince performed the extended version in concert during 1999 tours. This is the first US Prince single to include a non-album B-side. "Gotta Stop" was written on the Dirty Mind tour, is consistent with the minimalist demo-like quality of that album. Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
Do Me Baby (album)
Do Me Baby is the debut studio album by American recording artist Meli'sa Morgan. Released in 1986, it reached number 41 on the US Billboard Pop Albums and number 4 on the US R&B Albums chart; the album features. Credits adapted from original liner notes. Credits adapted from original liner notes. Alto Saxophone – Najee Arranged By – Robert Aries Art Direction – Roy Kohara Backing Vocals – Clifford Jamerson, Freddie Jackson, Genobia Jeter, Joseph Coleman*, Meli'sa Morgan Bass – Douglas Grigsby I I I*, Russell Blake, Timmy Allen Design – John O'Brien Drum Programming – Royal Bayyan Executive-Producer – Beau Huggins, Don Grierson Guitar – Douglas Grigsby I I I*, Edward "Speedy" Walker*, Fareed Abdul Haqq, Michael Campbell* Handclaps – Ronnie Jones, Wayne Edwards Keyboards – Lesette Wilson Keyboards – Paul Laurence Percussion – Douglas Grigsby I I I* Percussion – Ronnie Jones, Wayne Edwards Programmed By – Rick Stevenson Synthesizer – Lesette Wilson, Meli'sa Morgan, Royal Bayyan
MoKenStef
MoKenStef was an American female R&B trio from Los Angeles, active from 1994 until 2000. The group name was a combination of the first syllable of each member's name: Monifa and Stefanie, they released an album, Azz Izz, in 1995, their biggest hit was "He's Mine", which peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It spent one week in the UK Singles Chart in September 1995 at #70, their second single, "Sex in the Rain", was not as successful, peaking only at #63 on the US R&B chart. The last single was intended to be "Baby Come Close", remake of Smokey Robinson's song, for which MoKenStef recorded a remix called "I Can't Help It". Both and remix versions were released promotionally on cd and vinyl, the group made a video for it directed by Cameron Casey, but in the end the intended single was never released commercially. In 1995 the group performed "He's Mine" on the television shows All That and Video Soul. MoKenStef appeared on the soundtrack of the film, Phat Beach in 1996, with the song "Jock'n Me".
In 1999, the group released a single called "He Say She Say", a promotion for the album Hits 4 the New Millennium by Cool Dre, but their attempt was unsuccessful. In 2000, they disbanded. In 2014 MoKenStef reunited and their Instagram page can be found, as Therealmokenstef. Azz Izz "He's Mine" "Sex In the Rain" "Baby Come Close" "He Say She Say"
