Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Chicago Sun-Times
Entertainment Weekly	A−
The Guardian
Pitchfork	10/10
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Spin Alternative Record Guide	8/10
The Village Voice	A−

1999 is the fifth studio album by American recording artist Prince. It was released on October 27, 1982, by Warner Bros. Records. 1999 was Prince's breakthrough album, but his next album, Purple Rain, would become his most successful. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became his first top ten hit in countries outside the United States. The album was his first top ten album on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States (peaking at number 9, besting that peak at number 7 after his death in 2016) and became the fifth best-selling album of 1983 overall, eventually being certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA.

The album's opening title track, "1999", was also its first single and initially peaked at number 41 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It was subsequently re-released following the huge success of its follow-up single and 1999's second track, "Little Red Corvette", which peaked at number 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Shortly after being reissued, "1999" hit number 12 and has since become one of Prince's most recognizable compositions. The music videos for both "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" were significant as two of the first videos by a black artist to receive heavy rotation on the newly launched music video channel, MTV. The two tracks were later combined as a double A-side single in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number 2. A subsequent single from the album and its third chronological track, the rockabilly-influenced "Delirious", still managed top ten status in the United States at number 8, but a fourth, the double-sided single "Let's Pretend We're Married"/"Irresistible Bitch", got no further than number 52.

While "Little Red Corvette" helped Prince cross over to the wider rock audience, the rest of 1999 retains the funk elements featured in previous albums and is dominated by the use of synthesizers and drum machines. The album is, however, notable within Prince's catalogue for its wide variety of themes in addition to the sexual imagery which had already become something of a trademark on his previous work. "Automatic", extending to almost ten minutes, starts side three of the album with a prominent synthesizer melody and bondage-inspired lyrical imagery which, transplanted to the music video for the track (with a scene that depicted Prince being tied up and whipped by band-members Lisa Coleman and Jill Jones), had been deemed too sexual for MTV in 1983.

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