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Party Up

Does the triumphant return of Prince say more about him or his audience?

By Jeff Chang

IS IT too early to declare 2004 Prince's year? He opened the Grammys in fine form and then turned in an even more buzz-worthy performance upon being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March. The following month, he dropped a new album, Musicology, to strong critical acclaim. The album is still in the Top 10, on its way toward double-platinum, despite, natch, controversy (some complained when free CDs given away at concerts were tallied in the sales total).

A special edition double-DVD of Purple Rain was released two weeks ago on the 20th anniversary of the movie's release. And in a summer of concert busts and festival unhappenings, his Musicology tour—which concludes Sept. 10-11 in San Jose—has been an unqualified success. He reportedly raked in $4 million for a three-show stand at Madison Square Garden.

Perhaps more tellingly, the airwaves are alive once more with the sound of Prince. Not just the I-Love-the-'80s stations pumping oldies in anticipation of the hottest show of the year, but the entire bandwidth. And they're not all His Purple-Hearted either—you'll hear DFA's retronuwave on the left of the dial, Andre 3000's crossover shakes in the middle and Britney's bonfire of vanities on the right. Compare Timbaland's work on Alicia Keys' last album to Prince's forgotten 1985 track "Tamborine" [sic]. Spin Dirty Mind and listen again to the Neptunes' angular funk figures and Pharrell's falsettos. They're all Prince's rainbow children.

The relevant question is: What took the 46-year-old prodigal so long to realize this and come home? A year ago, Alex Hahn's biography Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince concluded the artist had alienated even many of his most devoted fans with his Jehovah's Witness faith and artistic self-indulgence.

"Being a Prince fan is a thankless task," wrote Dan Gennoe in Dotmusic earlier this year. "Second, perhaps, only to waiting for the return of Jesus himself, waiting for the greatest pop innovator of a generation to remember how to write a decent song is a true test of faith and devotion."

In February, Prince offered his long-suffering fans holy water by announcing plans for the Musicology tour, but in true fashion, he wouldn't give up anything without taking something back. He told fans it would be the last time they would be able hear many of his classic tunes, that it was time "to make room for new music." In deference to his marital bliss and his spirituality, he was reportedly dialing back his trademark salaciousness. No "Erotic City," "Head," "Pussy Control" or "Come." Fans, confronted with perhaps a final chance to see him perform "Let's Work," "DMSR" and "Kiss," unleashed their pent-up demand. The people want, need, plead for the old Prince, and perhaps no one knows that better than the new-new Prince.

Seems like he's OK with that for now. The run-up to this year's revival began two years ago with his three-CD One Nite Alone ... Live! Set, which featured '80s hits like "When U Were Mine" and "Do Me Baby." He built on that demand with a DVD, Live at the Aladdin Las Vegas. His video for the Musicology single—a low-edit, simulated club performance—was not just a throwback to his crossover in the early days of MTV, it mapped out Prince's entire back-to-the-classics strategy. He leads a live, Harlem-style jam, circa the 1930s. As the satin-spats-and-tap-dancing Saturday-night crowd gets down inside the club, the B-boys get left at the door with the black bouncer, victims of the dress code. It's a scene that tells a lot about where Prince has been.

Much has been made of Prince's perplexing '90s reaction to his major-label contract: a glyph for a name, a facial scrawl reading "Slave," a spouse named Mayte, a Sly Stoneish relationship with the media. After Sign 'O' The Times, the consensus goes, he had some moments: the Glyph album, a side or so of Emancipation, some sides here and there. Otherwise, Prince's artistic slide and his contractual tangles were inextricably intertwined. If the album sucked, and most of them supposedly did, it was all contractual sabotage. The truth is that there's a revelatory box set of his '90s work waiting to be done.

Michaelangelo Matos has an alternative theory worth considering. In his fine, book-length dissection of Sign 'O' The Times, he notes that the album came out the same year as Public Enemy's "Rebel Without a Pause," Schoolly D's "Saturday Night" and Eazy E's "Boyz-N-the Hood." These rap records, he writes, "projected images that would eventually make mincemeat of Prince's androgynous-and-proud public figure."

Worse, they made him sound hopelessly dated, out of touch. In his early-'90s work, Prince struggles with hip-hop's ascendancy. "Gett Off," an answer record of sorts, was a mess. You can hear it in the inconsequential turntable scratches, the awesomely bad-meaning-bad rapping, the featherweight sound. This was no longer, to borrow funk historian Rickey Vincent's phrase, "naked funk." It was, to borrow New York Times writer Kelefa Sanneh's word, "anorexic," increasingly difficult to look at. House of Pain and Da Lench Mob jacked "Gett Off"'s siren scream for their own hits and kept moving.

Sometime around turning 40, perhaps while listening to Chuck D or Jam Master Jay—notably the only two hip-hoppers he cites in the "Musicology" single—he must have figured out the problem. As Tom Moon noted in the Philadelphia Inquirer, he "appointed himself a Wynton Marsalis-style conservator of all that's 'true' about funk." He spent more time working with the "true funk soldiers"—Larry Graham, Maceo Parker, his drummer John Blackwell. He had become the old guy wondering why he missed the feeling music gave him back in the day. Yet, instead of debilitating, the insight must have been clarifying.

