http://www.sundayherald.com/41280

Purple Patch


Rock and Pop CDs: Prince - Musicology (Columbia)

Reviewed by Leon McDermott



It's been, well, let's just say a long time, since Prince last
released a good album. Arguably, he's released little of relevance
since the late 1980s; thing is, the albums he released in the nine
years between his debut, For You, in 1978, and his masterpiece, Sign
O' The Times, in 1987, have been the blueprint for so many other
artists since.
Touted as a comeback album, after the name changes and the religious
conversions (right now, he's a Jehovah's Witness, sometimes to be
seen knocking on doors in his native Minneapolis), Musicology is no
match for classic Prince – though, one might ask, what is? It is,
however, a reminder that behind all the rumours and the fog of myth,
there's a razor-sharp musical brain.

It kicks off with the title track, a taut slice of funk that doubles
as an ode to Prince's musical forebears ends with a radio dial
passing briefly through previous Prince hits .

Cinnamon Girl borrows its title from Neil Young and its political
approach from a naive anti-war protester (not that Prince has ever
done politics subtly, as anyone who remembers Ronnie Talk To Russia
can attest), but there's a touch of Little Red Corvette in its multi-
tracked, perversely upbeat chorus. Dear Mr Man, meanwhile, harks back
to the conscious funk of Curtis Mayfield and Sly And The Family
Stone, bemoaning the state of the nation, the lack of welfare and
Aids assistance; Prince notes halfway through that he "Might not be
in the back of the bus, but it sho' feel just the same".


18 April 2004