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Prince?s latest album Musicology proves the artist?s genius as he brilliantly mixes gospel, soul, funk and guitar rock.
In the hoary Eighties, I was told by people who understood music and hairstyle that the Artist Currently Once Again Known As Prince was a genius. The man born as Prince Rogers Nelson could play every piece of instrument ever invented by man and was simply the best thing that mainstream music had to offer. I didn’t pay much regard to such gush and continued to listen to Jon Bon Jovi (just kidding!) and Duran Duran (not kidding!). But in the early Nineties, my ears perk uped when I heard the man playing a number on creative emissions, Cream. I suddenly remembered not so much the words of my village elders, but those of the great blues-R’n’B man Johnny Guitar Watson who had told me in a dream (which I later traced down to a music magazine): “Prince is bad. It’s like seeing Sly Stone, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix all at once.”
He was right. While I never really joined the ‘Prince-is-Purple-God’ club, I did start appreciating his libidinous over-the-top music: the anthemic Purple Rain, the aforementioned Cream, the devilishly innocent Rasberry Beret, not to mention the kinky blitzkrieg of Little Red Corvette. So when this Music Columnist Formerly Known As A Sucker For White Boy Music found himself alone in a room with Prince’s latest album, Musicology (Sony), he expected to be surprised.
Well, the opening title track is one hot-stepping funk delight that slaps, stutters, skids and stops all in one liquid lubricating moment. And to think that the song’s not even about Prince’s favourite subject: sex. Instead, it’s a paean to the music he loves: “Let’s groove, September/ Earth, Wind and Fire/ Hot pants by James/ Sly’s gonna take u higher.’ Funkmesiter James Brown’s sweaty pitter-patter is there for all to hear on this number.
Things get slightly complicated - and lightly repetitive - in Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstances. In A Million Days and Call My Name, Prince seems to try a bit too much to mix his gospel-funk punch. But the energy returns in Life Of The Party, a shimmying-down experience that makes, for starters, our fingers snap.
Cinammon Girl is classic early-Nineties Prince, with its teasing bouncing rubber-ball rhythm (replicated most notably in TLC’s Waterfall). But as in his disastrous 1981 track Ronnie Talk To Russia, Prince enters the pop-political zone with embarrassing lyrical consequences: “Cinammon Gil of mixed heritage/ Never knew the meaning of colour lines/ 9/11 turned that all around/ She got accused of this crime.” Er, Mr Prince, leave that sort of thing to the Boss and Bono, will ya?
Just how much of a crossover artist Prince remains can be gauged by the songs that follow, What Do U Want Me 2 Do?, On The Couch and Mr Man. Here, quite incredibly, he mixes gospel, soul, funk and guitar rock. Yes, the Artist I Was Formerly Unimpressed By is a great musician on this album. So all I have to do now is get seriously and consistently turned on by his music.
