Mostly positive review, says he covers a multitude of modern styles and trumps them all.

got a link?

not up on there site as of yet.its the brand new issue , so maybe tomorrow- its says the neptunes would have killed to write a lo-fi funk song like lolita...

littlejim said:

got a scan?

sorry mate...i just had a quick flick through the issue ...had to catch a train!

ill chuck it on tomorrow unless someone does first

littlejim said:

cheers, thanks a lot!

excellent, look forward to reading the whole thing. i'm glad they gave it the review it deserves. they were enthusiastic about 'muscology' too but imo that was one album too early to get excited about prince's 'return' as a bona fide pop star - '3121' is way better.

I'm surprised more reviews haven't surfaced yet.

GangstaFam said:

Amen to that brother - I have been wondering the same thing!

2020 said:

I would have thought we would have seen a magazine cover or two by now.
It seems awfully quiet for a cd that is being released next week.

Typed in for your viewing pleasure:

Prince
3121 (Universal)
4 out of 6 stars
By John Lewis

Sometime in the '80s, Prince started to shed most of the audience he'd gained with 'Purple Rain'. He was sick of being an honorary whitey, the king of 'beige rock'. To this end he ditched the heavy metal histrionics and swapped his multi-racial backing bands for all-black line-ups, just as his idols Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Wonder had once done.
In the late '80s, this was commercial suicide but, by the time of Prince's dramatic 2004 rebirth, unreconstructed blackness had become big business. 'Musicology' sold six-and-a-half million, more than anything he'd put his name to in years. Like 'Musicology', '3121' is a full-on celebration of black music but this time Prince rejects the previous album's retro aesthetic for pure futurism. It's the sound of a man checking out all the R Kellys and Jay-Zs and Andre 3000s who've emerged in his absence and casually trumping them all, tossing in bits of Ray Charles, Derrick May and Larry Graham for good measure. 'Incense & Candles' is Prince showing us that he can do Timbaland's wobbly, Indo-tinged hip hop; 'Beautiful, Loved & Blessed', featuring his latest muse Tamar, is a masterclasss in R&B balladry; while The Neptunes would kill to write the twitchy, lo-fi funk of 'Lolita'.
If Prince's rampant libido was once subverted by androgyny, now it's kept in check by religion. 'The Word' is an austere slice of gospel-fuelled folk-funk; the fantastic 'Get On The Boat' is an evangelistical Latin-funk jam with Maceo Parker's hollering alto sax playing the role of the Baptist preacher. Even the pervy, heavy-breathing tracks are undercut by the curious moralism of the Jehovah's Witnesses; the title track seems to describe some dystopian cyber-sex orgy, while 'Satisfied' is an ultra-slow big band ballad tortured by pent-up sexual energy.
Ultimately, how you'll feel about '3121' depends on what kind of Prince you like. If you miss the beige rock god, you'd be advised to avoid. If, however, you thin k he got more interesting when he started making defiantly leftfield funk, you'll probably go for it.

tiger2 said:

Thank you for typing this review for us I kind of agree with this one.

tiger2 said:

IstenSzek said:

Aye, if one of the Musicology Tour stopoffs was an ant colony.
[Edited 3/15/06 7:33am]

Sounds like someone is drinking the kool-aid.

Musicology was not a real hit. All the people going to the tour we're going to see the old "biege" Prince.

And the only place were Prince is trumping people lke R. Kelly, Pharrell etc in comtemporary R&B are in Prince and his hard core fan's minds.

Prince will go down in history as one of the guyw who united these false concepts of race in music. Is that really so bad.

emesem said:

-----
Typical of a naysayer P gets a good review and you have an issue. First of all the Musicoloy CD sold a million copies in the USA via retail. A million via the give away. Not bad for an old guy. You can't possibly think that R Kelly can touch P in the talent department.

laurarichardson said:

You should check out Okayplayer.com - they think R Kelly is GOD over there.
[Edited 3/15/06 9:27am]

laurarichardson said:

Its not that I think that Rkelly is more talented than Prince but when it comes to the sound that R. Kelly does, he does it alot better than Prince thinks he does. Prince should either stick to his own style or come up with something new, not give us lame songs like Incense and Candles, the latest in a long line of Prince songs trying to sound "current."

Black Sweat on the other hand is a better example of Prince being true to his sound but updating it a bit..