By JEFF MIERS
News Pop Music Critic
4/21/2004

CD Review
Prince
Musicology
[NPG/Columbia]
(Four out of four stars)

Watching the pundits trip over themselves to claim that "Musicology," out Tuesday, represents Prince's "return to form" after a decade-plus in the commercial wasteland is both amusing and distressing.

Amusing because it's so indicative of a modern music press incapable of discerning the meaning behind an artist's deepening musicality, precisely because the majority of its members are, in fact, cultural critics who know little about music.

Distressing because, more than likely, what these scribes have to say will be accepted as fact, and in the process, much of what Prince has been up to for the past 10 years or so will be written off the books.

Let's be clear: "Musicology" is an excellent Prince album. But it would be impossible for it to represent a return to form, because the man has never lost the plot.

Both "Crystal Ball" and "The Rainbow Children," released during the time period many writers and radio folks would have us forget, are more adventurous and easily as solid as the close-to-perfect "Musicology."

What the critics who call these albums "self-indulgent" can't handle is the fact that Prince turned his back on the corporate music-business machine, dug deep into his artistry, and produced some of the most challenging and frankly deep music of his incredibly illustrious career. And he did it all without their help, managing to get his music and message across to a smaller fan-base without the assistance of the industry's conventional apparatus. The diminutive, formerly purple-clad one became a convert to the Jehovah's Witnesses faith, deepened his connection with both classic R&B and old-school funk, and brought a fresh, jazz-informed improvisational aspect to both the studio and the stage.

That was, in the eyes of some, bad enough; but when he took to scrawling "slave" on his face, decrying the "dumbing-down" of modern music at the hands of corporate "bottom-liners," and released his music directly through his own Web site, this was apparently the final straw.

Despite making the most profound music of his career, Prince had become persona non grata.

After announcing a world tour of "hits" material and kicking off this year's Grammys with an over-the-top medley of "Purple Rain"-era hits - made even more bombastic by the coloratura-fueled contributions of diva Beyonce - Prince suddenly became "cool" again. All of this baggage is backing the release of "Musicology," though it has nothing to do with the actual music in its grooves.

Ah, those grooves, then.

"Musicology" is packed tight with 'em, most of them not just composed and produced by Prince, but performed solely by him as well. Like two other supposedly self-indulgent artists who've been banished to the cult-status fringes because of their inability to stick to one specific genre - Terence Trent D'arby and Todd Rundgren - Prince is capable of seeing his creations through from original conception to digital completion. And like his troublesome musical brethren, he's all over the map, blending elements of soul, Motown, James Brown, Sly Stone, electric-period Miles Davis, Hendrix, and unabashed pop into a groove-centric whole.

The album-opening title tune lays the template for the majority of "Musicology," when, over a sultry, deep-funk vamp, Prince waxes brazenly street-poetic. "Wish I had a dollar/4 every time they say/Don't U miss the feeling music gave ya/Back in the day?," Prince tells us, and the celebratory dance track is at once narcissistic and broadly compelling. Yes, he's recasting James Brown and Sly in his own image, as he's always done; but more importantly, he's telling us that something has been lost.

The acerbic "Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance" follows, and makes it clear that Prince is on no nostalgia trip. Again, funk is the reference point, but the arrangement - turntable swipes, supple guitar figures, layered vocals - reminds us that Outkast was not without precedent in its quest for a multi-idiomatic reinvigoration of what retailers call "urban music."

Lest we forget that Prince has always been a first-rate balladeer, a man who knows how to marry melody to lyrical substance, we've got the hard-to-deny aural candy of "A Million Miles," which finds the man's guitar taking a leading role, and later, the Marvin Gaye-like transcendent soul-burner "Call My Name," which puts Prince miles beyond his peers in terms of both compositional invention and performance. This is no mere pop star; this cat can play, and he writes circles around the current crop of divas and dance-dudes.

There's so much to love here, and just as much to celebrate. But a comeback? Hardly. Call it another in a long line of successes.

I agree with a lot of what was said here. Many of the critics act like Prince just fell into obscurity and the music went with him. Regardless of the sales, he's always made interesting music. As P said back in '98 or '99; "there are gems buried everywhere".

I really like this article.