The Artist Formerly Known As Over
Everyone jumps on the Prince comeback bandwagon.
By Ben Williams
Posted Tuesday, April 20, 2004, at 12:26 PM PT

Musicology, by Prince (Sony). Apparently critics were only waiting for some old-school funk jams and a couple of award show appearances to jump on the Prince comeback bandwagon. Rolling Stone sighs with relief at an "open, easygoing and inclusive" album full of "distinct, coherent and rigorously uncluttered" songs. "For the first time in a long time," Prince "isn't overdoing it with pointless and obtuse metaphors," echoes New York. Everybody loves the "pan-generational" sound, which nods to OutKast and James Brown alike; this is Prince's "periodic table, a codification of funk's essential elements," says the Philadelphia Inquirer. The surprising kicker: "If there's an overriding theme, it would be respect for marriage," according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The lone dissenter is the New York Times' Kelefa Sanneh, who calls Musicology "a casual exhibition of Princeliness, stocked with a handful of old tricks but no new ones" and bravely sticks up for 2001's "much better," much-derided Rainbow Children.