The latest fashion features [Prince] with [Morris Day] on co-lead vocals with saxophone by Candy Dulfer and crowd noise by [Jerome Benton], Robin Power as well as the engineers Tom Garneau and Michael Koppelman. Love machine was a duet by [Morris Day] and Elisa Fiorillo with saxophone by Candy Dulfer and backing vocals by [Jerome Benton]. Jana Anderson contributes backing vocals on Shake! while Candy Dulfer adds saxophone to Release it again. Levi Seacer jr. is listed as musician on Release it and Love machine, but his input isn't really specified.
All tracks were leftovers from the 1989 [Corporate World] album sessions by [Prince] with [Morris Day]. The latest fashion was originally recorded in April 1987 by [Prince] at Paisley Park and was first offered to Dale Bozzo for her 1989 album "Dale", but she rejected. The finally released version is drastically reworked, employing the melody line of My summertime thang (1990, from the album [Pandemonium]) instead of its original melody.
All four tracks are pure dance funk. Driven by busily drumming, Release it is a sparse, edgy funk workout recalling "Lady cab driver" (1982, from the [Prince] album "1999") and "Tamborine" (1985, from the [Prince] album "Around The World In A Day"). Candy Dulfer adds a few saxophone parts on the coda, but her contribution is peripheral. Shake! is a terse and jerky dance tune. The chorus with its cheesy organ sound evokes memories of the two '60s garage rock classics "Wooly Bully" (1965 by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs) and "96 tears" (1966 by The Myterians). The latest fashion is fun, buoyant funk outing with a stomping beat but with very little rhythmic or harmonic variety. The song ends with a rap by [Prince]. Far more impressive, Love machine is a tense, urgent drum-driven funk dance track with formidable rhythmic power. The whole song is created around a drum machine pattern with only flickers of rhythm guitar and synth providing embellishments. The lyrics are alternately sung by Elisa Fiorillo and spoken by [Morris Day].In the "Graffiti Bridge" motion picture, the songs performed by THE TIME depict [Morris Day] as a dishonest, greedy, sex-crazed and hedonistic pleasure-seeker. The material provides a counterpoint to [Prince]'s overtly spiritual and more serious themes. Shake! is a simple celebration of partying and dancing. It borrows the line "you got to shake somethin" from "Gotta shake something" (1985-86, from [Prince]'s prev. unreleased MC Flesh project). In the motion picture [Morris Day] uses Release it to offend [Prince] (as the Kid) and demand that he releases (give up) the stage and his ownership of the Glam Slam Club. Love machine finds [Morris Day] in the role of a love machine, offering sexual satisfaction to a woman. Being a machine implies that he isn't emotionally involved and that he only wants sex without any love. The latest fashion is a battle between [Morris Day] and [Prince] (The Kid) over being the hottest live act in town. The Kid boasts that there ain't nobody funky like him and he maintained that he is still the king and THE TIME his court only. The lyrics mentions a dance called Murph drag, which was the title of a song from the shelved 1989 [Corporate World] album project.
