The album's opening title track, "
1999", was also its first single and initially peaked at 44 on the US
Billboard Hot 100. It was subsequently re-released following the huge success of its follow-up single and
1999s second track, "
Little Red Corvette", which peaked at 6 on the US
Billboard Hot 100. Lisa Coleman - who sang on the album - recalled how Prince came up with "Little Red Corvette" after sleeping in her pink
Mercury Montclair Maurauder. Shortly after being reissued, "1999" hit 12, and subsequently became one of Prince's most recognizable compositions. Its composition, and inclusion in the album, may have been originally prompted by a suggestion from the record company. The
music videos for both "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" were significant as two of the first videos by a black artist to receive heavy rotation on the newly launched music video channel,
MTV, after heated controversy over its failure to promote black performers. The two tracks were later combined as a double A-side single in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number 2. A subsequent
single from the album and its third chronological track, the
rockabilly-influenced "
Delirious", still managed top ten status in the United States at 8, but a fourth, the double-sided single "
Let's Pretend We're Married"/"Irresistible Bitch", got no further than 52. While "Little Red Corvette" helped Prince cross over to the wider rock audience, the rest of
1999 retains the
funk elements featured in previous albums and is dominated by the use of
synthesizers and
drum machines. The album is, however, notable within Prince's catalogue for its wide variety of themes in addition to the sexual imagery which had already become something of a trademark on his previous work. "Automatic", extending to almost ten minutes, starts side three of the album with a prominent synthesizer melody and
bondage-inspired lyrical imagery which, transplanted to the music video for the track (with a scene that depicted Prince being tied up and whipped by band-members
Lisa Coleman and
Jill Jones), had been deemed too sexual for
MTV in 1983. "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)", an ode to a harsh lover, is the centerpiece of a preoccupation with
Computer Age themes that would continue into future albums. This is also reflected in various aspects of the album's instrumentation, with Prince fully embracing the gadgetry and sounds of emergent electro-funk and 1980s sequencing technology on tracks like "Let's Pretend We're Married" and "All the Critics Love U in New York", songs that widen his use of synthesizers and prominently feature the use of a
Linn LM-1 drum machine.
1999 also contains two
ballads in "Free", a
piano piece encouraging people to count their blessings and be thankful for what they have, and "
International Lover", a slow-paced love song for which Prince received his first
Grammy Award nomination in
1984 under the category of
Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. ==Artwork==