Search - Time :: Ice Cream Castle

The Album With The Best Songs From Purple Rain

Casey Stewart | San Joaquin Delta | 04/10/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The year was 1984, and Purple Rain featured a contest between Morris Day and The Time and Prince, aka The Kid. Of course, in real life Day and Prince were best buds, and Prince wrote plenty of material for The Time.But...it was fun to see the "contest" and I do believe The Time, with Jungle Love, and the great funk of The Bird had the better tunes! (Well okay, Let's Go Crazy was up there too.) For pure get down and dirty raunch, My Drawers and Chili Sauce take the cake. My Drawers gives you a hint of what was to come...(think: Oh Sheila!).I can still see Day, patting his ridiculous pompadour while an obliging Jerome holds up a vanity mirror. What a character!Not their best album, that would be What Time Is It, but definitely the best known, it's a shame it had to be their last."

Too bad this was their last great album. Shoulda been more!

ripzepplin | NAPERVILLE, ILLINOIS United States | 12/17/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Though not as great as their second CD, "What Time Is It?", (hence the 4 star rating), this one is more memorable, if only because of the connection with the hugely successful "Purple Rain" movie and CD. You can't listen to "Jungle Love" or "The Bird" without picturing the Time's animated performance in that movie. The same can be said for other tunes such as Chilli "Sauce" and "If the Kid Can't Make You Come", which both play on Morris Day's character that many met for the first time in the flick (not that his personna didn't exist in previous recordings). But timing, as they say, is everything. "Puprle Rain" served as a breaththrough for both Prince and the Time, at a time when it wasn't easy breaking yourself apart from the rest of the R&B, funk music pack. Without Purple Rain, The Time (and Prince to a degree) didn't have the marketing tool that made "Castles" such a huge success. And because of the band's ensuing break up, the time between solo releases by Day, or as a group with the tim (Pandemonium) was just too far apart to stay in the minds of their adoring public - especially after opening the floodgates for wanna be bands to come. Can you say bad management? That's a pity. This is one of the greatest 80s funk bands of all time - Morris one of the most memorable in all around talent and charisma. Prince, The Time, along with bands likd BarKayes and Rick James pushed the envelope when it came to provocative content, perhaps unwittingly laying the goundwork for the more explicit, even pathetic lyrics of today's artists. But the fact that this band couldn't rise up to overcome internal combustion to put out future albums of similar quality is one of the great shames in music history. Pandemonium was, a 3 star effort at best, and Morris' 2 solo efforts (anyone got a copy of "Daydreaming" I can have? ) would recapture some of the magic, but "Ice Cream Castles" was their zenith. Lots to dance and romance to. Am I the only one who ever used his approach in "Chilli Sauce" while out on a date?"

Underrated Time classic very sublime, album

E. D. Daniels | tampa, florida United States | 08/31/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The original Time did not exist any longer as a band,(due to Jam and Lewis getting fired the April before) so in early 1984 Prince aka Jamie Starr, Jesse Johnson, and Morris Day assembled in an L.A. Studio and recorded "Ice Cream Castles" four great songs and two classic the title track a pop/funk ditty grooves along at nearly 7 minutes and is about their love of women of all races probaly written by Prince with it's classic lean guitar and synth fills. "My Drawers" is as Rock as "The Time" would get until "Pandenoium" six years later.and the Prince written ballad "Chili Sauce"is typical Morris Day come - ons with Prince serving as the waiter in a very high ptiched "garcon- like voice" side two (If you have it on vinyl)is where the classics reside.



"Jungle Love" the first Time collaboration with Jesse Johnson and Morris Day writing and arranging (Prince along with various Revolution members played on the first two albums)where the other songs were lite, Jungle Love swings with a aminalistic funk edge that was unlike the Minneapolis Sound(for the electronic 1980's )with all the elements of what made The Time the best R&B band of the 1980's. Day's macho but flirty come-ons the Drums and Bass lines that would swing the Keyboards playing the classic Minneapolis blueprint but one the one thing that tied it all was Jesse Johnson's monster solo while the band is in full flight.



If the kid can't make you come is the Prince written sexual vibe to a lady he is trying to seduce, but Morris Day and Jesse make it their own jam, with a bluesy guitar line and swirling snyth they take the tune and slam it into a sedctive song that ends in a orgasm of sorts with The female singer cooing the Star- Sapngled Banner in an post sex glow. And finally, one of the best funk jams of the 80's "The Bird "recorded live with many of the new members, they show why they are one hell of a live act. Playing classic funk lines (watch Purple Rain)and cheorgraphy, they take this raging funk jam into the stratosphere.Ironically they broke up as a band not to hear another note expect in their solo ventures (or in Jam and Lewis case producing) for another six years. This is one underrated album in The Time Canon and their biggest selling album.



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