Here’s my review of the new Prince album ‘Planet Earth’.

First, let me start off with some of the negatives. The song order leaves a little to be desired; for instance, the song ‘Planet Earth’ should have been the last track. ‘The Lion of Judah’ and ‘Revelation’ are some of the weakest songs Prince have ever officially release (I’ve heard some pretty bad bootlegs too). Prince uses the wrong ‘voice’ to sing the song ‘All the Midnights in the World’; maybe if he just sang it without falsetto he could have pulled it off. I’m not crazy about the lyrics (or the title) of the song ‘Future Baby Mama’ but I do love the music and the arrangement. If he would have just changed the lyrics it would have been a pretty good song.

Now the good stuff! I’m really glad Prince seems to have rediscovered the power of the bass guitar; in many ways ‘Planet Earth’ reminds me of his second record ‘Prince’. Some of the songs have that ‘old school’ feeling that Prince can pull off at the drop of the hat. ‘Guitar’ and ‘The One U Wanna C’ are really good party songs in the mold of ‘I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man’ from ‘Sign of the Times’. However, this record could have just gotten by with one party song and ‘The One U Wanna C is the better of the two. ‘Somewhere Here On Earth’ is a really good song, I love the muted trumpet, the lyrics, and his voice is in fine form. ‘Chelsea Rodgers’ is Prince returning to the church (like on ‘Baby I’m A Star’), it’s one of those ‘get up and dance’ songs that would do well on the concert stage. The best song on this record, in my opinion, is ‘Mr. Goodnight’. I love the sexy groove, funny lyrics, and it features the best rapping of Prince’s career. I’m a huge hip hop fan and I’ve sometimes found myself embarrassed at Prince’s attempts to rap, although I like the fact that he recognizes the brilliance of rap. On ‘Mr. Goodnight’ Prince also uses the second female voice to very good effect. ‘Mr. Goodnight’ made the cut as one of my favorite Prince songs; every record from Prince has at least one.

So overall this record has five really good songs, ‘Planet Earth’, ‘Somewhere Here On Earth’, ‘The One U Wanna C’, ‘Mr. Goodnight’ and ‘Chelsea Rodgers’. That’s not enough to qualify ‘Planet Earth’ as a great album; I’ll say it’s a good record but we know Prince can do better.

This review pretty much sums it up for me too.

• Lion Of Judah and Resolution: among Prince's worst
• Mr. Goodnight: some of Prince's best "rap" (similar IMO to Sexy MF)
• The One U Wanna C: fun party song, not too serious - I dare say "instant classic"
• Chelsea Rodgers: old-school jam . . . just wish he was more prominent
• Future Baby Mama: amazing ballad; possibly the best song on the album (fighting with The One U Wanna C for that title)

I agree that the title song Planet Earth should've been last, but aside from Lovesexy, D&P, One Nite Alone, all of his title songs have either fallen first or last. He might've just wanted it first to set the tone of the album.

Meh i love All The Midnights , Lion Of Judah and Resolution

The weekest tracks are Guitar and MR. Goodnight imo

I LOVE Mr. Goodnight. It reminds me of The Good Life Big City Remix. It is some of his best "rap" work in a long time. I don't think anything on PE is "horrible" or "among his worst" like some are saying, but this album seems to be coming up short for some reason.

I'm thinking it is the length of the cd. To me, 10 trax (especially in the cd and digital age) is insufficient to be considered a full cd. If the cd had 2 to 4 more trax, I think everyone would be considering it a "masterpiece".

I wish that he would hae released a definite single. I think if Sony had been given the opportunity to work with "Guitar" along with Verizon, the radio and download opportunities would have increased.
[Edited 7/25/07 18:34pm]

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