What's Spinning: Controversy

I belong to a Facebook group called What's Spinning. You post photos of whatever record you're spinning. People sometimes share their thoughts or brag about how little they paid for the record. I don't post much besides the artist name and the record title. I also don't post everything I spin especially if I've posted the record before. So this isn't going up on Facebook. I reserve the greatest stuff for my blog from now on since I can go on and on about the record here.  This morning I'm spinning Controversy.

Prince's Controversy album came out in the fall of my freshman year of high school. That year of school was the worst ever. I had gone to Thurman Francis Junior High School in Smyrna for 8th grade and would have been a 9th grader there, but my parents moved back to Murfreesboro so it was off to Oakland. Instead of being on top of the food chain I was at the bottom again and most of my Murfreesboro friends were attending Riverdale. One of the few bright spots for me was there was a guy in my science class who loved Saturday Night Live (this was the Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy era) and Prince. I'd only get to talk to him class began, but Mondays were always days to go over what bits we thought were the funniest on SNL. He'd sometimes offer me "Black Beauties", but I while I might have looked like a drug user to my classmates, I was fairly straight only messing around with liquor on occasion back then.

I found out he liked Prince after Controversy came out on October 14, 1981. He came in and asked me if I had heard the new Prince record yet. I hadn't so he said he'd tape it for me. I forgot it about it, but sure enough a few days later he brought the tape. I'd liked Prince from the moment I was him perform "I Wanna Be Your Lover" from his second self titled album on American Bandstand so it was a treat to have a copy of his followup to his third album Dirty Mind. It was rare to have a complete album in those days for me. I would either have to wait for my birthday or until a record hit the cutout bins in order to afford it. Controversy was interesting to me as Prince branched out into songs more varied and some with political ideas behind them. Even though the album went platinum Prince was still sort of an underground artist too. That appealed to my sense of being a misfit at Oakland High School. Here was Prince in but not of the mainstream at the moment. 1999 and Purple Rain would bring the mainstream into his orbit. Prince was truly a one of a kind musical legend. Tomorrow's Sunday Showcase will have more on him.