Day 0834 - The Score

Fugees "The Score" (1996) - got it

Another of those albums/artists that was everywhere when I was in high school.   The Fugees had evolved from an earlier group featuring members Lauryn Hill and Pras.  They were joined by Wyclef Jean and renamed themselves Fugees (short for Refugees or Refugee Camp).

The Fugees' second album 'the Score' lays out a definite political/conscious hip-hop sound.  Making use of plenty of existing material, but instead of just sampling and working over the top of it, the group chose to largely re-record what they use.  They covered Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" and Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry", but also utilised (and repurposed) parts of "Ready or not" by the Delfonics for their own song of the same name.

The album was a hit, but then the three Fugees busied themselves with solo projects and, sadly, to this day have never really produced anything further together, save one leaked single.

Day 0657 - Nick of Time

Bonnie Raitt "Nick of Time" (1989)

To say that Bonnie had had a hard time of it, would be understating things slightly.  Her record company dropped her due to low sales, and (after a two year gap) released the album she'd been working on prior to being dropped, but under a completely different title.  This left Bonnie to promote an album of 2 year old material that she was no longer particularly connected to.
Her romantic relationship ended, she had to disband her backing band as she couldn't afford to pay them, and she fell into a slump of addiction and depression.

After a brief attempt to work with Prince (seems that everyone was doing that in the late 80s/early 90s) Bonnie was put together with Don Was from the group Was (Not Was) of "Walk the Dinosaur" fame.  It ended up being one of those fruitful artist/producer match-ups.  Was matched Raitt's bluesy rock and country-tinged balladry with a little pop sensibility and studio sparkle to create "Nick of Time" and its follow-up "Luck of the Draw", both of which successfully revived Bonnie's career.

Bonnie Raitt is another of those artists where I'd heard her name but had never heard any of her songs... unlike other artists on the list though, her music sounded pretty much exactly as I'd expected it would.

Day 0538 - Purple Rain

Prince & the Revolution "Purple Rain" (1984) - got it

Prince set aside his sleazy synth-funk to put forward his pop opus, "Purple Rain".  This soundtrack to Prince's semi-autbiographical film of the same name would go on to become the third highest selling soundtrack (such as it was) of all time.

Prince lays down some catchy tunes with his usual ear for skilled and effective musical arrangements, overlaid with his wild, desperate vocals.  This was Prince's shot at the bigtime so he even set about cleaning up his sex-heavy lyrics... mostly.  He couldn't help himself, so the beautiful, melodic "Darling Nikki" features reference to masturbating with a magazine and (apparently) helped kickstart the "Parental Advisory" stickers that Al Gore's wife and her 'good taste' crusaders spearheaded.

Interestingly, the title track was originally aimed to be a country song, and a duet with Stevie Nicks.  She said that Prince sent her a 10 minute instrumental demo with a request for her to write lyrics, but she balked at the task.  It was eventually reworked as the epic psychedelic gospel pop rock track that it is.