The return of the Prince
The man formerly known as a symbol is back. And with the release of his stunning new album Musicology, Prince proves he's still king

By Paul Zach

IT JUST goes to show what a bad state the music industry is in when a legend the likes of Prince has to rely on a major label to get his work noticed again.


Blending pure funk from the James Brown and Parliament school with rock, pop, R&B, jazz and more, he taught the music world that artists and listeners alike did not have to be stuck in a single music rut all the time.

People made love to Dirty Mind in 1980, courted to Controversy in 1981, partied to 1999 in 1983, bathed in Purple Rain in 1984 and followed him Around The World In A Day in 1985.

Rather than just do music videos for an album, he did entire movies - Purple Rain, Under The Cherry Moon, Graffiti Bridge - granted, not very good ones.

In 1988, Sign O' the Times turned a neon light on the future of music as we know it today, its spare title track a blueprint for the hip-hop era.

The 1992 album with the love symbol for a title that he also took as his legal name for a time remains one of the best albums of the last decade, overflowing with classic tracks such as My Name Is Prince, Sexy M.F., 7 and Damn U.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE..... http://straitstimes.asia1...26,00.html

That's the first mention of P I've ever seen in Singapore.

I was surprised to find that the Musicology CD is issued specifically for Singapore. The CD has 'Distribution Sony Music Singapore' written on it, and it appears to be manufactured here, cover and all.

sabaisabai said:

yep.... same here. but i hardly hear musicology (single) being played here. i think the last time i saw an article that big (almost 2 pages full) was during the purple rain era. hopefully singapore will appreciate the man's talent and music and musicology will be his relaunch pad.

jeya said:

Unfortunately, I don't think he'll garner much success here. There just isn't a large interest in western artists here, unless they're huge internationally at the time (such as Robbie Williams). Even Bowie had trouble filling the Indoor Stadium, and most of the crowd were ex-pats..

Do you know when Musicology actually came out in SG? I found it on the 26th, but hadn't looked earlier because I expected it would take a week or two to reach here.

sabaisabai said:

not sure. the guy at the shop told me he had it 2 weeks ago.