The Symbol Album – Prince

This album was first released in 1992. Prior to its release, Prince toured Australia for the first time ever in his career and promoted “The Symbol Album” (specifically the song “Sexy Mothereffer”), just as the “Diamonds & Pearls” promotion was coming to a close.
Of course I was not permitted to see Prince in concert at this point in time as I was all of ten years old, but I made up for it when he returned 11 years later!!!!

While I was not allowed to see the man do his “thang” in concert, I was also not allowed to purchase this album when it finally got released. However, one day while I was out shopping with my grandmother, I picked it up….of course my mother had no clue that I had bought it…..until I came home with it of course. If that wasn’t enough, I ended up wrecking the damn thing a couple of years later cuz I was always trying to trace the glyph on the front cover, so I went & got another copy of it in 1999…..not to mention I also own the album on vinyl as well. Okay….let us proceed with the review:

My Name Is Prince: This was the 2nd single to be lifted from the album, which was originally supposed to tell the story of how Prince and his (now former) wife, Mayte, met in Egypt. “My Name Is Prince” is really just a whole lot of bragging and cursing, thanks to Tony M specifically. “You jumped on my d-i-c-k, that was the one thing the jockstrap was much too big for ya anyway.” I think that’s just a little too much information there. One year after this record came out, Prince was no longer going by his birthname. Instead he adopted the same symbol that appeared on the front cover of this album, in retaliation to the way he was being treated by his label.

Sexy MF: Only Prince could’ve had the nerve to release this song as the album’s first single. Despite the constant use of the word “Mothereffer,” The Purple One is not really singing of anything obscene (other than when he says he’d drink her bath water and how he’d like to see her throw that arse up into sunshine). What he’s really talking about is monogamy. Obviously people couldn’t look beyond the swearing. In 1999, Prince stopped performing this song, along with a few others because a guy called Larry Graham (former bassist for the funk band Sly & The Family Stone who was a big inspiration to Prince over the years and still is), told him to stop using such language. His explanation of that is first of all, children show up to his shows nowadays and secondly, “there’s no more envelope to push…it’s on the floor now.” Musically this track was his last tribute to James Brown….or at least for a while there it was his last tribute to the man. It has that real “Huh! Good gawd!” type of sound to it….plus he even calls up the horn players to start blowing ala JB.

Love 2 The 9’s: How would I describe this one? Jeez I’d be real hard pressed to do that! I’d say it’s a bit of jazz with some soul, funk and even a rap verse towards the end. Since I’d never really heard of him performing it live, I thought for a while there that Prince had forgotten all about this song. In 2003 when I saw him in concert he actually proved me wrong, cuz played this tune during the soundcheck (yes I was there!) but his band didn’t know what they were doing, so he stopped playing it and moved to something else. I’m a little confused about Tony M’s rapping in this song. Part of me likes it, but I also feel as though it really shouldn’t have been included. Oh well, the damage has been done. You can’t keep crying over the spilt milk.

The Morning Papers: This track is all about how Prince was falling for a girl who, at the time, was a lot younger than he was. In fact, probably young enough to be his daughter! I’m not exaggerating here. At the time, Prince was 34 and Mayte was 16. So basically all he’s saying here is that she was naieve and she had a lot to learn about love, so he was the one to teach her all about it. His attitude at the time was that it doesn’t really matter about your age when it comes to love. Although he apparently never “hit it” until she was of legal age. Hence, “18 and over, I wants ta bone ya.”

The Max: Evidently Prince was listening to a whole lot of hip hop when this album was coming to fruition. I think Tony M pretty much ruins it here: “Relax if ya want to but I might break ya back. Mo’ fuck fo’ ya buck you can bet on that!” Is that really necessary? Especially in a Prince song? No! It’s still a cool track though other than that.