His last vocal album, 2001's The Rainbow Children, was a musical parable about good, evil and spirituality, clearly influenced by his Jehovah's Witness faith. Released after Sept. 11, its approach to theocracy and women's rights seemed very Sept. 10. But for different reasons, the album may be remembered as another turning point in Prince's storied career. The Rainbow Children was an astonishing musical accomplishment drawing together a century of black music into the long promised brand new funk; in that sense, it was as compelling as its contrarian defenders—including Sanneh and New York Magazine's Ethan Brown—assert.

The epic title-track alone alluded to Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain," Horace Silver-styled soul jazz and Santana's cover of Miles Davis' "In a Silent Way." There are lush African drums, layered textures and stunning changes. It's the most listenable, least Prince-sounding album, to borrow a well-worn cliché, since Sign 'O' The Times.

Musicology—which owes everything to the breakthrough of Rainbow Children—is the most Prince-sounding album since, well, you know. The funk is tight, disciplined (literally, the academic metaphor is apt) and apparently effortless, which is paradoxically the gold standard by which we judge our most enduring artists. "Life O the Party" distills every dance jam he's done since "Housequake." "On the Couch" brings together hip-hop, globalization, cable TV and head in just two lines: "Love Jones is on the TV again, baby/ Ooh, and I wanna go down South." It makes D'Angelo's "Untitled" seem like "Long Distance Runaround."

And small pleasures are still pleasures. "A Million Days" and its prettier twin "Reflection" are perfectly sculpted pop, but neither will make you lose the wheel in rush-hour traffic the way "17 Days" did. The show-stopping "If Eye Was the Man in Ur Life" probably won't ignite brilliant careers like Me'Shell Ndegeocello's the way "If I Was Your Girlfriend" did.

For some, Prince's competence signifies mastery, for others his lack of sweat is distressing. The difference lies in the way we need music. Often the music we love the most is the kind that girds us during the most destabilizing moments of our lives. The great artists work from the same moments we do, but they tap that universal well of feeling, they connect their personal condition to the collective in a transcendent instant.

But while we want to release and move forward in our lives, we want to freeze our pop icons in our unsettled pasts. Our transformation is their trap. Where was Prince all these years? Maybe he was trying to emancipate himself from us. He's made his peace with his weighty history. On the morning after, Sept. 12, will we?

Prince performs Sept. 10-11 at the HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose. Tickets are $49.50-$75 and available through Ticketmaster. The show starts at 8pm.

for the badrillionth time, no they didn't.

VERY good article.

handclaps, isn't that still in question?

Whoo boy! So much here that I don't see eye-to-eye with, to put it mildly. A lot of people loved the so-called "self-indulgent'' excursions and wanted him to "indulge'' in those forms for a long time.
But I want to point one thing out one other thing about this piece and other reviews of the mistitled "comeback'' album: Whenever they list the stars Prince's talks about on the song, "Musicology'', they most always forget Doug E. Fresh. Doug E. is the first person mentioned, a true pioneer! This writer did it again: "Sometime around turning 40, perhaps while listening to Chuck D or Jam Master Jay—notably the only two hip-hoppers he cites in the "Musicology" single—he must have figured out the problem.''
Is Doug E. not a hip-hopper?

Some people just enjoy hearing themselves talk. I just love how these guys sit back with their arms folded and judge artists like they're some kind of dancing monkey. 'Ol Dan should spend a little less time waiting and a little more time doing something productive.

good article

Decent article and this being America.. his opinion, nothing more... nothing less.

I agree with some of it and a lot of it, I don't.

But...still...decent article

He makes it seems like Prince's best days are behind him! What a load of crap. All artists go through changes and their collective experience is what we the listeners and buyer of their music end up with. I think there's lots more to come, and I certianly don't believe that his best song writing days are behind him.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

He never went away. It was his so-called "fans' that went away. I always stayed, no matter how weird people let themselves think Prince was. Don't run that racket NO MORE - EVER AGAIN, industry. No one is responsible for you going away but YOU!

poetbear68 said:

You couldn't have said it any better. If people really wanted to know what was going on with Prince, they would have done the work to find out. I had a period for a couple of years where I wasn't able to watch MTV or BET and yet I still found out what was happening with Prince. As it was said before, the so-called fans are the one who left not Prince. I'm just glad I wasn't and still ain't one of them.

blackwell1 said:

Present Company Included!

I get so upset when these critics bash the albums I love, and praise this album and this current stage in his career as the time to remember.

Musicology is the last album of Prince's I would give to anybody. I want him to indulge again. I've heard everything on Musicology before. Just because he went back to his old sound, doesn't make his album a come back.

Next, I hope he releases a "leave again" album. What strange places will he go to?
[Edited 9/18/04 1:45am]

first, EVERY music critic is going to come off as "more knowing than thou". It's almost unavoidable. They need to at least *try* and make a point with these kinds of articles.

