Happy 40th Anniversary to The Time’s eponymous debut album The Time, originally released July 29, 1981.
By 1980, Prince had mastered many things: bending genders, bending genres, making parents nervous, and record companies too. Warner Bros. wanted another record like his platinum-selling, self-titled sophomore disc. Instead, they got a solid 30 minutes of sordid, shock rock performed by a man in a bikini and studded trench coat.
The audacious Dirty Mind expanded his sonic palette but didn’t ingratiate itself at Black radio. And Prince owed his childhood friend Morris Day a favor in exchange for writing the album’s closer “Partyup.” As per usual, he had more ideas than could be contained in his solo work. So, to solve multiple problems, he would launch a band for his friend employing the best players from the Minneapolis music scene.
The Time’s 1981 debut was an outlandish funk score swirling hedonism and braggadocio as yet unseen. On their introductory cover shot, six men stand defiantly in front of a “Please No Loitering” sign. They looked like trouble with their scowls and skinny ties, but they really only came to put on a good show (and possibly do obscene things with somebody’s daughter afterward).
Appropriately, their first single “Get It Up” slinked onto airwaves in June 1981. Its skulking groove features The Revolution’s Dr. Fink showing off on synthesizer. The radio edit did its best to impose decency on the shameless funk flasher. On the LP though, it’s a lascivious, snaking, 9-minute jam session with a blistering guitar solo from Prince himself. Modesty is in the garbage bin by the end with its ribald, frat boy chant: “Get it up! Get it up! I’ll fuck you all night!”
Originally Prince pitched this brazen number to ‘70s band Brick (best known for their much-sampled “Dazz”). Once they turned it down, Day seized it before it could touch the ground. Despite causing many a pearl clutch, “Get It Up” rose to #6 on Billboard’s R&B charts. That’s how one debuts a band. If the song is good enough, it won’t matter that the band members didn’t play a solitary note on it.
By now, everyone knows those badasses pictured out front had little to do with the grooves on the vinyl inside. Disregard what’s printed on the record. Nothing gaslights like credits on an early ‘80s Prince-protégé project. These songs were put together at Prince’s Kiowa Trail Home Studio where Day cut his vocals (and on some tracks, drums too). Only after the record was complete did Prince and Day go searching for the most proficient musicians they could find to perform the songs live.
Most were found in a local band called Flyte Tyme, including keyboardist Monte Moir, drummer James Harris III (a.k.a. Jimmy Jam), bassist Terry Lewis, and drummer Garry “Jellybean” Johnson. Not long after, Hendrix-like guitarist Jesse Johnson came to Day’s attention. Prince didn’t need to hear much to know he wanted him in the band.
Originally Alexander O’Neal was to be the lead singer. That is, until an infamous business meeting where he demanded a hefty cash advance from His Royal Badness. Prince’s response was to get up and walk out. O’Neal was ousted and replaced with Day. Not yet confident as a singer, Day asked how he was supposed to pull this off. Prince simply told him to put his hands in his pockets and “be cool.”
It worked. For these Minneapolis men, “Cool” was everything—their image, their attitude, and their chart-climbing second single (R&B #7, Disco #3). A video clip for the breezy percolator taught fans how to make the C-O-O-L hand signs during every chorus. It also gave a first taste of Day as the charming narcissist audiences would come to love (“When I look into the mirror / It just tells me something I already know / I’m so cool / Honey, baby, can’t you see? / I’m just cool / Ain’t nobody bad like me!”).
Once while rehearsing “Cool,” Lewis’ brother Jerome Benton heard the “somebody bring me a mirror” line and pulled a full-size mirror off the bathroom wall to bring on stage. As if on cue, Day whipped out a comb, primping his hair like a light-skinned Narcissus. Prince nearly fell out of his seat laughing at the shtick. It became a permanent part of their show and Benton got promoted from roadie to permanent band member.
The Time reached #7 R&B, #50 Pop and was RIAA-certified gold. Though it contains only six songs, half of them are musical explorations 8 minutes or longer. This suited house parties and dance clubs well along with bluesy, feel-up-your-prom-date fare like “Oh, Baby” and the vulnerable slow-dance “Girl,” released as their third single (R&B #49).
Where those requisite ballads expose the band’s growing edge, The Time also includes “After Hi School,” a perky, punk-funk detour that pairs nicely with Day’s youthful, raw vocals up front. Its delightfully unrefined new wave sound is reminiscent of Prince’s “When You Were Mine,” though actually a Dez Dickerson composition.
Back to those spurious credits, the least incorrect one points to Morris Day for lead and background vocals, but everything else is more or less negotiable. They get around publicizing who wrote what by printing “All jams published by Tionna Music” on the label. The rear of the LP states it was “produced by Morris Day & Jamie Starr,” but who is Jamie Starr?
“Jamie Starr is a thief!” according to Prince in the song “D.M.S.R.” from 1999. He continues hinting at his connection to the band, “It’s time to fix your clock.” These red herrings put just enough distance between protégés and their progenitor for the early ‘80s. But in 2018, an auctioned-off songwriting contract exposed that Tionna Music was a Prince trade name, and that Dez Dickerson co-wrote “Cool.”
Dickerson, then a guitarist in The Revolution, sheds light on Jamie Starr’s identity in an excerpt from this 2019 interview: “It was hilarious that people thought that Jamie Starr was like a person, because Jamie Starr was more a composite—Prince primarily, but then you had Morris's input, and I had a little bit of involvement, and there were a bunch of people who had a little bit of involvement.”
One such underrepresented contributor was Lisa Coleman (also of The Revolution). Despite its Prince-like sound, Coleman authored phallocentric sleeper cut “The Stick,” about a partner who lacks sexual stamina. Just for fun though, if one imagines these lyrics sung by a woman who owns toys, the context makes a lot more sense (“Offer me your body / I have to pass / ‘Cause every time we make love / You run out of gas… / You just come too quick / I’d rather work my stick”).
The real question though is: if “Jamie Starr” produced it and Prince’s voice is everywhere, is it really The Time’s album? Of course, it is. It was The Time’s dynamic musicianship and presence that gave the music life outside of Prince. As his opening act, they often upstaged the Purple One before he reached their level of on-stage polish. The rivalry was so fierce, Prince would sometimes remove The Time from the marquee and bill in major markets.
Art imitated life in 1984 when The Time served as Prince’s on-screen antagonists in the film Purple Rain. Day and Benton frequently stole scenes with their hilarious brand of flamboyant, peacocking masculinity.
Only two more LPs were smithed under purple tutelage: What Time Is It? (1982) and Ice Cream Castle (1984). Both kept the 6-song setup established on The Time. Day employed it on his harrowing 1985 solo escape Color of Success too. The original seven would reunite for Pandemonium (1990), a scintillating turn of the tables. Everyone associated with the band’s genesis was able to establish new careers. Even Alexander O’Neal resurfaced as a solo act with half The Time behind him (and a debut single that gave more than a wink and nod to “Get It Up”).
Back in 1981, The Time was just a counter-culture project Prince slapped together for fun. The talents he assembled, however, would significantly affect culture for decades. Forty years after the fact, Rhino has finally issued a long-needed remaster of this seminal recording. It’s like brand new. That means every sleazy, elite, egomaniacal, luxurious detail is buffed to a reflective shine. And if you can see yourself in The Time, that means you’re probably C-O-O-L.
What’s that spell?
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