Around The World In A Day - A Look Back Review

I became a die-hard Prince fan upon seeing the video for '1999' on NBC's Friday Night Videos. The tatty lil' cable carrier we had in Port Orchard didn't bring us MTV until mid-1984, no matter how much we exclaimed and raged to the heavens that we indeed wanted our MTV in Port Orchard well before then. ANYWAY, the video for '1999' was a performance piece, Prince and his pre-Revolution band doing what they did on a purple lit stage. I dug the song, but I was also enthralled with Prince...he kind of looked like Michael Jackson, just funkier...and he played guitar...and unlike MJ, he had scantily clad hot chicks in his band on keyboards...and a white dude in hospital scrubs on keyboards as well...and a Mexican looking drummer even though the track was obviously recorded using a Linn drum machine...and a shirtless greased up bass player even though the bass was buried in the mix deeper than Jimmy Hoffa...and Dex Dickerson, by-far the coolest sidekick Prince ever had, on guitar. There was just something about the trench coat clad Prince that spoke to me.

After 1984's 'Purple Rain', I was a full-blown Prince fanatic. In retrospect, my obsession with Prince was a wee bit...embarrassing. I tried growing a Prince moustache throughout jr high and high school with little success. I looked more like Freddy Prinze than Prince. I even attempted to grow my hair like Prince's, but back then my hair grew big, not long...so again, more Freddie Prinze with a little Epstein from Welcome Back Kotter on the side. But enough about me...

1984's 'Purple Rain' catapulted Prince into the national and international spotlight. The movie and soundtrack were both wildly successful, the album moving in excess of 13 million units when all was said and done. As spring of 1985 approached, word leaked that a new Prince album was on the horizon. No one knew what to expect, but expectations were high.

Prince's follow up to 'Purple Rain', 'Around The World In A Day', was released on April 22nd, 1985. To say that 'ATWIAD' threw Prince's fans off would be an understatement. Only Weezer's 'Pinkerton' album has created the kind of furor and uproar in a fan community the way 'ATWIAD' split Prince's fan base that spring.

Rumor has it that Prince did a musical 180 from 'Purple Rain' to rid himself of Johnny Come Lately fans. Tired of the so-called 'Minneapolis Sound' that dominated '1999' and 'Purple Rain', it was believed that Prince wanted to branch out and try something new. That is all well and good, but I'm not buying that Prince purposely made an album to alienate a portion of his fan base. The reason this theory exists is that 'ATWIAD' is such a complete departure from everything else Prince had released to date. Gone were the horn tinged keyboards and chattering guitar licks, in were sitars, cellos, and Eastern percussion instruments. The radical departure from 'Purple Rain' has more to do with Prince's restless talent and his growing interest in folk and 60's era pop than it does a desire to cull his fanbase...which is exactly what happened as 'ATWIAD' struggled to do 1/7th the business its predecessor did.

The album opens up with the title track, an Eastern/psychedelic inspired meandering tune that exhorts the listener to 'open your heart, open your mind'. It is evident early on that 'ATWIAD' is not 'Purple Rain 2.0' as the instrumentation on this song could have come straight out of 'Ravi Shankar Inspired Beatles Tunes For Dummies'. In fact, most reviews I remember about this album upon release tried to make favorable comparisons of tracks from the record to songs from the Beatles catalog. That, like Mr. Fantastic, was a stretch.

Track 2 is 'Paisley Park', another mid-tempo wannabe psychedelic tune. Prince goes so far as to ape John Lennon's lyrics on this one (The girl on the seesaw is laughing/4 love is the color/This place imparts), attempting to recreate the vivid mental images from 'I Am The Walrus'. Looking back, it (all) seems so contrived and misses wildly lyrically. Melody wise 'Paisley Park' again conjures The Beatles psychedelic era, somewhat reminding me of 'Penny Lane', but crappier.

