Published Monday, April 26, 2004

By Bill Dean
The Ledger
bill.dean@theledger.com

A few years ago it looked as if the kingdom of Prince would remain forever rooted in a purple past.

Having long ago given his record company, Warner Bros., the paisley boot (after displaying the word "slave" on his face in the early 1990s), Prince seemed resigned to releasing future albums himself and to playing mostly theaters.

This year, however, has brought a major comeback. He opened the Grammys with a knockout performance of hits, was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in his first year of eligibility), and successfully launched his first arena tour in six years.

Prince plays the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa tonight, and while fans at the show may have been lured by his promise of playing the hits one last time, they should cock an ear for tunes from "Musicology" (Columbia), Prince's newest and most satisfying album in years.

It's clearly an older, wiser and more relaxed Prince who has produced an album fully worthy of his first major-label release in five years.

While recent albums, such as "The Rainbow Children" (2001) and last year's "N.E.W.S," were hampered by self-conscious experimentation in a host of styles, this newest one is funky; fresh; and, most importantly, accessible to those who like their Prince in full-tilt, royal badness.

As close as it gets to his mid1980s heyday is "Cinnamon Girl," a mid-tempo song that may borrow its title from Neil Young's old hit but tells a completely different tale of a girl caught up in the war-age mentality of the post 9/11 world.

And what of his attitude toward others of the fairer sex? This older and wiser Prince (at 45) indulges much of his passion for passion in songs focusing on monogamy. You read right: "What Do U Want Me 2 Do" is a mellow, syncopated groove with Stevie Wonder-like keyboard fills, all about resisting the allure of a fan.

"Call My Name" is an elegant ballad whose narrator couldn't stop professing his love if he tried. "Eye just can't stop writing songs about U, Eye love U so much," he sings. "I just can't wait to get my arms around U and feel Ur touch."

And the album balances "A Million Days," a mid-tempo take on jilted love with "On The Couch," a lights-down-low cooker that builds on Janet Jackson's penchant for down-and-dirty ballads.

If those songs don't make the point, "Reflection" and others do: This Prince was knighted in the old school; and another Stevie Wonder-style tune turns back the time: "Tell me do U like my hair this way?" he sings. "Remember all the way back in tha day, when we would compare whose afro was the roundest?"

But the artist formerly known for grooves pulls out funk on the two-song cycle "The Marrying Kind"/ "If Eye was the Man in Ur Life." Both are orchestrated blasts that sound like a cross between George Clinton and Frank Zappa.

Though Prince may have come of musical age in the 1980s, he hasn't forgotten it's now 2004. And yes, he plays to the hip-hop nation with lead-off tracks that first sound like beats in search of songs.

But the title track, with its James Brown groove and hotflash horns, and the songs "Life `O' The Party" and "Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance," put the focus on lyrics with equal doses of teases, taunts and tributes.

After nodding to OutKast in "Life `O' The Party" ("Everbody can smell the funk ya'll, down in Atlanta G-A. Everybody even Dre 'n them know it's OK"), Prince alludes to a certain resident of Neverland: "My voice is getting higher and Eye ain't never had my nose done!"

Coming near the album's end, "Dear Mr. Man" (with cameo appearance by Sheila E. on shaker) sounds like an afterthought of social consciousness, rarely an Eticket ride in Prince's magic kingdom. And it isn't this time.

But one misfire doesn't begin to stymie a streamlined Prince who's back in control and pretty much back in full purple power.

Bill Dean can be reached at bill.dean@theledger.com or 863802-7527.