The Hits/The B-Sides

PRINCE: The Hits/The B-Sides (Paisley Park/Warner Bros.)

WHEN I look back on my seventy-five years in the journalism business, I regard my finest achievement as the day I transcribed Brendan McGahon's review of Prince's Symbol album.

It was this time last year, the Hot Press Political Issue, and a raft of TDs had been asked to deliver critiques of some of the current rock releases. McGahon, being the sexy motherfucker that he is, was nominated for the Prince Job.

"A load of shite", thundered the Lester Bangs of the Fine Gael backbenches down the phoneline from his Dáil office, before going on to assess Prince's music in more detail as "an awful din" and "appaling shite", and then concluding, "You really would want an very sick and disordered mind to even think about buying this tape."

Well, just wait till Brendan gets a load of this collection. Here, for the first time ever in the one place is the very best of Mr Knickers With Attitude himself. That means three things, sex, sex and more sex. It means songs about oral sex, masturbation, S&M, cross dressing, troilisms, voyeurism, role playing and more squelchy, squishy and steamy rumpy pumpy than you could shake a prick at.

Most importantly, however, it means some of the funkiest, funniest and most intensely life-affirming music that has been made this century. It also means a very long review.

A Best Of Prince compilation has been sorely needed for a long time now but it was always a prospect that was viewed by fans with considerable trepidation.

Prince may be a genius but he's got the attention span of a goldfish with Parkinson's Disease and no concept whatsoever of quality control. He records far too much material (at the moment, there are reputedly seven completed albums lying in the Paisley Park vaults) and his career has been marked by releases that have been bulked with filler or overwrought tracks that should never have made it beyond demo tape. A few bad calls here could've sunk this project with ballast and bluster.

I'm happy to report that this hasn't happened. The Hits/The B-Sides is, by and large, an impeccably taut and discerning collection, featuring all the really great songs from Prince's fifteen year and fourteen-album recording history. Hits One and Hits Two, both comprising eighteen tracks, can each be bought separately, and the three-CD version incorporates both of these volumes plus a discful of twenty of his finest B-sides.

The running order is not chronological and there is no attempt to give a "flavour" of every single album as there was, say, on last year's Talking Heads retrospective, Sand In The Vaseline. This is just as it should be. Prince has far too many mixed bags under his gold-encrusted belt to allow for such a methodical approach. It's no harm at all, for instance, that Lovesexy is represented by only one track ('Alphabet Street') while there are four selections from both Dirty Mind and Purple Rain.

The lucky dip feel of The Hits/The B-Sides guarantees that it will become an essential soundtrack for occasions when sensible citizens are gathered together to party like it's 1999, or more especially, to jerk their bodies like a horny pony would. From the shrieking guitar intro of 'When Doves Cry' onwards, the classics come faster than a premature ejaculator at an orgy. There are some brilliant medleys e.g. from 'Delirious' into 'Little Red Corvette' into 'I Would Die 4 U' into 'Raspberry Beret' into 'If I Was Your Girlfriend' into 'Kiss', and even a couple of timely slow sets during which the more romantic can smooch, and I can resume my seat on the couch beside the six-packs and the basin of crisps. Prince really does cater for everybody.

The inclusion of the B-sides may seem like one of those unwanted "bonuses" but it's far from it. There's some inspired stuff here. While Prince has always been prodigally generous with his songs, dispensing some of his best compositions like alms to pop's needy (Sheena Easton, The Bangles) or to his own hungry proteges (Apollonia, Vanity, Jill Jones etc. etc.), he has also found a perverse pleasure in squirrelling away real gems on obscure flipsides and in the outtakes bin.

'Horny Toad','Feel U Up', and 'Irresistible Bitch', for example, are tracks that were originally recorded in 1983 and all three would've made welcome additions to either 1999 or Purple Rain. Instead, they were relegated to lowly 'additional material' status on 12" singles (in fact, 'Feel Up Up' didn't see daylight until 1989 and only then as the flip of 'Partyman').

The ballad, 'How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore', is another c/w cut that deserved a much higher profile and the same could be said of at least a half dozen more of the B-sides unearthed here. Perhaps it's not perversity at all. Perhaps Prince really can't tell the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit. Maybe he should hire himself a food taster.

Of the songs omitted from The Hits/The B-Sides, I for one can live quite happily without 'Batdance', 'Partyman' and the rest of that dodgy Batman stuff. I reckon I'll also get by without singles like 'Anotherloverholeneeyeohead' and 'Glam Slam'. That said, 'Mountains' from Parade should be here and so should another one or two of the more seminal early tracks such as 'Darling Nikki' and 'Jack U Off' (I did say seminal). The previously unreleased material that is included is nothing spectacular but nor does it seem especially out of place. And in this exalted company, that has to be some sort of compliment.

The live version of 'Nothing Compares 2 U' is good, if a little 2 showbizzy, and certainly not as good as the version by U're 1 (4 fuck's sake - Ed.).

Speaking of Prince's irritating little trademarks, I wonder if it is at all significant that two of his new songs are called 'Pink Cashmere' and 'Peach' respectively? Has he now turned his back on purple in favour of the softer, more pastel shades? Does this mean that he's getting old? Growing up? Cracking Up?

Or does it just mean that I've been spending far too much time listening to this album?

Of course, with a fifty-six track retrospective compilation like this, the real question has to be, who is he? What does this overview really tell us about the man behind the masks and the zebra-striped bikini briefs?

Well, the answer is not a hell of a lot. Prince has always sold the sizzle and not the steak. He has nothing to say but he says it with such panache and verve that you cannot help but listen. The only thing that overshadows his gargantuan libido is his self-obsession, his messiah complex. To rationalise the two, he's concocted his credo of carnal Christianity.

Sex and the salvation of Jesus are all, he tells us, and they are inextricably intertwined. You can't really enjoy one without the other. As an argument, it holds about as much water as an incontinent pygmy but that's not the point.

"I'm not a woman, I'm not a man," Prince proclaims on 'I Would Die 4 U'. I am something that you'll never understand/I'm your Messiah/And you're the reason why/I am not a human/I am a dove/I am your conscious/I am love. On paper, it's babble from the hospital bed. When sung by Prince, it makes sense. The sizzle not the steak.

The Hits/The B-Sides proves that the real message is the music itself. But boy, what music. The horny little toad with the speaking voice that makes him sound like a cross between Zsa Zsa Gabor and Sean Kelly is the greatest living pop star. Nothing compares to Prince.

This collection is the best ride you're likely to have. Thankfully, Brendan McGahon will hate it.

• Liam Fay.