The next song is 'Condition Of The Heart', and the placement of this song points to one of the albums glaring weaknesses - track placement. A more apt song in the third slot would have been 'Raspberry Beret', Prince instead kills what little momentum the first two tracks builds up and derails the whole endeavor with a 6:46 ballad. On it's own, 'Condition Of The Heart' is one of Prince's better ballads. The instrumentation is sparse, the piano melody is gorgeous, as is Prince's sporadic acoustic guitar fills and his use of percussion. Prince's vocals are the epitome of loneliness, and his delivery of the line 'thinking about you driving me crazy' still gives me goosebumps. The song is one of the strongest on the album, but making it the third track on the record is still a puzzling decision. From a narrative and musical point of view, 'Condition Of The Heart' should follow track 4, 'Raspberry Beret'...

...and 'Raspberry Beret' was the big single off of 'ATWIAD' and one of Prince's best all-around songs. Equal parts pop, funk, and psychedelica, 'Raspberry Beret' is one of the few Prince songs from the 1980's that doesn't sound dated and forever locked in the rock hard purple amber of 'Purple Rain' or 'Let's Go Crazy'. While the song certainly received a ton of air play, and the video even more (why, hello there, Pat Smear!), it still sounds as good today as it did in 1985.

'Tambourine' is a complete and utter throwaway of a song, a tired double entendre with an annoying vocal and jittery rhythm track. Equally annoying is 'America', an attempt by Prince to be political. Unfortunately, Prince's take on Reagan's America is simultaneously cliched, naive, and just plain dumb. He was much more effective with 'Ronnie Talk To Russia' from the Controversy album. On 'America', Prince's lyrics are a sophomoric take on 'America The Beautiful', his thoughts on America in 1985. While other artists have made political statements using traditionally patriotic songs (most notably, Jimi Hendrix's version of 'The Star Spangled Banner), Prince's attempt falls flat with 'America'. Somewhere in this world exists a 21 minute version of this song that supposedly makes more sense musically and lyrically than the album cut. Side note - Prince would again dip his toes into political and social commentary on 'Sign O' The Times' and is much, much more effective...

The lush 'Pop Life' follows the disjointed clusterfarg that is tracks 5 & 6. Again, Prince takes a stab at social and political commentary, but unlike 'America' it works this time. Prince's delivery of certain lines is spot on perfect. The song failed to make a huge dent on the charts, but this is the second best track on the album after 'Raspberry Beret'.

Remember what I wrote regarding track sequencing? The two songs that end the album are a complete disaster...collapsing under gargantuan mountains of pretentiousness. 'The Ladder' is supposed to crystalize Prince's vision of spirituality and his quest for heaven and redemption...or something like that. What we are left with instead is a tepid track that manages to be self-indulgent, self-important, and boring all at once. While certainly more bombastic than 'The Ladder', album closer 'Temptation' almost plays like a caricature of a Prince song. With lyrics such as 'working my body with a hot flash of animal lust' one has to wonder if Prince was joking when he put pen to paper on this one. I would call the soliloquy at the end of the song nothing short of stupid if it weren't so ridiculous - "Silly man, that's not how it works...you have to want her for the right reasons...I do...You don't, now die!!!...No, no, let me go, let me go...I'm sorry, I'll be good this time, I promise...love is more important than sex...Now I understand, I have to go now...I don't know when I'll return, goodbye."

The last line sparked some talk that Prince was going to 'retire', maybe pull a Bob Dylan and disappear for a while and not tour or record. He of course reemerged in 1986 with 'Parade' and movie 'Under The Cherry Moon' (which needs its own retro review at some point).

'Around The World In A Day' is certainly not Prince's worst album, or even most disappointing as 'Come' and 'Emancipation' have those two spots on permanent lock down. However, 'ATWIAD' is a harbinger of things to come with Prince...for every great track you get three middling to gawd awful songs...and I'll always wonder why two of Prince's stronger b-sides, 'Hello' and 'She's Always In My Hair', were left off the album while 'Tambourine' and 'America' made the cut. Swapping out those songs takes 'ATWIAD' from mediocre to excellent.

Grading on a 5 churro scale, I give 'Around The World In A Day' a 2 churro rating.