Youth may be wasted on the young, but pop-music stardom - long the purview of the footloose and wrinkle-free - now seems poised to overlap with AARP eligibility. Madonna, she of the Timberlake duets and time- defying thighs, remains omnipresent at 50; Michael Jackson, who turns 51 in August, will perform a string of sold-out dates in London into 2010; and now Prince, also nearly 51, has just released a bundled three-disc set (available exclusively at Target stores) to surprisingly vital first-week sales of 168,000 copies.

The man's an icon, and nothing can take away the genius that is Purple Rain (1984) or Sign 'O' the Times (1987), to name only two of his best. Still, it’s hard not to wonder, after listening to this well-padded triad, if the Purple One has run out of juice. It would help to toss Elixer [sic], an entire album written and produced by Prince for protégée Bria Valente; her 10 strenuously generic tracks are pure R&B Ambien, and the lady is no Sheila E. (or Vanity, or Apollonia...). The blessedly Bria-free second act, LOtUSFLOW3R, is less narcoleptic than merely sleepy, including an anemic cover of ''Crimson and Clover'' and a number of decent but largely indistinct midtempo guitar jams (see the drum-drenched ''Boom'' and P-Funked ''4ever''). Third disc MPLSoUND is the strongest of the bunch, though that's faint praise; even standouts like the teasing, breathy ''Chocolate Box'' and the bedroom-ready ''U're Gonna C Me'' feel, at best, like pale lavender imitations of better times. C-

http://www.ew.com/ew/arti...29,00.html

BTW... In the previous issue, in their "Bullseye" section, they claimed that the 3-disc set didn't contain enough good songs for even one disc... Whatever...

It's just an opinion.

Dayclear said:

Yes... But an "unqualified" one. You (the reviewer) can't make a bogus reference in a comparison and expect to maintain credibility. That was point made in this thread.

I don't think a lot of these reviews are based on really listening to the record to tell you the truth. I think they are ear scanned and listened to one time only, which in my opinion is not enough time to really know what U are saying.

if you're picking up entertainment weekly for your critical reading you have bigger problems than amateurish reviewers simply doing their jobs and writing what's expected of them. on the other hand, i'm not aware of any source of good critical writing on mainstream pop. the whole thing is a mug's game. pop music is not a platform for serious art. it can only be seen as an extreme fluke that an artist like prince made headway in the industry to begin with. prince continues to keep playing the game so if he doesn't do what it takes to earn/buy positive reviews then he can only be seen as failing at that particular aspect of the game.

entertainment weekly used to mention prince in almost every issue, back when he was on wb records (ew is owned by the same parent company). they started dropping little digs at him into the magazine back around the time of the 'o(+>' album and the negotiations/arguments about princes so-called '$108 million' deal.

why would one expect that? it's crap about crap.

i say this as a former subscriber.

if you're picking up entertainment weekly for your critical reading you have bigger problems than amateurish reviewers simply doing their jobs and writing what's expected of them. on the other hand, i'm not aware of any source of good critical writing on mainstream pop. the whole thing is a mug's game. pop music is not a platform for serious art. it can only be seen as an extreme fluke that an artist like prince made headway in the industry to begin with. prince continues to keep playing the game so if he doesn't do what it takes to earn/buy positive reviews then he can only be seen as failing at that particular aspect of the game.

entertainment weekly used to mention prince in almost every issue, back when he was on wb records (ew is owned by the same parent company). they started dropping little digs at him into the magazine back around the time of the 'o(+>' album and the negotiations/arguments about princes so-called '$108 million' deal.

Most reviews completely pan Bria's CD, and I think some of that negativity spreads to the other CDs.