"Alphabet St." is a song from American musician Prince's tenth album, Lovesexy (1988). It was the first single from that album and the album's only top 10 single, reaching the top 10 in both the UK and US. Initially written as an acoustic blues song, the song's final version includes a rap by Cat Glover and is full of samples. "Alphabet St." generally echoes themes from the rest of Lovesexy.
The B-side is a remix of "Alphabet St." called "Alphabet St. ("This is not music, this is a trip")". The title and other phrases are repeated at the beginning of the song, but essentially it is an instrumental with a few minor changes. "Alphabet St." was the first Prince single released as a CD, albeit only in the UK and Japan. A promo CD was issued in the US.
Critical reception
In his review of the song, Paul Clements from Melody Maker felt that "as a lighthearted bubblegum pastiche, it fairly shimmers. There's some judiciously spare scratch guitar, the usual assortment of percolating percussion, and a magnificent tumbling drum lick." He also noted its "almost shocking austerity", and concluded, "Hopefully, a ticklish harbinger of a long, deliciously hot summer."[3]Sean O'Hagan from NME wrote, "'Alphabet St' is, naturally, a record of rare brilliance. It unleashes its outrefunk ideology over one of those patented Prince guitar riffs—a clipped, chunky groove that slips into the cerebral space once occupied by the subliminal 'Kiss' coda. From then on, the boy has it easy. 'Alphabet St' is meatier and a lot less meandering than much of the Madhouse future funk of 'Black', stating its case with a hip-shaking sass that is one of the maverick ruler's stock signatures."[4]
Music video
Directed by Patrick R. Epstein and produced on very short notice on March 20, 1988[5] by filmmaker Michael R. Barnard, the music video for "Alphabet St." shows Prince walking and driving through an environment made out of letters. The video contains hidden messages. The first one appears after the end of the first verse ("She'll want me from my head to my feet"), where there is a split second image with the hidden message "Don't buy The Black Album, I'm sorry." The second image says B "heaven is so beautiful"; the third image is D "4 the light dance"; the fourth image is G "funk guitar"; the fifth image is H (heroin) "is 4 punks"; the sixth image, when Prince is in the Thunderbird, says "if U don't mind".
Track listings
7-inch single
A. "Alphabet St." (edit) – 2:25
B. "Alphabet St." (cont.) – 3:14
12-inch and CD single
"Alphabet St." (album version) – 5:38
"Alphabet St. ("This is not music, this is a trip")" – 7:48
Part of the rap section was used in the 1990 Ween song "L.M.L.Y.P.". Prince's "No!" scream intro also replaces the word "shit" on the radio edit of their 1993 song "Push th' Little Daisies".
1990s hip-hop group Arrested Development sampled a word from "Alphabet St." for their breakout song "Tennessee" in 1992. The group were sued for their unauthorized use of the word "Tennessee" and had to pay Prince $100,000.[36]
In 1992, Czech singer Lucie Bílá sampled the beat and guitar riff for her song "Láska je láska" which became the most successful hit of the year in Czech Republic.
^"Track Listing". Aprilsnow030.ueuo.com. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved January 14, 2012.
^Clerc, Benoît (October 2022). Prince: All the Songs. Octopus. ISBN9781784728816.
^"Lovesexy". guitarcloud.org. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
^"Australian (ARIA) Top 50 Singles Chart Week Ending 19th June, 1988". ARIA. Retrieved October 24, 2017. N.B. "Alphabet St." peaked on the Kent Music Report chart in the week before ARIA commenced producing the chart in-house. However, it is listed as peaking at No. 17 in David Kent's book (after the ARIA chart became Australia's official chart), and as No. 26 on the australian-charts.com reference, which only contains data from when ARIA produced the chart in-house.
^"1988 The Year in Music & Video"(PDF). Billboard. Vol. 100, no. 52. December 24, 1988. p. Y-23. Archived(PDF) from the original on June 28, 2021. Retrieved August 16, 2021.