The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey)
July 21, 2007 Saturday
FINAL EDITION
It's back to basics ... sort of

SECTION: ABODE; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 1762 words

"Planet Earth"

Prince (Sony) "Planet Earth" is down-to-earth, at least by Prince's standards.

After a decade of testing his fans' patience with albums full of meandering jams and half-baked musical experiments, the mercurial rock/funk dandy returned to a simpler, more songoriented approach on 2004's ``Musicology" and last year's "3121." "Planet Earth," due out on Tuesday, can be seen as the third installment of Prince's back-to-basics trilogy.

There are still some weird moments, as when Prince, 49, raps, with seductive intentions, the following line in "Mr. Goodnight": "I got a mind full of good intentions, and a mouth full of Raisinets." But this album is also loaded with everything that made Prince a star in the first place - epic rock, tight funk and strange, airy ballads, with occasional bursts of wildly uninhibited guitar playing. He projects a sense of purpose, but also a sense of humor. In a casting touch that's symbolically perfect, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, members of Prince's "Purple Rain"-era band The Revolution, are back on board as backing singers and instrumentalists.

The album begins with an anthem addressing the environment (the title track), and ends with another one tackling the subject of war (``Resolution"). In between, Prince generally has less serious things in mind.

"Guitar" is a strutting rock song with a great catch phrase: "I love you baby, but not like I love my guitar." The album's funk centerpiece, "Chelsea Rodgers," is designed to launch the career of his young female protégé (the latest in a long line of young, female Prince protégés).

"Future Baby Mama" is a ridiculous slow jam that finds Prince whispering "I'm gonna make you happy, baby, happier than happy itself" and asserting, ``Deep down I know what you want, you want your girlfriends to hate you `cause they can't get your man." It almost seems like a parody, but Prince sounds so serious one doubts that was his intention - especially when there are corny, crass comeons in other songs, too. Check out, for instance, the chorus of ``The One U Wanna C": "I got a lot of money/But I don't want to spend it on me/I like pretty things/And you're just as pretty as you can be."
[Edited 7/21/07 13:49pm]

murph said:

Toe arth?