STILL GETTING DIRECTIONS FROM THESE SIGNS....

What the (greatly) expanded version of Sign O' the Times has to teach artists today....

PRINCE

Sign O’ The Times (Super Deluxe Edition)

Released 1987 Warner Bros.

The Purple Rain money was still pouring in when Prince began work on what became Sign O the Times, the 1987 double album esteemed by many as his best. He was, by then, a massive star, revered for his sound, his moves, his look, his songwriting, his heat-seeking musicianship. In the aftermath of his successful film and its soundtrack, Prince became part of a small club of multiplatinum artists (Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen) who erupted in the early ‘80s and would define the art of pop music for much of the decade.

But Prince was not like those others. When he went to work in his new 65,000-square foot studio complex, he could transform just about any whim into sound, thrilling and ear-stretching sound. By himself.

He could do anything. So...he did everything.

In the course of this creative whirlwind of a year, Prince made searing  gospel confessionals and songs like “The Cross” that were saturated with religious parable. Then he cranked out salacious funk that celebrated lust in ways that could make a parishioner blush. He sped up his voice to become a character he called “Camille” to sing songs that flipped gender roles and identities. He sang rococo cabaret tunes. Pop ballads that hit the sweet spot between tenderness and treacle. He explored jazz fusion, and samba, and abrasive electro-funk. He’d start out with something utterly typical, a club-beat drum machine loop he’d used a zillion times before, and according to those who witnessed his process, would emerge a few hours later with strange, psychedelic arthouse music flecked with dissonance. The basic loop was still in place, but that’s where the accessibility ended. His vision of dance music could sometimes be galaxies away from what the DJs play in clubland.

The new Super Deluxe edition of Sign includes more than 40 tunes that were held back from the official release; Prince gave the collection several names, and at one point argued with his label, Warner Brothers Records, that it should be a triple album. (Warner won that battle.) The vault material, curated by Prince estate archivist Michael Howe, takes up nearly three discs of the package. It’s presented in chronological order and is supported by extensive notes.

In an interview last year, Howe explained that a priority of the vault program was to shed light on Prince’s creative process. As the small team of people listen to the previously unreleased tracks, Howe said, they ask questions like “Does this reflect what we know to be his artistry?” Then, having that rather large question settled, “it becomes a game of trying to guess the thought process of an artist who, on his best day, was unpredictable. And fickle.”

Hearing the unreleased Sign O’ the Times material sequenced in album form is a little bit like sustaining whiplash – not once but repeatedly, with the jolts coming from different directions each time, as the different aspects of Prince’s art emerge and intersect.

What registers first is how solid the songs are compositionally – even when he’s dispensing variations on the theme of “let’s hook up,” Prince does it in wry, playful ways. He creates characters that feel like people, not cutouts, puts in situations that seem plausible, if sometimes dire. He updates iconic pop culture references: “Blanche” is a repetitive riff involving Blanche and Stanley, the couple from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. (The tune Prince apparently wrote for Joni Mitchell, “Emotional Pump,” is reflective and honest, but also blunt in a way that put it out of her wheelhouse. That tune and the “collaboration” with Miles Davis are two rare misfires here; perhaps even Prince got starstruck.)

Listen some more, and you begin to notice how much detail is loaded into these mostly spontaneous-sounding tracks: The thick, instantly recognizable vocal harmony blend between Prince, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman of the Revolution; the crisp echoes of Ellington in the horn writing; the sheer variety of guitar sounds and textures. (For one stunning and fleeting example among many, check the guitar coda to “There’s Something I Like About Being Your Fool.” It’s twenty seconds of savage tone.)

Throughout this extended journey, on the transcendent moments and the occasional duds, Prince’s well-documented restlessness comes through. He’s just trying stuff and having fun, and trying more stuff and moving on from there. The feeling is one of flow – he’s striving to capture the enthusiasm of a creative moment, whether it becomes a hit or not. There’s a brazenness to the work process that aligns with the brazenness of everything else we know about Prince at the time – his extended explorations into identity, his conflicted embrace of fame, his willingness to routinely go off searching, as he sings in one song, “in a large room with no light.”

Here’s the thing about that: You don’t get anywhere if you don’t search. At no point on any of these discs does Prince sound like someone who’s concerned with preserving his standing or his turf in the pop music world. And as a result, he’s not worried, even a teensy bit, about giving his audience what it might expect. Quite the opposite: He defies those expectations. He’s taking the leaps because he can. Maybe because he must. How they land in the marketplace doesn’t seem to concern him much. Wish more artists approached things this way.

Please subscribe! And if you like what’s here, please spread the word. Thanks.