I have a weird relationship with this record and seem to gravitate towards the songs no one seems to love; Positivity, Dance On, the title track, I Wish U Heaven...
Anna Stesia is one of the best things he's ever written but I never cared for Eye No, Alphabet Street or W2RiL. I'd argue this record can be interpereted in several more ways than 2 though - at least musically. Conceptually, it seems pretty clear: Good vs. Evil, Love vs. Lust, Salvation vs. Sin. I never found it complicated thematically and certainly never read any overt drug references in it beyond how those temptations relate to the larger themes. After TRC, it's probably his most overtly religous/spiritual record.
Production and arrangement wise though, the god damned thing is insanely complex. You can hear the passion, sincerity and total seriousness coming out of it, as if Prince had more in his head than he could ever get out; which was probably true. He made the tracks unskippable on CD for a reason. He had something to say but I don't think much of it had to with drugs.
I'm also one of those people that think the whole Black Album "controversy" was a calcualated move, PR wise as well as conceptually, and was another example of Prince not only playing with the system and masterfully building his mystique, while still playing with the consistent narrative of duality that marked his entire career. For instance, if he'd wanted TBA buried and unheard, like he said, believing it to be evil, he never would have played those tracks on the tour which was one of the most choreographed, rehearesed and "packaged" out of many.
He laid himself bare naked on the cover, reborn in a Venus sense and went out of his way to express the feminine side of his (again) dual nature. Oddly, the symbol (which always represented a male and female hybrid) never comes up, even with all the theatricality. Of, if it did, it wasn't prominent. Sorry for the rant, but I have a hard time viewing this record as a real dissertation drugs beyond "God is Better". |