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Album Review
by SashaS
22-12-2001
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| Prince's 'Rainbow Children' |
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Prince: 'The Rainbow Children'
(Redline)
Prince’s regained his name, spirituality and knack for the funkiest killah-tunes
During an encounter with Alicia Keys this reporter expressed some reservations about Prince’s music ability of latter years; well, the insinuation being that he’s lost the plot and his best work is behind him, back in the 1980s. She disagreed and I have to admit humbly, on evidence of ‘The Rainbow Children’, she knew something more, like this album. This ‘Children’ is a bomb, probably the best album Prince has made since the seminal ‘Sign O’ The Times’ of 1987.
This is bold, challenging and often wildly experimental music, complexly arranged, with echoes of jazz, usually outer-space reaching, Sly Stone-styled funk, work-outs that astonish, musical-style choruses and ballads… Listen to ‘Muse to the Pharaoh’ or ‘Mellow’ and (re)discover mastery around a slow jam that is better than anyone else’s, whilst other standouts are too many to list. If you insist: the title track, ‘The Digital Garden’, ‘The Work Pt 1’, ‘Everywhere’, ‘The Sensual Everafter’, ‘Deconstruction’… (‘nuff – ed) … to concluding ‘Last December’.
“With the accurate understanding of God and his Law they went about the work of building a new nation: the rainbow children,” announces vocoder’d voice on the first full-length studio album from Prince since he reclaimed his name and donned the mantle of a devout Jehovah’s Witness. If there is any downfall to this album – it is not idealism of the ‘The Rainbow Children’ right-on concept of ‘yes, we differ and yet are strangely human’ – but its spirituality. It is the most aware work since his ‘Sign O’’ masterpiece but if that is not your soul-bread, it is not a hurdle to pleasure. There is plenty of emotion, passion and beats in tones to keep you not only occupied but also obsessed.
Described by the (little) man himself as “a headphone album, not easily defined”, ‘The Rainbow Children’ is not just a collection of songs but an experience of the kind that is uniquely Prince. Back in overdrive…
8.9/10
SashaS
22-12-2001
Prince’s album ‘The Rainbow Children’ has been released 26 November 2001 on Redline
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