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jammin
Prince: The man who sold the world
A career spanning three decades and 25 albums, Prince is nowhere
near calling it quits. The chameleon of pop is back with another
double-disc record. Instep lends an ear…
By Ali
Sultan
Album: Lotusflow3r/ MPLSound***
Artist: Prince
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Excuse
me while I kiss the sky
It's a simple fact. You, as a musician, listener, or a nobody, either
love Prince or hate him. One look at Prince's discography - 25 albums
in 31 years - makes one think that he might have songs scattered all
over the place. It wouldn't be surprising to hear some story of a
maid cleaning his house and finding a song in the kitchen sink!
Prince was the ARTIST in the '80s. Dirty Mind was a one man army (Prince
played all the instruments) of hard funk, soul ballads and guitar
pop all at the same time. '1999' and 'Purple Rain' made him a superstar,
but that did not stop Prince from taking chances. He veered into psychedelic
experiments that produced Around the World in a Day and Parade. Because
Prince has always wanted everything - he was constantly experimenting
with pop, funk, R&B and rock, tying them together in one song,
deconstructing them in the next - his music making was arrogant, filled
with in-your-face erotic imagery and overtly ambitious, but usually
successful. By the end of the '80s he released the strange 'Lovesexy,'
the soundtrack to Batman and the sprawling masterpiece 'Sign 'O' the
Times'.
I am not there
The '90s and the earlier part of the 2000s, however, were not kind
to Prince. If Prince hadn't marginalized himself through his record
company battles, multi-disc sets, and botched superstar comebacks,
the fans would have been more receptive. From The Gold Experience,
the overloaded three-disc Emancipation, the muddled jazz influences
and religious imagery bombardment of Rainbow Children to 2003's N.E.W.S.,
a four-song set of instrumental jams, Prince in his thirst for bizarre
obsessions seemed to have lost the plot, completely.
Even better than the real thing
What seems to be along time ago, Prince had this sound: the funk beats,
blunt come-ons and sly metaphors, keyboard hooks and killer guitar
solos, and a singing voice that was an array of voices-smooth pop,
sweet croon, soulful, funky, unreal shrieks and coos, harmonies to
die for and a falsetto to knock your heart out. When Musicology came
out in 2004, it was the comeback that Prince always knew he would
have. The album was sparser and controlled than anything he had done
before. The lead track, first single, and MTV staple 'Musicology showed
the method to the madness. It stuttering structure revealed an understated
bass line, syncopated tom, blotches of organ and faux horn and irregular
backup vocals and most importantly that Prince had not forgotten to
make a drop-dead single. 3121 hitting the stores in 2006 only meant
one thing: that you could take out the sex out of Prince but you couldn't
take Prince out of sex.
'Black Sweat' is perhaps the most peculiar and best single Prince
has produced to date. Its starkness; the hooks and hand clap rhythm
atop Prince singing a tale of lust was sound testament that you could
amass a whole army of N.E.R.D soundalikes to make a track dance like
'Black Sweat' but it would fail.
Shine on you crazy diamond
Come 2009 and Prince decides to issue yet again, a double disc. Lotusflow3r/
MPLSound are actually two separate albums. Lotusflow3r is a guitar
album, showcasing Prince's criminally underrated guitar playing which
is a cross between Eddie Van Halen and David Gilmour. Whether it's
the jumpy funk of 'Wall of Berlin', the metal grind of the Hendrixian
'Dreamer' or the slow echo-drenched politics of 'Colonized Mind',
the music is constantly delightful when Prince starts soloing. The
disc's highlight is 'Feel Better, Feel Good, Feel Wonderful' is a
not so subtle ode to James Brown, but it's a lean muscular funk-out.
MPLSoUND on the other hand is an album that sounds like something
from the '80s reworked and polished up for 2009, but one that works,
at least most of the time. It's a nostalgia trip back to the time
of old school, dance-club Prince, a familiar array of sounds built
around vintage synthesizer voices made famous by Prince in is golden
days. There's the party starting '(There'll Never B) Another Like
Me', Prince being as erotic as ever, rapping seductively on 'Valentina
or chalking out a hyperactive hip-swinger with 'Chocolate Box'. It
might be the best track on the album. Although the rest of the album
really doesn't hold up, you can still have a pretty good time using
the skip option on that IPod.
Lotusflow3r/ MPLSound might not be among the 'great' but this double-disc
album amply shows how Prince if nothing else, is still one of the
best craftsmen in pop music. *Burn
the CD NOW!
**One time listen
***Worth your while
****Musically sound *****Get it right NOW!
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