Review of VBOP in Saturday Times (London).

A pop music legend since his 1978 debut, Prince Rogers Nelson is one of that select band of individuals who deserve the label "genius". If your collection is bereft of his work, this is a fine place to start, as it includes the breakthrough hits that saw him elevated to a level of superstardom where his only real competition was Madonna and Michael Jackson.

The Springsteen-esque Little Red Corvette, 1999, and the soft metal ballad Purple Rain are quintessential Eighties classics. An immersion in the psychedelicia of his spiritual forefathers, George Clinton and Sly Stone, took Prince's music to a different plane and Kiss, U Got The Look and Alphabet Street mix pop suss wiith funky arrogance. The hip-hop inspired social commentary of 1987's Sign O The Times, though, reaminas the outstanding achievement of this period.

The compilers halt the story with Gett Off and Cream, endorsing the conventional wisdom that Prince's power waned in the Nineties. Warner may try to gloss ovr the embarrassment of Prince branding himself a slave to the label, then changing his name to a squiggle, but to ignore the quality of his mid-Nineties albums such as Come and The Gold Experience is revisionism of Stalinist proportions.

This isn't really the very best of Prince, then, but it is 73 minutes of must-have music.

Angus Batey - 4 stars out of five.