Minneapolis Sound

The Minneapolis Sound is inseparable from Prince and the network of musicians, producers and artists he cultivated at Paisley Park, his Chanhassen compound. It began in the late 1970s as Prince developed his multi-instrumentalist approach, playing everything himself or with a small, shifting band (the Revolution), and recording at Paisley Park’s studio with unusual speed and discipline.

The distinctive sonic signature: synthesizer basslines that replaced or doubled bass guitar (most dramatically on “When Doves Cry,” which has no bass at all); live drums mixed unusually dry and prominent; layered synthesizer textures; and Prince’s guitar playing — equal parts Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and something that belonged to no tradition but his own. Over this he layered vocals that could range from Sly Stone’s falsetto to James Brown’s grunt in the same song.

The producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, initially part of Prince’s extended circle before he fired them from the Time, took the Minneapolis aesthetic to work with Janet Jackson — making Control (1986) the pop crystallization of the Minneapolis Sound’s possibilities. The sound’s tightness and synthesizer-centrism were influential on 1980s pop production globally, from UK synth-pop to American R&B.