Click above to hear an audio version of this review, with musical selections. Audio produced by Derrick Stevens.

With his third album, Dirty Mind, released in October of 1980, Prince leaped to the head of the class, laying the sonic blueprint that would help define the music of the '80s and beyond.

Now, this is still two years before 1999, and four away from Purple Rain, but it's the moment he put the Minneapolis Sound on the map. With musical daring and dexterity on Dirty Mind, Prince blends synthetic R&B, new wave, funk, pop, and a fearlessness in creating some of the most explicit lyrics in music history.

This is the record where Prince finds his sound by stripping it down to the essentials: spare guitar, keyboards, and bass lines that snake around his versatile vocals. By leaving the songs sounding almost like demos, he draws a line that separates him from funk's immediate past.

For all the controversy around the explicit lyrics, the key song that sets the tone for the record is "Uptown." On the surface, it's a tribute to the artist-friendly Minneapolis neighborhood, but at the same time, a metaphor for Prince's vision, where we can all be free to express ourselves, and racism and prejudice don't exist.

Dirty Mind was the album that put him and us on the map, an essential stop on any trip through Prince's career.