I Wanna Be Your Lover

A “restrained, carefully crafted funk exercise” is how The Los Angeles Times described Prince’s first hit single in a review of the singer’s L.A. debut at the Roxy in November 1979. In retrospect, that’s a cautious assessment, but it’s understandable: Prince was but 21 at the time, and his brash, flamboyant style still hadn’t fully distinguished itself from the disco landscape. But the seeds were there. After the weak showing of his first album, 1978’s For You, Prince wrote “I Wanna Be Your Lover” with a vengeance, intended for R&B singer Patrice Rushen. Where one might hear “carefully crafted,” the song actually packs a boldly sculpted beat, the singer’s spine-tingling falsetto and a sleek revamping of the disco template. With “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” Prince threw down his glittery gauntlet – from there on out, the world had to meet his challenge.