Happy Anniversary: Prince, Dirty Mind

34 years ago today, the individual often referred to as His Royal Badness released his third album, an effort which, even as he continued to hold his own on the R&B and Dance charts, found the Yet-To-Be-Purple One taking a step backwards in terms of his success on the Billboard Hot 100 and Top 200.

It looked as though the masses were beginning to accept Prince after his self-titled 1979 album topped the performance of his ’78 debut, For You, by 141 places – the latter only hit #163, but the former made it all the way to #22 – and provided him with his first top-20 single (“I Wanna Be Your Lover,” which went to #11. Unfortunately, Dirty Mind failed to duplicate its predecessor’s success in either fashion, with its chart ascent halting at #45 and without any of its singles ever finding their way into the Hot 100.

Was it the fault of the album’s title? Oh, who knows, really? Whatever the reason, it’s not as though Prince wasn’t continuing to find success elsewhere: “Uptown” hit #5 on the R&B charts, the album’s title track was a minor R&B hit at #65, and both of those tracks as well as “Head” all hit #5 on the Dance chart. And if the masses weren’t terribly interested at the time of its initial release, it’s certainly aged well with the critics: Pitchfork included it in their Top 100 Albums of the ‘80s, and Rolling Stone placed it at #204 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Oh, and let’s not forget that, although Prince himself never commercially released “When You Were Mine” as a single, it’s gotten a lot of love from listeners as a result of Cyndi Lauper’s cover (on She’s So Unusual) and its inclusion on Prince’s The Hits/The B-Sides collection.

Okay, that’s enough reminiscing. Time to stop reading and give Dirty Mind another spin.