Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
that song that you wrote for the craic one night, and then your 8 months into making the album album, youve stuck it in the middle of the demos by complete laziness, and every person who hears the record, forgets the shit you slaved over and goes 'oh, thats amazing that is' - 'oh, that?? thats just a demo' - 'really?? all your other songs are shit, but that is good'.
so how does one do that every time, eh?
suppose it's down to how you hear it as 'punter', the less produced/pre-concieved songs always catch my ear, as a generalism songs written off the cuff just have more realism/accessability to the person, than tight catchy riffs, couplets and hooks
"We did a bunch of songs for Mazarati's album,” David Z recalls. "Then, when we needed a single, Prince gave me this demo of him just playing straight chords on an acoustic guitar — one verse and one chorus — while singing in a normal pitch; not the falsetto that's on the finished record. To us, it sounded like a folk song and we were wondering what we could do with it. No way was it funky. Anyway, starting with a LinnDrum, I programmed the beat and began experimenting. Taking a hi-hat from the drum machine, I ran it through a delay unit and switched between input and output and in the middle. That created a very funky rhythm. Then I took an acoustic guitar, played these open chords and gated that to the hi-hat trigger. The result was a really unique rhythm that was unbelievably funky but also impossible to actually play... I'm sure that sound influenced the fabulous new Daft Punk song 'Get Lucky', because it uses the same trick, with the guitar gated to some sort of rhythm and sequencer.
"Next, I remembered a little piano part from a Bo Diddley song called 'Say Man' and put it on there, and then Tony Christian sang the lead part, an octave lower than what Prince wound up doing. The background vocals I adapted from the Brenda Lee song 'Sweet Nothings' — good music is always taken from somewhere else — and that was that. The whole thing was done in a day."
Or David Z and the guys in Mazarati thought it was. The fact is, in this form 'Kiss' sounded OK — a so-so dance number. However, Tony Christian's lead vocal was a little soulless and uninspiring, and when Prince heard the track he decided to head in a different direction... with himself at the helm.
"When I came back into the studio the next morning, Prince had already taken it off the machine, replaced the vocal with his own falsetto performance — which, I guess, he felt it needed — got rid of the bass part and added a James Brown 'Papa's Got A Brand New Bag' guitar lick,” Z recalls. "'What happened?' I asked, to which he replied, 'It's too good for you guys. I'm taking it back.'”
Boasting a four-octave range, Prince sang virtually the entire song in head voice, reverting to chest voice for the final line, as well as a single note before the last chorus. "At the time, I think he was into using a [Sennheiser MD] 441,” says Z.
"We only used nine tracks for that song, including a bass drum on one track, the rest of the drums on another and the hi-hat on a separate track. As for the lack of bass guitar, we always ran the kick drum through an [AMS] RMX16 and put it on the Reverse 2 setting to extend the tail of the reverb. That served as a kick drum and a bass, and it was a signature sound that we used all the time with Prince. We didn't need a real bass. And there was no reverb on anything else; just the kick. The guitar was dry and gated, and everything else sounded kind of different to the corporate rock that was on the radio at that time.”
Mazarati's backing vocals ended up on the finished record, yet this was scant compensation for what they had hoped would be their breakout hit.
"They were pissed,” says Z. "Prince had promised everyone a share of the songwriting credit, but that never happened and they were kind of mad about it.”
Upgrade your account now to disable all ads... If we had any... Which we don't right now.
Upgrade nowWe use essential cookies to make this site work, and optional cookies to enhance your experience.