Segue: This is not listed on the cover of either the CD or the LP. Nor is it listed on the LP record label. It’s just one of those little skits that are included as every second track on a lot of hip hop and R&B albums. Prince receives a telephone call from a woman known as Vanessa Bartholomew, in real life she’s the actress known as Kirstie Alley. She wants to interview him but once he knows he’s being recorded he hangs up the phone. “Hello? Sonofabitch hung up!” And onto the next track……..

Blue Light: I think that this track was supposed to be Prince’s version of a reggae song, but….on the record it sounds absolutely nothin’ like that. The live version on the other hand, sounds more like “traditional reggae” if you will. Never the less, everytime I hear this song I always get flashbacks of listening to it in my aunty’s granny flat, singing a long to the lyrics, not even having the slightest concept of what the hell Prince was singing all about. Of course I wasn’t totally conscious of my naievety at the time. What Mr Nelson is going on about is how nothing’s really going on in the bedroom….he needs something to get his woman going. How about a blue light? Yeah. That should do the trick. As if! Well, as long as it works for Prince it’s all good I suppose.

I Wanna Melt With U: The video clip to this song had me pulling a few facial expressions that I didn’t even know I had in me! Is this the same clip where he’s wearing that weird “Phantom of the Opera” mask and poncing around in a woman’s swimming costume and rollerskates? “Oh lawd!!!,” I think that’s what Morris Day would say if he ever saw that video. It’s a good song though it’s very heavy on the drum programming & overall it has a very electronic vibe. I think it was meant to sound kinky… but he doesn’t quite hit the mark I don’t think. In this song Prince sampled the song “La La La he he hee,” which was the B-Side of “Sign O The Times.” It also sounds like he sampled James Brown sayin : “Hit me!!!” I thought Prince didn’t do that. Guess I was wrong.

Sweet Baby: If I took a shot in the dark I’d say that this was Prince doing a heartfelt soul ballad musically. Lyrically it’s all about how Mayte’s ex lover left her “for another fool,” and that Prince will be there to console her & look after her & all of that stuff. It’s a nice track.

The Continental: This one is all about sex, and actually it’s a very nasty song about that particular subject. Hey! Why not? Apparently when he says, “should I write the alphabet or should I just write my name?” He’s refferring to going down on a woman and writing the alphabet on her….well you know!!! In 1995 he re-used the last few minutes of this song on a track called “How U Wanna B Done” which was included briefly as the B-Side of “The Purple Medley” and then again in its entirety on his 5-CD set “Crystal Ball.” Now that I hear that track it just sounds like a waste of time and space, as opposed to the original which sounds a lot more complete.

Damn U: I remember hearing about this song on a now defunct Aussie TV show called “Hey Hey It’s Saturday.” When I heard the title I was like, “Prince has a song called “Damn You”?! Oh my God!! This is gonna be another one of those songs of his that’s full of swear words & what not.” On the contrary, it’s really a seductive soul ballad in which he tells his lover she’s so fine….which is why he is damning her! I reckon if you played this one around that special somebody in your life, things would get pretty nasty….but in a good way. The track ends with yet another interlude featuring Kirstie Alley. This time she’s shouting through gritted teeth: “Why are you so arrogant!?!?” And so begins the next track on the album.

Arrogance: According to the credits, this song samples a certain song by the hip hop group NWA. Not being up on my old school hip hop, or hip hop in general I can’t hear this sample at all. Actually I don’t quite see the point in this “song” at all. The only cool thing about it is Prince yelling “Pimp rag tootsie pop and a cane!!” Which was his look at the time: a “typhoon” hairdo tied up with a rag. He was also pictured sucking on a lollipop and carrying a walking stick, which he obviously thought was a very pimpish type of look, but each to their own.

The Flow: Here’s another track where Tony M is yelling his head off. Even Prince is trying his hand at a little rapping…but why? Makes me wanna press the skip button.

