Vanity 6
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Come on baby, drive me wild
—Vanity 6, "Drive Me Wild"
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Vanity 6 deserve a bit of a special mention as one of Prince's Associates since they were the first side-project Prince came up with on his own and produced an album for.(Prince had formed a rock band in 1979 called The Rebels, but they only recorded a handful of songs that were shelved. Paula Abdul was later given their song "U" (heavily rearranged to not be rock), and "If I Love You Tonight" somehow made its way onto Mayte's album. And... uh, Prince pretends 94 East or Grand Central/Champagne never happened.)
Vanity 6 were a Girl Group formed by Prince sometime in 1981, supposedly after watching A Star Is Born and thinking "Oh hey, that's neat. I wanna do that!" He managed to gather together three of his female friends, Susan Moonsie, Brenda Bennett and Jamie Shoop. We can only presume how awkward the meeting was when Prince told them that they would be named "The Hookers", would perform in lingerie and sing about sex a lot. The sheer fact that he wasn't comically chased out of the room is amazing in itself.
Somehow, presumably through his immense charm, he managed to convince them to record a few demos. He then met nude model and B movie actress Denise Matthews, famous for her widely acclaimed roles in Terror Train and Tanya's Island. Also, a certain part of the body. An awestruck Prince kicked out Shoop and installed his new girlfriend Matthews as the frontwoman instead, giving her the Stage Name "Vanity". Prince wanted to name her "Vagina", clarifying that it would be pronounced "vag-EE-na", because that's how you pronounce it in Minnesota or something. She thankfully managed to bargain it down to "Vanity".
With the Vanity-Bennett-Moonsie lineup in place and a healthy supply of lingerie and Intercourse with You lyrics, Prince renamed the group Vanity 6. The "6" supposedly came from the amount of breasts in the group, thus making Vanity 6 the only band to have been named after a case of My Eyes Are Up Here.
The group released one album, Vanity 6 in 1982. Prince wrote and produced it almost completely (disguising this fact by crediting himself as "The Starr Company" and randomly assigning credits around), with Revolution guitarist Dez Dickerson managing to sneak in a credit for "He's So Dull", Jesse Johnson co-writing "Bite the Beat" and Terry Lewis co-writing "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)". The album itself represented a pretty generic example of Prince's Minneapolis sound, with two forays into synthy Power Pop ("He's So Dull" and "Bite the Beat") and lots of exaggerated, Narmy lyrics about Intercourse with You sung by three women with average vocal talent. Needless to say, it became a hit and spawned a big hit single with "Nasty Girl".
Vanity 6 broke up a year later in 1983 when Vanity suddenly dropped out of the Prince camp and gave up her role in Purple Rain. Undaunted, Prince replaced her with Patricia "Apollonia" Kotero and re-named them "Apollonia 6".
- Audio Erotica: They tried so hard to hit this.
- An unreleased song, "Vibrator", has Vanity actually using a vibrator during the track. Thrice. Hilarity Ensues when her batteries die the second time and, through spoken word, she is forced to shop for more (Prince makes a cameo as an uncooperative store owner). The song ends with the third usage, acapella (this element was later recycled for Prince's song "Orgasm", whose album credits included "Vanity: she knows").
- Call-and-Response Song: "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)"
- The Cameo: Prince himself plays the girl on the other end of the line in "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)". This was recorded well before he sped up his voice for female vocals (and he already proved he could pull off a falsetto), so it's more like "If a Guy Answers"[1].
- Prince also appears in the unreleased "Vibrator" as the shopkeep that sells Vanity batteries for her "body massager".
- Girl Group
- Good Bad Girl: All three members were boxed into a certain personality. Vanity became this by default..
- The Immodest Orgasm: The aforementioned "Vibrator".
- Intercourse with You + Bawdy Song: 99% of their catalogue, pretty much.
- The Ladette: Brenda chose the role of the cigarette-smoking tough chick. Probably the best straw she could draw.
- New Wave
- Power Pop: arguably "He's So Dull" and "Bite the Beat"
- Sex Sells
- Self-Titled Album
- Spoken Word in Music: "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)", and some other tunes.
- "I don't like this groove. Try and give me somethin' I can croon to- catch my drift?"
- "That's right, there'll be no more wet dreams for Brenda. At least not tonight."
- Stage Names: Vanity.
- ↑ "(in a Voice That Sounds Suspiciously Like a Parody of Morris Day)"