I’ve been doing this for nearly a month and this is the first song that’s come up that I don’t recommend at least giving a listen…which means you’ve probably already clicked the link. You want me to admit it? Fine. Prince wasn’t perfect. I don’t love every song he ever recorded. The total number of songs is in quadruple digits. There were bound to be a few misses. This one comes from Prince’s 1998 triple album Crystal Ball.
My initial reaction to “Movie Star” is that it sounds like something Morris Day should be singing. Come to find out, he wrote it for The Time in 1986 even though he wasn’t even working with them anymore. It’s not clear if he ever pitched it to them. Prince ultimately kept it for himself.
For those of you unfamiliar, Prince attempted to sell Warner Brothers on the idea of a triple album called Crystal Ball in 1987. When Warner Bros balked at the idea of a triple album, Prince trimmed some songs off and the double album became Sign O’ the Times. A decade later Prince decided to create a new Crystal Ball including music that he wanted to release over the years but never got around to. “Movie Star” became a part of that collection instead.
The melody of this song bothers me. Prince spends too much of the song – including the first 15 seconds or so – just talking shit about picking up girls. When the first verse kicks in I think to myself, “OK, I can get on board with this,” for a few seconds. Then mid-verse there’s a weird Bugs Bunny sound effect that makes you realize that this song is not to be taken seriously. It feels as if this entire song was a joke to Prince. At some point he and a woman are shouting at each other. It’s just not good and I’m done talking about it.
Thanks to a poor song choice I guess I’m getting a break today. I have nothing more to say about this song other than I’m giving it 1 out of 5 stars. It would’ve been worse, but the drum programming and rhythm guitar save it from something even worse.
mookiefantana 