7: This is one of those songs that got released as a single, but then flopped. But that is irrelevant in my eyes because as far as I can see it’s a wonderful pop tune with some incredible vocal harmonies & acoustic guitars. Many people interpret its lyrics in many different ways. For example, some say that it’s about the seven revelations in the bible. Others say that it’s about Prince killing off seven different images of himself, just as he does in the video. It could very well be about both. Prince himself suggested it was about the latter in an interview with Spike Lee in 1997, while he was still going by the symbol. I guess that one’s all up in the air then isn’t it?

And God Created Woman: This track was a huge favourite back when the album first dropped in 1992. I don’t know exactly what it was that intrigued me so much to the song, but…it features live instrumentation, soaring falsetto vocals….and a storyline that’s based upon the story of Adam & Eve. Only Prince could’ve pulled something like this off. It sounds so soulful & so beautiful. Actually, no – take that back… there’s an independent artist out there called Martha Redbone who did a song that was just a little too similar to this one (even bore practically the same title)…but her version was more like a, “God created woman…check ‘er out!!! Look how powerful she is.” I love both tracks though.

3 Chains O’ Gold: Sometimes I tend to have mixed reactions to this track. At times I think it sounds like some kinda corny Broadway musical. Other times it sounds like a rip off of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Maybe that was just sum shit that somebody else put in my head….but anyway….the guitar solo at the end kicks serious arse. Just before he delivers it, it literally sounds like there’s a bomb gettin’ ready to drop & explode. Whoa!!! That’s incredible.

Segue: Here’s the second and final segue on the record. There’s actually an entire bootleg of those segues that never showed up on the album. The strange thing is that at the end of the “Three Chains Of Gold” video, they play this skit over a hip hop beat. This time Prince calls Kirstie, but it seems as though he is trying to beg her off, or throw her off by altering his voice and responding sarcastically to her questions. “How old are you?” “I’m into my fifth soul now so that makes me three hundred…” “Why do you pretend to be amazed?” “…and twenty…” There are also a few very subtle references to Mayte during this skit, such as “do you know that the princess is only 16 years old? How ’bout this for a story?: “320 year old robs a cradle.” What a scandal!” and of course the inevitable: “The crown princess of Cairo is now a member of The NPG.” Since the rest of the story is missing, that message is about as clear as the most polluted river in the whole wide world…unless of course you’re a hardcore Prince head & you know exactly what it is that they’re going on about.

The Sacrifice Of Victor: This track opens up with…I’m guessin’ it’s Prince former bass player Sonny T hollering: “Well what is sacrifice?!” That is then followed by the following lyrics: “I was born on a blood stained table, cord wrapped around my neck. Epeleptic til the age of seven…” Then in the next verse he goes on to talk about riding in a school bus full of other disadvantaged kids. Whether or not the lyrics to this song are actually true we will never know. Prince was even questioned of this back in 1998 in the British magazine “Q.” He was obviously quite uncomfortable with the question because he didn’t actually give an answer. All he said was: “I don’t want to talk about the “Prince” period (he was going by the symbol at the time). For now it would be like talking about a different person.” Yeah right….it’s probably true, he just didn’t want to say anything about it. I suppose once again that’s irrelevant because it’s so funky.

Verdict: My theory is that when Prince looked back on this record, he saw all of the mistakes he made with all the annoying rapping and other hip hop influences that he decided to just get rid of it all. If so, then I’m glad that’s what he did, because most of the time that rapper is just plain unbearable! Now I see why so many fans out there make fun of him and constantly put him down. If anything he added less to Prince’s material. Musically, this album hasn’t really dated, thanks to his inclusion of live instrumentation. Overall though, the album with no speakable title (although commonly refferred to as “The Love Symbol Album” or “Androgyny,”) is pretty solid. On the other hand, take a look at the way those rappers were dancing in his videos, the hairstyles and the clothes they were wearing. If they thought the ’80s were hideous, take a look at the early ’90s for Gods sakes. In the next century we’ll probably cringe at what we’re wearing now!