1999 (Prince album)

1999 is the fifth studio album from Prince. It contained the hit songs "Little Red Corvette", "1999" and "Delirious". The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation.

1999
Studio album by Prince and the Revolution
Released	October 27, 1982 (1982-10-27)
Recorded	January–August 1982
Studio	Kiowa Trail Home (Chanhassen, Minnesota) Sunset Sound Recorders (Hollywood, California)
Genre	Minneapolis sound[1] funk[2][3] synth-pop[4] R&B[5] art pop[6] dance[3] new wave[7][8]
Length	70:29
Label	Warner Bros.
Producer	Prince
Prince chronology
Controversy (1981) 1999 (1982) Purple Rain (1984)
Singles from 1999
"1999" Released: September 24, 1982 "Little Red Corvette" Released: February 9, 1983 "Delirious" Released: August 17, 1983 "Automatic" Released: August 1983 (non-US single) "Let's Pretend We're Married" Released: November 23, 1983

The record was released on October 27, 1982.^[9]

The album's music is pop, funk and R&B.

Critical reception and legacy

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	100/100 (2019 edition)[10]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Blender	[11]
Chicago Sun-Times	[12]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[13]
The Guardian	[14]
Pitchfork	10/10[15]
Rolling Stone	[4]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[16]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	8/10[17]
The Village Voice	A−[3]

1999 was well received by contemporary critics. Reviewing for Rolling Stone in December 1982, Michael Hill praised Prince for "working like a colorblind technician who's studied both Devo and Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, keeping the [1999's] songs constantly kinetic with an inventive series of shocks and surprises."^[18] The Village Voice reviewer Robert Christgau was more reserved in his praise. While conceding that, "like every black pop auteur, Prince commands his own personal groove ... stretching his flat funk forcebeat onto two discs worth of deeply useful dance tracks", he also believed that the musician's only reliable subject remains race, leaving the critic with doubts about the messages behind the sex and apocalyptic songs.^[3]