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Controversy<\/a><\/em> is when Prince<\/a> began to transform into a world-beating ’80s phenom. This transitional album, released on Oct. 14, 1981, is the first to prominently feature members of the Revolution<\/a>. It’s the first to use his unique spelling for a song title, and the first to connect Prince with the color purple.<\/p>\n It’s also the first where he let his kaleidoscopic imagination run wild. He’d delved deeply into love and sex on 1980’s Dirty Mind<\/a><\/em>, and those topics certainly remained. He’d begun to infuse his music with rock and dance elements, and that was still here, too. But Controversy<\/em> is where he started opening up about the broader topics of politics, gender, faith, ethnicity and fame.<\/p>\n That nervy worldview, first hinted at on 1980’s “Uptown<\/a>,” was the key to unlocking a decade of striking success.<\/p>\n “It was a revelation recording this last album. I realized that I could write just what was on my mind and things that I’d encountered, and I didn’t have to hide anything,” Prince told Melody Maker<\/a><\/em> in 1981. “The lyrics on the new album are straight from the heart, whereas the other albums were more feelings, more dreams and fantasies \u2013 and they stuck to the more basic formulas that I’d learned through playing Top 40 material in old bands.”<\/p>\n Not anymore. Controversy<\/em> opened with the title track<\/a>, which quickly established his updated aesthetic. Prince boldly confronts stereotypes on race and sexuality, then flirts with blasphemy<\/a> by including a portion of the Lord’s Prayer.<\/p>\n Standing on the precipice of a new era, he drilled in on the dichotomies<\/a> that were beginning to shape the culture: “Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay? Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me?”<\/em> The old questions suddenly no longer had the same old answers.<\/p>\n He’d begun dressing in daringly androgynous clothes<\/a> to match, wearing thigh-high boots and black-bikini briefs with a studded leather coat. “To me it’s not outrageous, it’s comfortable,\u201d Prince told Melody Maker<\/em>. “I’ve always dressed the way I’ve wanted to \u2013 and if it goes with the music, it’s only because the music is part of me and so is the way I dress. I don’t try to do anything to shock people or to make money \u2013 that would make me a hooker.”<\/p>\n Watch Prince Perform ‘Controversy’<\/strong><\/p>\n The mainstream, however, hadn’t caught up just yet. His title-track single went to No. 3 on the R&B charts, but stalled at No. 70 on the Billboard<\/em> Top 100. “Let’s Work<\/a>,” the follow up, suffered a similar fate \u2013 becoming a Top 10 R&B hit but petering out at No. 104 on the pop charts.<\/p>\n Read More: The 10 Best Posthumously Released Prince Songs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Then a coveted spot opening up for the Rolling Stones<\/a> became a disaster when the largely white crowd turned on Prince<\/a>, eventually hurling things on stage. “They took one look at Prince and went, ‘What the heck is this?’ And they started booing, flipping us the bird,” keyboardist Matt Fink says in I Will Die 4 U<\/a><\/em>. “And they’re throwing whatever they could get their hands on \u2013 a crumpled up Coca-Cola can. I saw a fifth of Jack Daniels whiz by Prince’s face.”<\/p>\n Controversy<\/em> arrived on store shelves just days later. He wasn’t done challenging expectations.<\/p>\n “I don’t like to do things that’s easy,” Prince confessed to Melody Maker<\/em>. “It’s more of a challenge for me to write exactly what happens, exactly what I feel at that particular time. If I think a certain thought and I put it down on paper \u2013 exactly like I hear it in my head, that’s a challenge to me as a writer.”<\/p>\n Certainly, “Do Me Baby<\/a>” recalled his initial bump-n-grind ballads \u2013 apparently because of input<\/a> from early collaborator Andre Cymone \u2013 and the pop-funky “Private Joy<\/a>” seemed to be about both a new lover and a new bedroom aid. “Let’s Work” walked the same fine line, presenting as buck-up inspiration but also as a love-making synonym.<\/p>\n “Sex is something we can all understand \u2013 it’s limitless,” Prince told the Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/em> in 1982, “but I try to make the songs so they can be viewed in different ways. I know some people will go right through those [message] elements in a song, but there are some who won’t. If you make it too easy, you lose the point.”<\/p>\n Listen to Prince Perform ‘Private Joy’<\/strong><\/p>\n Still, Prince, in his talk with Melody Maker<\/em>, was already ruminating on whether “my attitude’s so sexual that it overshadows anything else.” The challenge now was to find a balance with the wider world.<\/p>\n Controversy<\/em> showed he could. “Sexuality” took us to a then embryonic but soon-to-be-familiar Utopia<\/a> inside Prince’s mind where “you don’t need no money, you don’t need no clothes [and] we don’t need no segregation, we don’t need no race.<\/em> “Ronnie, Talk to Russia<\/a>” was the first of what became a series of topical explorations of the Cold War threat. The techno-gothy “Annie Christian<\/a>” dealt with the anxiety of what appeared to be an emerging age of assassination, following the murder of John Lennon<\/a> and attempts on the lives of President Ronald Reagan and the pope.<\/p>\n This combining of the frankly carnal with highly personalized ruminations on the changing social and political landscape formed a creative nexus for Prince. “Private Joy” emerged as a showcase for his Linn LM-1, a then-new electronic drum which would dominate sessions for 1999<\/em><\/a>; it was also the first Prince track<\/a> recorded at Sunset Sound, where he’d continue to work throughout the ’80s.<\/p>\n All that was left to do was open up the process, affixing the final piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n “It’s easy for me to work in the studio, because I have no worries or doubts about what the other musician’s going to play,” Prince told NME<\/a> in 1981, “because that other musician is almost always me!”<\/p>\n Controversy<\/em> blew up that dynamic too, as the rockabilly-style album-closer found three future members of the Revolution working with Prince. Lisa Coleman and Fink, who’d played minor roles on the preceding Dirty Mind<\/em>, joined Bobby Z. for “Jack U Off” \u2013 putting a musical template in place for the collaborative breakthrough to come on Purple Rain<\/a><\/em>. Coleman also appeared on the title track and “Ronnie, Talk to Russia,” as Controversy<\/em> very nearly cracked the U.S. Top 20.<\/p>\n Prince’s fashion sense was evolving just as quickly. The Controversy<\/em> shows found him in a vest, white shirt and bow-tie with conservative black pants and a purple trench coat \u2013 an incipient version of the outfits he’d wear in a series of career-making MTV clips. Fame was just around the corner.<\/p>\n Music in the ’80s is typically associated with the neon-tinged synthpop of MTV’s early era, but there was much more to this wildly varied decade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRock’s 100 Best ’80s Albums<\/h2>\n