With Dirty Mind, Prince had established a wild fusion of funk, rock, new wave, and soul that signaled he was an original, maverick talent, but it failed to win him a large audience. After delivering the sound-alike album, Controversy, Prince revamped his sound and delivered the double album 1999. Where his earlier albums had been a fusion of organic and electronic sounds, 1999 was constructed almost entirely on synthesizers by Prince himself. Naturally, the effect was slightly more mechanical and robotic than his previous work and strongly recalled the electro-funk experiments of several underground funk and hip-hop artists at the time. Prince had also constructed an album dominated by computer funk, but he didn't simply rely on the extended instrumental grooves to carry the album -- he didn't have to when his songwriting was improving by leaps and bounds. The first side of the record contained all of the hit singles, and, unsurprisingly, they were the ones that contained the least amount of electronics. 1999 parties to the apocalypse with a P-Funk groove much tighter than anything George Clinton ever did, Little Red Corvette is pure pop, and Delirious takes rockabilly riffs into the computer age. After that opening salvo, all the rules go out the window -- Let's Pretend We're Married is a salacious extended lust letter, Free is an elegiac anthem, All the Critics Love U in New York is a vicious attack at hipsters, and Lady Cab Driver, with its notorious bridge, is the culmination of all of his sexual fantasies. Sure, Prince stretches out a bit too much over the course of 1999, but the result is a stunning display of raw talent, not wallowing indulgence. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

1		1999
2		Little Red Corvette
3		Delirious
4		Let's Pretend We're Married
5		D.M.S.R.
6		Automatic
7		Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)
8		Free
9		Lady Cab Driver
10		All the Critics Love U in New York
11		International Lover

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