Sticking with royal convention

Synths aside, '3121' is Prince by the numbers

Prince
'3121'
(Universal)

News flash: Prince has a new one-named love obsession.

But it's not another in his long line of girl-toys, like Apollonia or Vanity. This time, Prince's one-named love slave is Technology.

On the star's new album - his first in a new pact with Universal Music - he goes mad for synthesized sounds, indulging more sonic tricks and electro doodads than he has in years.

In the first single, "Black Sweat," synthesizers snap and crack, creating a stop-start rhythm meant to alarm. In "Lolita," Prince whips up a sort of deconstructed version of "Little Red Corvette," with '80s-style synths jerking around a hollow core. The title track goes full force into squeaks and squawks, using sheer abrasion as a hook.

Unfortunately, that last ditty winds up sounding like 18 sets of finger nails scraping down a blackboard. While there's something undeniably nervy about Prince's noisy pursuits, that's the only aspect of "3121" that's the least bit innovative or even odd.

Otherwise, "3121" rates as one of Prince's most conventional CDs. It's digestibly short, just 45 minutes, with 12 songs, only one of which stretches into the kind of jams that defined Prince's albums of the last few years, like "Rainbow Children" or the concert CD, "One Night Alone."

More akin to his 2004 CD "Musicology," the latest seems like a bid to get his pop career bubbling again. But beneath its distracting sound effects, the album is too full of Prince-ean cliches and routine riffs, to usher him back into the pop kingdom.

The ballads bomb especially badly. Prince's faux-Spanish cut "Te Amo Corazon," sounds like something Enrique Iglesias might smarm his way through. "Beautiful Love & Blessed" - a duet with the, yes, one-named Tamar - sparks no chemistry between the two singers. An orchestral "The Dance" sounds like something left over from an aborted soundtrack.

Then there's the boudoir ballad "Satisfied," whose lyric - "this is going to be a long night" - works as a warning. Other lyrics just roll out the usual Prince-style boasts ... "I'm funky and I don't care who knows it," "imagine me on the tip of your tongue" and others.

Such outbursts, in lieu of lyrics, suggest a person seriously in need of an inner life, a longtime problem for Prince. Worse, many cuts feature production too thickly weighted, and self-conscious, to get up and move.

A few of the upbeat tracks eventually find their groove. "Fury" recalls Prince's most rocking tracks from the '80s. And the final funk rave-up, "Get on the Boat," with Maceo Parker, successfully inverts the strategy of most of the CD. It's a flat-out live jam. Too bad it winds up only proving the point Prince uses the rest of the CD to refute - that less is more.

Very cold.

Okay, the point has been made that 3121 is not Prince at his most innovative. I do think he deserves some criticism for this.

However, what many of the harshest critics are ignoring is that these songs are highly listenable, flawlessly produced and performed, and are just flat out enjoyable. And many of them make you wanna dance. And what's wrong with that?

I wouldn't sweat it. Some people will like. Some people won't.

I just created a thread with a positive review. The Detroit Free Press gave it four out of four stars.

i don't think it's scathing...it's just not particularly generous, which i guess is the license of a music critic. i kinda agree on some of the points, but not to the extent that i think it's a bad album. i don't think it's a "return to form" or a "masterpiece", but it's a pretty fun summer album and a cool prince album...nothing revolutionary or evolutionary - just good pop music.

PurpleCharm said:

yeah, i just read that review...man, the motor-babies love them some prince.

i don't think it's scathing...it's just not particularly generous, which i guess is the license of a music critic. i kinda agree on some of the points, but not to the extent that i think it's a bad album. i don't think it's a "return to form" or a "masterpiece", but it's a pretty fun summer album and a cool prince album...nothing revolutionary or evolutionary - just good pop music.

i think what i'm having a hard time with is figuring out WHY prince is supposed to continually invent new sounds for himself? during his first ten years on the musical radar, he broke so many boundaries and created "his sound." if he created his own sound why should he stop that and begin some new sound?

i agree - 3121 is nothing new. it is not groundbreaking like his earlier records, how could it be groundbreaking if it's nothing new? but why does familiar equate to bad? why can't familiar be...well, familiar? why can't prince simply be prince?

what this journalist latches onto in order to criticize the record just seems lame. complaining that prince is boasting? have you EVER listened to the guy's music before? he dislikes the "experimental" stuff on the title track but also moans about how conventional the rest of the record is. the funniest bit is when he complains that this prince record has to many "prince-ean cliches." um, yeah, its a PRINCE record.

i think what i'm having a hard time with is figuring out WHY prince is supposed to continually invent new sounds for himself? during his first ten years on the musical radar, he broke so many boundaries and created "his sound." if he created his own sound why should he stop that and begin some new sound?

i agree - 3121 is nothing new. it is not groundbreaking like his earlier records, how could it be groundbreaking if it's nothing new? but why does familiar equate to bad? why can't familiar be...well, familiar? why can't prince simply be prince?

i figure it's because people are still stuck with the thought that ol' boy can do it all day, every day. to some extent this is true, but definitely not in the way some think he should.

Such outbursts, in lieu of lyrics, suggest a person seriously in need of an inner life, a longtime problem for Prince.

Farber hasn't always dug Prince's albums.