Bridge movie. Prince met with Jesse Johnson, Monte Moir, Terry Lewis, and Jimmy Jam and told them that the movie would tell The Time’s side of the story. They agreed to participate and began working independently on their own material. How did that all work out? Not so well for The Time, who again ended up controlled by Prince in the studio and marginalized in the film. As some recompense, the resulting album, Pandemonium, hit the top twenty on both the pop and the R&B charts and went gold.
All the Prince tracks on the LP are strong, although the songs get a bit lost in the slick production of the era. Three Day vocals/Prince instrumentation Corporate World songs were brought over wholesale to Pandemonium: “Data Bank,” “Donald Trump (Black Version),” and “My Summertime Thang,” with the latter two featuring Candy Dulfer on sax. As with much of the Graffiti Bridge material, Prince dug into the Vault for some of this material as the tracking for “My Summertime Thang” comes from the same 1983 session as “Cloreen Bacon Skin,” and “Data Bank” had been kicking around since 1986. The fourth full Prince song, “Chocolate,” comes from an April 1983 Ice Cream Castle session and includes Wendy, Lisa, and Jill Jones on background vocals and a Wendy guitar solo. Prince wrote those four songs and four segues—“Dreamland,” “Sexy Socialites,” “Yount,” and “Cooking Class”—although only The Time appear on the latter four Jam/Lewis-produced songs.
The Prince-produced “Jerk Out” is a Prince, Jam, Lewis, and Day song updated from the second Time album sessions that features all members of the Time plus Prince. Mazarati recorded and rejected it for their Paisley Park LP. The title track is written by Jam, Lewis, Jesse Johnson, and Prince but otherwise had no Prince involvement. The album’s final five songs include no Prince involvement.
The three Graffiti Bridge songs—“The Latest Fashion,” “Shake!,” and “Release It”—were recorded during the Corporate World sessions, although the first was originally recorded by Prince in 1987. The songs include no Time member input other than Morris Day’s vocals.
Of the original eleven-track Corporate World, only the title song remains totally unreleased. “Murph Drag,” also featuring Dulfer, was released in an edited form through NPG Music Club in 2001. “Rollerskate” was partially incorporated into “My Summertime Thang” and “The Latest Fashion (Remix).”
Pandemonium was released on July 10, 1990. It has the ugliest cover of any Prince-associated album. It hit number nine on the R&B charts and number eighteen on the pop charts, going gold as The Time’s best-selling album. “Jerk Out” was The Time’s biggest single, hitting number one on the R&B charts and number nine on the Hot 100. The seven-inch single is an edit backed with “Mo’ Jerk Out,” and the twelve-inch and CD single offer five remixes. The second single, an edit of “Chocolate,” reached number forty-four on the R&B charts. The twelve-inch and CD single offered five remixes plus the single B-side: the album version of “My Drawers.”
The year 1991 saw the release of The Time’s “Shake!” from Graffiti Bridge. Prince and Day wrote and performed the song. There was no seven-inch release, and the single failed to chart. The twelve-inch and CD include the album version and four remixes plus a remix of “The Latest Fashion.”
The Graffiti Bridge album was released on August 21, 1990, and the movie on November 2. All Time members are in the movie. The six-piece Time, augmented by keyboardist Keith Lewis, played two London promo gigs on August 31 and September 1, then a Warner Bros. Convention in San Francisco. The shows lasted thirteen songs (forty-five minutes), adding the title track and the two singles to the previous song mix. A ferociously tame version of “The Walk” from the Warner Bros. gig is available online.
On September 18, 1990, the Time played The Tonight Show and on October 20 played Saturday Night Live. While in New York, Jesse Johnson was voted out of the band. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis soon followed. The trio was replaced by guitarist Bobby G., bassist Derek “DOA” Allen, and future NPG keyboardist Morris Hayes. This lineup played two contractually obligated shows in Japan in February 1991. These were the last shows by The Time until 1995. Day and Benton would team up live with Prince on occasion in the new millennium.
Prince performed “Jerk Out” once, on September 2, 1990, in Nishinomiya, Japan. “Chocolate” was referenced a few times from 1982 on but performed in toto only three times in 2011.
Various permutations of The Time have played live from 2008 on. In 2011, the group changed their name to the Original 7ven since Prince owned the name of The Time, although Day tours as Morris Day & The Time.
7
We Need a Purple High The Purple Rain Era, 1983–1986
1999 (1982)
Prince later said 1999 wasn’t as varied as it should be because he did all the computer work himself. But he failed to properly value his own work. 1999 is a masterpiece not only because each song is a marvel but also because all eleven meld sonically, technically, and emotionally. This is a symphony in eleven movements. Needle-drop anywhere, and you know it’s the sound of peak Prince.
What’s that sound? It’s an expansive synthesizer sound accompanied by Prince’s new best friend, the Linn LM-1 drum machine. It’s multilayered funk with grooves simultaneously driving and loose, not afraid of stretching out songs for seven, eight, or nine minutes. It’s letting it all hang out and not caring who’s watching.
1999 sessions stretched from January to August 1982, with recording completed in August with “Little Red Corvette” and the title song. 1999 is almost all Prince, with Jill Jones, Wendy, and Dez Dickerson contributing co-lead on the title song, Dez sizzling on the “Little Red Corvette” guitar solos, and various background singers.
1999 was released on October 27, 1982, in the United States as a double vinyl LP. The United Kingdom saw a seven-song, one-disc LP released on March 4, 1983 (rereleased on vinyl April 21, 2018, with an alternate cover), with the full set released only on November 9, 1984. The initial CD release left off “D.M.S.R.” due to space limitations. The cover features a no-question-about-it penis as the number “1,” the first inkling of The Revolution (in backward writing), the reappearance of Controversy’s “Rude Boy” button, and a resplendent purple background.
1999 Deluxe and 1999 Super Deluxe were released on Black Friday, November 29, 2019. The two-CD 1999 Deluxe features a 2019 remaster of the original LP and an eighteen-track non-LP singles/B-sides collection. 1999 Super Deluxe adds two CDs with twenty-four tracks of unreleased material from the Vault, a Live in Detroit CD (November 30, 1982), and the Live in Houston DVD (December 29, 1982).
The original album was Prince’s commercial breakthrough, reaching number nine on the pop charts and number four on the black charts. The LP went gold and achieved 4x platinum status.
The album spawned four commercial singles in the United States, a UK promo single, and an Australian release. A “1999” edit was released September 24, 1982. It reached number four on the black charts and number forty-four on the pop charts; the album-length twelve-inch version reached number one on the dance charts. The edited “Little Red Corvette” was the major hit, fueled by constant rotation on MTV, hitting number six on the Hot 100 and number fifteen on the black charts. The uninspired “Dance Remix” hit only number sixty-one on the dance charts. Finally, a “Delirious” edit reached numbers eight and eighteen, while the “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” edit reached the fifties.
The edit versions of the first three singles appear on hits collections, while 1999 Deluxe gathers almost all available single edits, promo only, mono, remix, and video releases, offering different versions of all but “Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)” and “International Lover.” The non-LP sides “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore,” “Horny Toad,” and “Irresistible Bitch” are available on multiple collections.
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