New Prince: ‘Hot Summer’

Prince turned 52 yesterday. If he was living in Greece he probably could have retired by now, but instead he marked the occasion by dropping a new song on a radio station in his native Minneapolis. Called “Hot Summer”, it’s a fairly throwaway funk jam – though as it wore on, the track started grew on me slightly. Only slightly.

In the same way that the original script for Woody Allen’s recent Larry David starring-film Whatever Works, was first written in the early 70s – Woody pulled it out of a drawer when he needed to make a film quickly before a looming actors’ strike a few years back – it feels as if this track was written in a somewhat cheesy mood during Prince’s 80s pomp and then, perhaps rightly, tossed to one side; only for it to be retrieved and given a polish now.

The track is streaming over on Twenty Four Bit, and on YouTube (below), though it could disappear at any stage.

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