or rather feel what a dick mr.hoskins has made of himself!

Sometimes it pisses down in April

I TOOK 'Kiss' as a signal that we were being ushered back into the compressed, airtight funkworld of 'Dirty Mind'. Didn't flip over the song itself - slick metronome sexgospel - but what a relief to hear that funky, flecked, flicking guitar again.

It turns out we're not going back to that springy, spunky sound after all - 'Kiss' is on its own as a throwback to 'Head' and 'Party Up' and 'Do It All Night'. Not that Prince doesn't still have a filthy little mind, of course, just that these days he doesn't speak it quite so economically. It's all mixed he doesn't really know how to express, and that's become a drag.

A few things have changed since 'Around The World In A Day', it's true. For starters, there are no printed lyrics, so i don't have to pretend to have given his twee and icky poems my most careful consideration. Then for seconds there's no purple or paisley stuff on the sleeve - just plain ol' black and white narcissim (another throwback to 'Dirty Mind'). Most important, Prince isn't being such a sourpuss primadonna anymore. There I was thinking the little mulatto Amadeus was on the edge of a breakdown and suddenly he's all happy and relaxed and flirty in the 'Kiss' video.

Trouble is, i actually think 'Around The World In A Day' was the better record. For all its neo-psychedelic silliness it had three great songs, which is about three more than 'Parade' has - nothing here as witty as 'Pop Life', as mournful as 'America', or as anguished as 'Condition Of The Heart'. The worst thing about Prince's "maturity', if we can call it that, is that he has given up writing great songs - songs like 'When You Were Mine' - as a matter of course. I mean, if he can find time to bestow a morsel like 'Manic Monday' on four desperate California chicks who will probably never have another hit record in their lives, surely he could craft the odd decent tune for himself.

Prince, instead of writing simple, succinct, sexy songs, is always trying to save the world, which means that he is never content with anything but grandiose 'Sgt Pepper' albums where all the songs run into each onther and vast orchestras make a lot of superfluous noise. He is a master architect of sound but he will show off and spoil it all. His Rundgren-esque technosoup of Sly and Stevie Wonder is beginning to get very predictable.

The LP opens with 'Christopher Tracy's Parade', a typical fanfare for his highness 'Disneyland soundscape and pretty much a follow-through from the ambience of 'Paisley Park'. Who this tracy fellow is I don't know, though going by the closing elegy of 'Sometimes It Snows In April', I would guess that he is a deceased pal of the Minneapolitan midget's.

'New Position' follows with steel drums, a hard pop-funk beat, and yer basic lewd double entendre. Guitarist Wendy picks up for the strange, brief interlude of 'I Wonder U' (performances seem more democratically delegated this time around: P. isn't being such a spoilt-brat autocrat in his studio playpen) which slides swiftly into 'Under The Cherry Moon', title track of the unpromising-sounding flick for which this LP purports to be a soundtrack. I have seen many moons in my time, but never a cherry moon - how about you ? The song is a kind of kurt Weill lullaby co-authored by (Prince Sr ?) John L. Nelson.

Next up, 'Girls And Boys' is an adolescent 'Lady Marmalade' replete with "sauce" French bits and set to the beat of 'Take Me With U'. 'Life Can Be So Nice' bypasses me completely - a highspirited mess - before 'Venus De Milo' trails away at Side One's end as a slight sliver of mood-muzak, grand piano plus sweeping strings and reeds.

Flip the disc and we're straight back into Prince's booming sytnh beat on 'Mountains', which is a pounding Stevie Wonder/ Earth Wind And Fire epic. The Jazzy, smoochy 'Do U Lie ?' is a pleasant and slinky respite from such pomp.

'Kiss' then takes its isolated place in the remorseless parade of overdone semi-ideas, followed by the melodically beguiling 'Anotherloverholenyohead' (yes, it is a stupid title, isn't it). Finally, the showpiece ballad, 'Sometimes It Snows In April' (an even worse title) ends the record on a folksy acoustic noteand mourns the aforesaid departed Tracy. I feel that Prince is, on the whole, best at this most sentimental and foppishly despolate, but this is appalling kitsch and doesn't work at all.

I dunno. Is it possible, or even advisable, to take Prince seriously ? Do I have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude ? I find this record laboured and trite and self-satisfied and won't be listening to it again.

-- Barney Hoskyns

sheesh, someone needed to quit sucking on lemons.

Blasphemy, off with their heads.

Hoskyns said:

The same tired old rhetoric that comes along with every new Prince album.
[Edited 3/12/08 21:46pm]

"got ta try a new position!"

If Parade had followed Come and NPS, then this guy would have liked it, because then he could have compared it to real garbage.

toejam said:

now i must take you to task-almost universally until batman EVERY prince album was lauded-infact most after that(in my misspent youth i used to compile scrapbooks of all the reviews)

infact apart from nps it is quite difficult to find a run of bad reviews-shit even chaos and disorder was lauded as a masterpiece by mojo!!

jonylawson said:

Fair enough. I agree that from an analysis of the critical literature, most of his albums do get positive reviews. But my statement was more generalised - there's always someone that comes up with that line "Prince has lost his ability to write good songs" bullshit... the same way there's always someone that comes up with the other equally uncreative line "his best work since Sign O The Times" etc.
[Edited 3/13/08 2:45am]

What? I thought that was a great review! The things he didn't like about it are the things I liked

Mountains as a Stevie Wonder/EW&F epic was a good description. As was Life Can Be So Nice as a "highspirited mess". He cited those as a bad things, I refer to them as great things.

CT's Parade is a 'Disney soundscape', I Wonder U is a 'strange brief interlude', and Girls & Boys described as an 'adolescent Lady Marmalade' is the most succinct ly accurate description I've ever seen of that song.

He didn't like the album for reasons I do like it. This is a period review, it's interesting to look back at how "classic" Prince albums were actually received at the time.
[Edited 3/13/08 6:37am]

what an awful review. i haven't got the energy to pick it apart, it's not worth it. but it's just so violently misguided.

a couple of interesting things:

he refers in passing to the bangles, and says they'll probably never have another hit in their career. so wrong it's funny - look at 'eternal flame', which became the bangles' single lasting achievement. just goes to show how NON-prescient the reviewer was about that.

more interestingly, if i'm not mistaken, this is the same barney hoskyns who wrote one of the first prince biographies, 'imp of the perverse'.

now, i don't have my copy to hand - but i seem to remember hoskyns having a lot more positive things to say about 'parade' by the time of his book. if anyone's got their copy around perhaps they can confirm me on that? if i remember rightly he praises the album?
[Edited 3/13/08 5:55am]