| Dirty Mind is the third full-length studio album by Prince. It was released worldwide in October 1980, just under twelve months after his previous album, Prince.
Sessions and compiling
Prince began recording songs for the album in May and June 1980 at his North Arm Drive Home Studio, Orono, MN, USA, immediately after returning from playing the opening act on the Rick James Tour ’80, and the album was mixed and completed in June 1980, at Hollywood Sound Recorders, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
The album’s credits state that it was recorded "Somewhere in Uptown", and lists an engineer called Jamie Starr, a pseudonym for Prince (his first recorded pseudonym), that he would use extensively on side projects from 1980-1983.
While the album is essentially performed entirely by Prince, Dr. Fink plays synthesizer on Dirty Mind and Head, and Lisa Coleman contributes vocals on Head. Additionally, three tracks contained writing contributions by others, although only one is credited. Dr. Fink is credited as a co-writer for Dirty Mind, as he contributed the main keyboard part for the track. Uptown was based around a bass line created by André Cymone, although he is uncredited.
Partyup was based on a groove created by Morris Day. In return for using the groove, Prince offered a choice of $10,000 or help in getting a record deal. Day rejected the money, and instead, Prince helped to create The Time for Day in early 1981.
Promotion
The album produced three commercially-released singles, Uptown (which preceded the album), Dirty Mind and Do It All Night (released in the UK only). Head and When You Were Mine were also available as promotional singles, although these acted as album samplers rather than singles for those particular songs.
Prince toured the USA to support the album on the Dirty Mind Tour in December 1980, and Spring 1981, usually playing every song from the album.
The album reached number 45 on the US Billboard Top LP’s & Tapes, and number 7 on the Billboard Soul LPs.
On 20 June 1984 (less than a week before the release of Purple Rain), Dirty Mind was certified gold by the RIAA, indicating 500,000 copies shipped in the USA.
|
1979: Prince ◄
