http://www.eye.net/eye/is...ndisc.html


ON DISC

Royal flush

PRINCE

Musicology NPG Music Club

Just over a minute before the nadir of this maddening grab bag comes to a close, Prince takes this uncharacteristically gratuitous shot at the artist who once qualified as his only serious competition: "My voice is getting higher / And I ain't never had my nose done / That's the other guy."

Up to that point, the song -- a some-assembly-required construct that's every bit as generic as its title, "Life 'O' the Party," would suggest -- settles for an indistinctness that afflicts roughly half of Prince's masterfully orchestrated rapprochment with the mainstream. (The album can be downloaded now from puretracks.com. The CD, released by Sony, comes out April 20.)

It also signals Musicology's turning point. For the next 20 minutes or so, the album snaps to life, climaxing with a pair of pleading ballads, "If Eye Was the Man in Ur Life" and the smouldering "On the Couch," the latter of which finds a conflicted Prince admonishing, "You shouldn't have let me unzip your dress / Why'd you do it?"

Perhaps because he's released most of his music online over the past eight years, Musicology sounds less like a coherent album than a compilation of individual downloads, with all of the capriciousness that approach implies.

It also robs Musicology of any subtext, other than the ambition to reclaim his standing as a commercial force. As a result, unlike even a minor work like, say, 1994's retroactively fascinating Come, the lesser moments don't benefit from being part of a unifying conceit.

Still, when he does engage with something outside his own universe, Prince reminds you just how crucial his music has been. At its best, Musicology is an intermittently extraordinary holding pattern, holding out the promise that, in the very near future, it will be again. JOHN SAKAMOTO

It always amazes me how different opinions people have on the cohesion of records. "This isn't coherent!" - well, it's sometimes a valid point, but - really - with an album like Musicology which has just a bit of rock, a bit funk, some jazz and a whole lot of soul done with the same instrumentation all through the whole 48 minutes such a comment is bordering on meaningless. It's just simply put a failed observation - unless your idea of cohesion is that a pop record should consist strictly of 100% pure pop songs with no genre crossing whatsoever.

In fact I just read a book on the trappings of modern day criticism (within theatre journalism though) and according to the writer the continuous gripe on "cohorence" is one of the cheapest ways to criticize a piece of work you didn't really pay attention to but you're just desperately trying to find something to complete your work assignment with.

Novabreaker said:

True - having grown up musically with Prince I get bored with albums that are so 'coherent' every track sounds pretty much the same. I like the variety.

It seems that many critics both amateur and professional have read your textbooks Nova.


Come ?

Come was 10 years ago .This guy has missed out .

EROTICCITYNPG said:

Do you think 'retroactively' should be 'retrospectively', or indeed, 'in retrospect'?

What do they feed writers these days?

mr sakamoto = CJ?

I think Mr. Sakamoto is not that big on funk, otherwise he'd had noticed ICPC. As for the "holding pattern" -- hmmm, I mean can you imagine a pattern holding as much as a critic essentially complaining that a legend's latest record doesn't sound as good as their seminal recordings 20, 30 years ago? The reason these records can't be recreated is that theymarked their time and arrived at that particular juncture where art and absolute cool meet. Really, the only legends that have garnered nearly as much praised as during their "heydays" ars acts that have gone "boutique".. and Johnny Cash!
[This message was edited Sun Apr 11 12:57:39 2004 by Aerogram]

Right? How is it even POSSIBLE to write a review of this album and not even MENTION Illusion, Coma, Pimp and Circumstance?

FYI, Eye is a free rag in Toronto, and has pretty weak writing. Eye is best used for it's live club listings and escort service ads at the back. The articles are usually pretty crappy, just like this review...