Second.. imo the point here is a very insightful one. Its not saying that Prince's best days are behind him, nor that Musicology is Prince at his best. I think it's saying that whether "you" ("we") think it's Prince at his best is all about what's going on in your own mind. Those last couple paragraphs put it as clearly as I've seen it written this year. The artist has their bumps and potholes but the interpretation of their art ultimately says more about the observer/listener than it does about the quality of their work. He mentions the connection between the 'downfall' of Prince with contract issues. That's saying hey, its not that his music started sucking all of a sudden... in fact there's a load of great material in those 'dark ages' waiting to be uncovered by the masses of Prince fans that came back out of the closet this year.

Overall, as you can tell, I've got no beefs with the article. I kinda dig it.

I really enjoyed this article. And While the author has a few questionable facts/references, I think this is one of the best articles in the mainstream press I've read this year.

I'm surprised people here aren't falling all over this article since we actually have a 'mainstream' author who is completely defending and embracing the brilliant return to form that many of us think TRC was.


....as always, thanks for sharing! I enjoyed this article a lot...

purplecam said:

For a long time, most people didn't care or want to know what Prince was doing.

Like endo, I think it's one of the better articles I've read throughout the year.

poetbear68 said:

You're right. I know went away, after the Gold Experience. I had had enough of sub-par material, having been spoiled w/ each album being exponentially greater than the previous one from For You, all the way up 2 SOTT. I checked back in, periodically, for Emancipation, The Hits, and TRC. Other than that, I treated him like an old friend, that I needed 2 leave alone, while he got himself 2gether. That did not mean I loved him any less. It just meant that I felt that he needed 2 go through his valley on his own, and I would see him on the other side of it, which I did, w/ Musicology. So, I am taking this time now, 2 try 2 catch up on what all was 'going down' since we parted, kind of like that scene between Forrest Gump and Jenny, when he was describing his time running across America, which was something he needed 2 do w/o her, but he ended up back w/ his old friend on the other side of it.

I thought that was a pretty good article:) Kinda long n drawn out.....but nteresting:)

- Well...Prince did many decent songs all his life. If they are not innovative as before, what´s the problem? How many artists are still innovative during all their careers? Paul Mc Cartney? Sting? Nooo. So, why talk about Prince as if he had the obligation of re-inventing himself in every album?
One thing I loved about Musicology in comparison to the 90s albums is that his music sounds clean, fresh.....like he is not worried about remixes, special guests, being hyper modern, etc. There are only good songs, performed with live instruments. A ´clean´ Prince.
Let´s see how the next albums will sound

endorphin74 said:

- Agreed. I dont understand why many critics say that ´Prince is back´ after Musicology, because I thought his return to form happened with TRC. A great album, one of my favorites.

A lovely heart-wrenching article. But there are some things that need to be shed some light.

I don't know about other people, but to me, Prince is and always will be one of the hardest working music artists that's ever been in the industry. The man has taken his music to a higher level where most artists of present day could never dream of reaching. I don't believe he changed his name as a way to alienate himself, rather I believe he was trying to 'reinvent' himself more.

He's still the man!

i think it's great that prince is riding the crest of a wave right now, and i hope the ewave takes him wherever he wants to go.

BUT i do take exception to the way he used his fans in the sense of forcing the sale of multiple copies of musicology to those who attended multiple concerts. it would have been nice if concert-goers had been offered the chance to decline another copy of the album, thereby reducing their ticket price.

I think a lot of Prince's audience is the press themselves. One thing I've noticed about Prince's "return" (to selling records, that is) is that is seems to have unleashed the inner Prince fan in a lot of music critics. I even think some of them have thought to themselves, "OK, this is finally, finally the Prince album I can get behind professionally. It's about time."

All of these heart-felt comments and concerns about prince's music being better...or worse than this record, that record ect....makes for intersting discussion,but the fact IS and ALWAYS had been...Prince does not give a lump of shit if YOU or ME like this record, that record! He makes music for his LOVE of making music! Prince makes the music HE loves 2 hear! And if one alblum sounds different than yje next is because that's where his spirit or musical taste is at that time! I'm sure Prince appreciates his loyal "friends"like "us" through the years, but from a musical standpoint he is releasing his gift he feels he got from the creator. Everyone has there own musical tastes! I feel the reason why Musicology is being SOO prasied this year is because, the music industry(correction) "Popular Music Industry" has a void on Live instruments on many of their "popular artists" and the music industry suffered because of this. This can explain why Outkast's Andre 3000's "Hey Ya" and "Roses" and several other tunes on that record sold more than 13 million copies! Prince will and ALWAYS has been a incredibly talented songwriter,producer,performer,singer,ect...and we should feel blessed we get to hear his "gift" whether it's "Sign O The Times", "Purple Rain" "The Rainbow Children" or even "Musicology"!

Well said, my friend. That's very well enough said!

Loakum said:

yasetshego said:

WHAT (places hand in face and pushes away) EVER!!!!!

Checked back in yet?