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Album Review
by SashaS
19-4-2004
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| Prince: 'Musicology' is back 2 'da days' |
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Prince: 'Musicology'
(NPG/Columbia)
Prince: the funk-master blasts a mainstream one
Prince, the troubled genius of rock-funk-pop-soul crossover repute, has finally ditched the experimental phase and made an album that should put him back on the global map, was the pre-release info. It added, ‘Musicology’ is a back-to-form disc and the shows he is playing Stateside now are reportedly - as good as the ‘Purple Days’ dates!
Anyway, just before returning to the major league - having signed one-off deal with Sony - Prince was going round his native town of Minneapolis and peddling religion on people’s doorsteps in his role of a devoted Jehovah’s Witness. It’s good it left him enough time to record, and then decide to release, this album that is generally hailed as return-to-form.
That implies that he was off-form since - … (your choice). As well as not being able to write songs in the vein of his 1980s hits. It is more likely Prince simply decided to explore the limit of jamming and we are sure that he was stockpiling songs like ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Darling Nikki’ but wasn’t interested in issuing them. He’s had his beef and being an unrepentant individual - it didn’t suit his feeling of ‘me-n-them’, that included ‘us’ for not digging it as much as we did liking .
Secondly, this on-form again is misleading due to the fact that it is half-true. Yeah, there are songs here that you’d associate with the classic Prince period but there are also as many jams that often kill but sometime work less. But the man himself has explained this album as “‘Musicology’ has no formats of boundaries. It is long overdue to return to art, the art and craft of music, that’s what this album is about. School’s in session.”
If you happen to prefer either of his forms of expression, rather than the mix, Prince’s first major release since leaving Warners in 1995 is a flawed gem but truer to the man’s complete mindset. A diehard fan will find a lot to get ears around: the title track rides in all glorious funk while checking few names that have been in on ‘it’ - James Brown, Sly Stone, Chuck D (of Public Enemy) and Jay Master-Jay (late of Run DMC), ‘Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance’ is related to ‘Gett Off’ as ‘Life ‘O’ The Party is to ‘Alphabet City’, ‘A Million Days’ and ‘Call My Name’ are so erotically charged, alike in the old days.
After six songs we enter the less structured pieces and that’s where Prince really starts to cook. ‘The Marrying Kind’, ‘If Eye Was The Man In Ur Life’, ‘Dear Mr. Man’, all jewels of his free-form that are nearer to ‘Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic’ and ‘The Rainbow Children’ LPs.
Thank God he’s gone back making music, the varied kind, again. Religion is all fine but let’s make it - funk, soul and roll, encore!
8/10
SashaS
19-4-2004
Prince’s album ’Musicology’ is released 19 April 2004 by NPG/Columbia
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