An excellent piece on Prince's resurgence.

source: http://www.africana.com/c...prince.asp

For Myself and Others: Past, Present and Prince

Just when it seemed like middle-age might send Prince into the same obscure career period that's plagued Michael Jackson, Prince finds his mojo

By Bomani Jones

2004 has seen Prince return to prominence. What's interesting is that he's emerged from contemporary irrelevance by reveling in the past.

As the Musicology tour winds down, Prince's profile is higher than it has been in at least a decade. The Musicology album is platinum, its sales buoyed by an interesting SoundScan hustle. Released on the heels of his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and his obvious role as Andre 3000's muse, Musicology is easily his best offering in nearly a decade. And just like that, a star has been resurrected.

Coincidentally, it's happening the same year that Purple Rain's 20th anniversary is being celebrated with a re-release of the film on DVD, complete with a host of extra features and re-mastered sound. With the right sound system, First Avenue can be reborn and 1984 seems more like yesterday than yesteryear.

At last, Prince has grown comfortable with middle age.

After turning 35, most artists move into a tricky period where they yearn to remain contemporary but are poster people of the past. Michael Jackson hit that point in the mid-'90s (though he still doesn't realize that). Stevie Wonder was there in the mid-'80s. Wonder and Jackson — both of whom are legends, even to those who are fans of neither — approached middle age differently. Stevie toned down his act and became too enthralled with easy listening and then-new computer-based sounds. The results for Jackson have bordered on catastrophic, marked by two substandard, over-hyped LPs and extreme personal drama.

Prince hit middle age in 1993. More accurately, middle age hit him. He was six years removed from his masterpiece — Sign O The Times — nearly a decade removed from the height of his stardom — Purple Rain — and 13 years removed from his edgiest work (the vulgarly brilliant Dirty Mind). He was lost in a pop landscape that began to embrace hip hop, the then-burgeoning genre to which he had been quite resistant.

What he did next is hard to describe. For ten years, Prince frustrated, confused, teased, dismissed, and groveled to fans. He also managed to embarrass himself by foolishly appearing in public with "slave" scrawled across his face, a move that was on the wrong side of the thin line between hyperbole and silly exaggeration. He frustrated them with the bizarre releases he used to appease his contract with Warner Bros. (Chaos and Disorder, anyone?). He teased them with albums that lacked the incontrovertible brilliance to which they'd grown accustomed, but were still satisfying (The Gold Experience, Emancipation). He dismissed them with bizarre professional actions like the mid-'90s refusal to play his hits and filing a lawsuit against a fanzine that served no one but his fans. In 2000, he groveled to them by releasing Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, a somewhat enjoyable disc that holds the dubious distinction of being Prince's first album whose intention seemed to be sounding like everyone else.

Rave sounded like Prince was trying to come back to his fans. But they weren't where he left them, so he tried to go where they relocated.

Bad idea. Really bad idea. Not quite as bad as showing up at your ex-girlfriend's new apartment, but the end result was the same — a lukewarm reception and hurt feelings.

Neither fleeing from nor running toward the world, Prince has finally invited the world to where he is now. And that's great, because where he is has proven to be interesting, fun and comprehensible. Musicology, the album, is soulful, funky, and definitely middle-aged. Its title track hopes to bring back "the feeling music gave you back in the day," nostalgically mentioning Earth, Wind, and Fire, even though he balked at the suggestion that Verdine or Maurice White produce his debut album. It's not quite a trip in a time machine, but there's no place on Musicology for cameos by Eve, Gwen Stefani, or any of the others Clive Davis dug up to make Rave seem hip. And unlike The Rainbow Children, this record shows that he's having fun with his new life as a Jehovah's Witness, being clever about his new faith instead of bludgeoning listeners with overbearing self-righteousness.

Musicology, the tour, holds the same quality. The new album surfaces here and there, but most of the two-hour set are his hits and dusties (hits being standards like "Kiss," dusties being underrated gems like "Let's Work"). That he's playing them at all is a bit of a feat considering how temperamental Prince has been about his past. Stories about his fans' displeasure with his refusal to play hits during the Emancipation tour were common, including some in which he left the stage because fans were not connecting with his then-new music.

But now that he seems to have gotten used to middle age, Prince can revel in the glow of his legacy. He can allow adoring fans to party like it's 1984. He can also allow himself to smile and watch his fans party as such. It's surreal to watch Prince sit on a stool and strum "Little Red Corvette" on a purple acoustic guitar, effectively turning a crowd of 15,000 into the most risqué campfire sing-along ever (lines like "she had a pocket full of horses" with s'mores? Not quite). He teases fans for not knowing songs as well as he thought they should, but it's nothing contemptuous. He seems relaxed, the crowds are energized, and few have seen Prince relaxed in the last ten years.

This demeanor could be nothing but helpful to his music. So often, he seemed hell-bent on staying at the vanguard of pop, making music so impenetrable that even his most hardcore fans had a hard time defending some of his releases. When Rave desperately begged to be given attention by the mainstream, he went too far. He invited fans to come back, but he tried to let everyone in, making entry so much less enjoyable. Twenty years ago, Prince was able to make weird records — Purple Rain is bizarre, sales be damned — that connected with listeners having to try to work. Rave felt like he was giving flowers to his fans after staying out too late the night before, and most saw right through it.

But what we see now is something different, something that's hard to find. We see a man comfortable with his past. Maybe being inducted into the HOF — the gold watch at the end of the pop rainbow — gave him a chance to reflect. Perhaps his sweetheart record deal allowed him the freedom and peace of mind to relax (easy to chill when you're getting almost all of the profits). Either way, Musicology gives listeners a chance to view Prince in new and old lights. The tour allows reminds fans how ridiculously talented he is, and the LP lets them get used to his new role as elder statesman, more of a cool, seasoned uncle than one that still tries to party with his nephews.

Supposedly, the Musicology tour is the last time Prince will play from his catalog, but probably untrue (he's pulled this one before). But should that be the case, there's a chance there will still be something worth listening to in concert five years from now. Few would have thought that possible two years ago.

The height of his stardom will always be the end of Purple Rain, where unforgettably he rips through the title track. To approach that is impossible, but the place he's heading toward is still satisfying. For the first time, Prince is satisfied, too. Satisfied to embrace the past, comfortable with being grown, but with an eye on tomorrow.