Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.
For my last rock block pick for Prince, I thought it would be appropriate to choose the one Prince song that has grown on me more over time. This is the one that I was least drawn to growing up. It was the one Prince single that I was too dismissive of because it was way too simple, way too minimal, not melodic enough. But the thing about “Sign ‘o the Times” is it’s actually full of hooks. It just happens to be more psychedelic and more blues than pop.
Over the years, “Sign ‘o the Times” has become more and more intriguing to me because it shifts in and out of different worlds. It goes from spoken word verses to a beautifully sung chorus. It traverses across funk, blues, electronic and minimal like a thief in the night. And it covers a gamut of socio-political ills, from AIDS, to gang violence to natural and manmade disasters. While it was truly a sign of its own times, it has held up remarkably well and is as relevant as ever today — both musically and thematically.
“You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin' you somebody died.”