Grounded at last

By Scott Galupo

http://washingtontimes.co...-2873r.htm

Prince
Musicology

NPG Records
A hip-grinding appearance with Beyonce at the Grammys, a blistering solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an oldies-heavy tour of arenas, and boom: Prince is back to earth.
Does he even need a new album to accompany the sanity recovery? Probably not, given how little we demand of old heroes' comebacks.
But it's not Prince's style to make things easy for himself, or us. Did you get through all three discs of "Emancipation" (1996)? Did you even buy it?
Did Prince care?
The Purple One's '90s breakdown is industry legend: starting with the symbolic name-change and progressing with each contract-churning album for Warner Bros.
Then came the post-"slavery" (his description of life at a major label) eccentricities.
"Musicology" is as agreeable as the Minnesotan formerly known as Prince Nelson has allowed himself to be in more than a decade. It follows the very jazzy and faith-based "The Rainbow Children" (Prince, just shy of 46, is a committed Jehovah's Witness now) and last year's "N.E.W.S.," an instrumental funk album.
"Musicology" is on Prince's own NPG, for New Power Generation, imprint, and units are being moved through his brand-new official Web outlet, the NPG Music Club. However, it's being distributed and promoted by Columbia Records, signaling that Prince has reached a satisfactory truce with Big Music.
So: Is "Musicology" a "1999" for 2004?
Hardly. But it's consistently good and a fun, lively return to the kind of pop-funk-rock hybrids that Prince used to write for a mass audience rather than for his own kicks.
He responds to critics: "I don't care what they said — 'He don't play the hits no more.' " Possibly, he takes a shot at Michael Jackson: "I ain't never had my nose done."
Prince the virtuoso plays most of the instruments here, save for a few tracks with John Blackwell on drums, Rhonda Smith on bass and a horn section that includes legendary alto saxman Maceo Parker.
He may not be able to pass out hits like business cards to the Bangles and Sinead O'Connor anymore, but Prince is at least ready to party again. Check out the mean groove and name-dropping of the title track: an "old-school joint" for the "true funk soldiers" — James Brown, Sly Stone, Public Enemy's Chuck D and the late Jam Master Jay (of Run D.M.C.).
Just before signing off of the "Musicology" introduction, Prince sprinkles in clips of "Kiss" and "Little Red Corvette," which could be the first time he's ever slipped into self-referential nostalgia.
Prince searches for Ron Isley soul on "Call My Name" and finds his own brand of candy-synth-pop on "Cinnamon Girl," one of a trio of topical songs about war and racial politics here. (There's also the preachy-funky "Dear Mr. Man" and a polemical aside in "Call My Name.")
As with any Prince album, "Musicology" hurtles between styles. The ballad-y numbers come in varieties: "A Million Days" (power pop, with screaming guitar), "What Do U Want Me 2 Do?" (West Coast jazz), "On the Couch" (Aretha Franklin soul).
And Prince still has an incomparable knack for combining hard guitar riffs and staccato funk grooves, as on "If Eye Was the Man in Ur Life." (The girlish spelling shorthand is used throughout the set.)
"Musicology" sputters when it becomes obvious that Prince kept his eye on trends during his period of hermetic concealment.
"Life O' the Party," a duet with Candy Dulfer on which Prince comes off eerily like Nelly on "Hot in Herre," is a shallow attempt to re-create the rapper-plus-diva magic of Jay-Z and Beyonce.
"Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance," about a May-December gigolo romance, is a stray dog left between old-school rap and the neo-R&B of Usher.
The newbies owe a lot to Prince. Why suck up to them? Why imitate the imitators when he can imitate himself so well?