‘1999’: The hit single Prince retired for the 21st century
1982 proved to be a breakthrough year for Minneapolis maestro Prince. Already garnering a dedicated fanbase intoxicated with his hyper-flamboyant synth-funk and oozing sexuality, Prince decided to assemble his famous backing group, the Revolution, for his fifth LP 1999, its lead single title track his biggest hit yet forging a wide appeal across rock, R&B, and pop with a heavy presence on the fledgling MTV network, one of the first black artists to break the cable channel’s dogged commitment to strict rotation of white rock.
Like many of his other huge singles, ‘1999’ was recorded during one of Prince’s famous bursts of creative inspiration, abruptly corraling the Revolution and other collaborators to the studio at whatever time and often through the night, too urgently excited to capture his musical eureka moment to even remember to eat, save copious amounts of coffee and the occasional snack food.
Backing singer and ‘Revolutionary’ Jill Jones recalled to The New York Times in 2019 that she received one of Prince’s characteristic urgent phone calls to record a vocal part, singing her lines for ‘1999‘ still in her pyjamas.
Prince may well have been the first artist to explore the pre-millennial anxiety of the impending 21st century 18 years before its passing. In one of his infrequent media appearances, Prince revealed on his ’99 Larry King Live interview for CNN that 1999’s lyrical inspirations came from the apocalyptic dread that was perceived to arrive with the arrival of the year 2000.
Wishing to counter this pessimism, Prince decided to craft a bombastic pop song documenting the greatest party eve to engulf humanity, a festive blast of hedonism and celebratory abandon as the meteorite towards earth or Y2K’s swarming bug terror triggers technological breakdown. Dystopia had never sounded so good.
As the new millennium dawned, Prince felt his classic hit’s enduring appeal would wane as ’99 became the past, announcing the end-of-the-world track’s retirement on stage in December that year at Minnesota’s Paisley Park, captured on the concert film Rave Un2 the Year 2000. ‘1999’s omission from his following setlists was consistent until its tease at Florida’s Dolphin Stadium, Prince headlining the Super Bowl XLI halftime show in 2007, featuring the Florida A&M University marching band playing an instrumental version during his main set. ‘1999’ eventually crept back into his live repertoire, played over 150 times until his sudden death in ’16.
With some savvy foresight, one can’t help but envisage Prince’s commercial anticipation for his 20th-century farewell number’s boost on radio and music video rotation come the new millennium. VH1 played its video repeatedly for 24 hours until 1998 passed into ’99, and ‘1999’ saw its re-entry into Billboard‘s Hot 100 and tenth in the UK Singles chart of its namesake year.
Entering the charts again following Prince’s death, ‘1999’ became the first song in Billboard history to reach the Top 40 in three different decades. Among an exhaustive body of work, ‘1999’ was a pivotal moment in Prince’s artistic trajectory, the sound of a musician well and truly knowing his greatness and anticipating stratospheric levels of fame.
