not sure why they have two, but here's the other one....

i posted the one they had up there already a few days ago....

http://www.stylusmagazine...hp?ID=2037

Prince
Musicology
NPG/Columbia
2004
{4}


Somewhere between media hacks rushing to pen the most ornate summary of Prince’s return to fame, a public who all but forgot him and a new distribution deal with Sony, it’s as if everyone wants Prince to succeed. Few artists seem to elicit such uniform goodwill. Even fewer artists rubbish hopes for their latest work so reliably, making each previous album seem less of a dud when the new one arrives.
Prince’s supposed return to form, or at least, his return to a major label, has been his most successful in an age. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be—he’s had enough practise—this particular homecoming being the latest in a mounting trail of comebacks that have been staged since the mid-nineties. Why Musicology has suddenly found such favour with press and public alike, when it’s merely another quarter-decent effort, has less to do with how it sounds than an astutely timed strategy on its creator’s part to recover some of the popularity his recent self-released material hasn’t been able to. Or, judging from the unashamed veneer of nostalgia coating these songs, to court old fans who understandably lost interest years ago.
In Prince’s own words, this is a “pop” album. What that might mean to him nowadays is anybody’s guess. Excluding artists that pay him idolising lip service (D’angelo), imitate him (Andre 3000) or cover his songs (Alicia Keys), it’s not clear if there’s anyone Prince listens to that he didn’t as a teenager (well, except cutting edge rappers like Doug. E Fresh and Chuck D).
But, as he’s been telling journalists for years, when Prince wants new music, he makes it himself. Which might be nothing more than a tongue-in-conceited-cheek aside, but it shows. There’s nothing here that fans won’t have heard before, which might be fine if there was some stronger sign of the songcraft that made his name, but Musicology contains only the usual glimpses of brilliance and surprise. And nothing to sufficiently pin it together. It might make a better crack at accessibility than 1999’s Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, but it’s hard to tell if Prince has simply lost his initial spark, or if he can’t be bothered to channel it.
It’s probable that he’s suffered lapses in quality and employed poor judgment in the past fifteen years, but rarely has he proved so disconcertingly safe, boring or banal. The last time our elfin hero seemed to have anything of much resonance to say, even if the religious content rubbed most people the wrong way, was 2001’s The Rainbow Children, and before that, Emancipation.
So, at the menopausal age of 45, what ‘pop’ means to Prince is a galaxy away from what it did in his twenties. Then, it was a vehicle to get away with whatever he wanted—to make his unpredictable, avant-garde, idiosyncratic leanings easily accessible by astutely housing them in perfect pop-song concision. Now, it appears to mean something tepid, restrained, and perhaps worst of all, embarrassing. It might be befitting for a man of his age, but never has Prince sounded so fuddy-duddy.
It starts bearably enough, with Prince in search of a song, thumbing through his James Brown-by-numbers rule-book on the title track. The appropriation of post-Jimmy Nolen funk rhythm guitar was always one of the most compulsive elements in Prince’s work (see: “Controversy”, “Housequake”) but here, the licks are made into a polite Radio 2 notion of funk, the type of clinical JB-pastiche you might hope to hear in a coffee shop extension of a book shop, where the staff wear woolen cardigans, even in the summer. Exhibiting none of the intensity that such a song requires, it’s carried over to the mind-numbingly banal lyrics, symptomatic of what’s to follow. With fuzzy references to Sly Stone, James Brown and Earth Wind & Fire, Prince asks “don’t you miss the feeling music gave you back in the day?” It’s not what he meant, but he could quite easily be talking about himself.
Things don’t get much better as the song closes with radio-tuned snippets of some of his hits (it could have been worse, this CD could have come with a best-of bonus disc). “Illusion, Coma, Pimp and Circumstance” is a leaden, self-consciously quirky diatribe seemingly pivoted around the less than novel ‘artist as whore/industry as pimp’ metaphor. All of which might be fine if it the sub-George Clinton parable comprised some sort of actual song-formulation, instead of a vacuous, plastic, would-be-party funk jam that goes all of nowhere.
The tuneless “Life O the Party” fares little better. Featuring a warm impression of the Neptunes staccato drum thuds and a Black Eyed Peas-like sub-dancehall middle section, Prince comes up thin in the way of anything melodically or rhythmically memorable. Still, fun is to be had as he aims to convince of some amazing shindig he’s holding, the line “we put the ‘I’ in fine” perhaps the winner of the shockingly clichéd (where did Prince’s wit go to?), cringe inducing lot. For all his rhetoric about the brainless state of modern music, it’s odd that Prince didn’t see fit to up this aspect of his game.
Sticking with the inanity, “Dear Mr. Man” shows Prince to be as charmingly naive (or just plain dumb) as he was back in 1981 when he insisted that “Ronnie Talk To Russia” “before it’s too late”. Which is comforting in a way, to know that even if it might not seem so on the outside, he’s still the same clumsy political commentator underneath it all.
The ballads don’t fare much better, “Call My Name” being little more than a dreadfully drippy stock seduction-jam. Apart from a few oddly placed war references, all it seems to be about is that Prince likes his lover to call his name a lot, something he manages to bang on about for far longer than necessary. “On The Couch” is a bit of an improvement, a southern styled organ churning exercise, with more coquettish phrasing than we’ve heard from Prince in some time. But the overwrought teen operatic-R&B-rock melodrama of “If Eye Was The Man In Your Life” captures hilariously bad advice on the need to “get your mack on” and a “chocolate barracuda” while the Mick Hucknall sleaze of “I’m going to lay her “cross my piano stool and sing to her” on “The Marrying Kind” fulfils all sorts of embarrassing criteria for anyone who enjoyed Jordan Knight’s sop-pop “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man” remake.
Like so many Prince albums in the last decade, Musicology is more eager to please than it’s genuinely able to. Rather than be comfortably eclectic, it’s the product of someone stuck in a paisley genre-conveyor belt that rotates according to a depressingly half-hearted program, not bona fide inspiration. In short, it has as much thematic or consistency as a dozen Now That’s What I Call Music volumes being played at random. Expertly performed and immaculately produced it might be, but with such woefully average material, Musicology is a greater feat of spin doctoring than craft. It’s encouraging to think that Prince might be egged on to some sort of creative rebirth by his new public fortune, but this isn’t it.



Reviewed by: Sunil Chauhan
Reviewed on: 2004-05-27

Fair enough.

Well, for all of us who remember the thrill of hearing Prince's old albums when they come out - deep inside we know the author has a point...

But - if this "middle of the road" effort will get Prince the world's attention (as it obviously does), I for one am happy with the result, and will continue to listen to the record every once in a while, using the "skip to next track" buttom now and then...

Peace to freedom of opinion

Krid said:

i think its important people dont forget what prince used to be capable of, otherwise they might not realise how important and fantastic and innovative, etc etc he used to be. that he WAS once right on the cutting edge.

This is the case of the reviewer trying to convince us how hip and ultra cool he is by being able to snidely put down the artist's work. Its what I call review masturbation. Where the reviewer is more interested in his own wit than the product being reviewed. In some of these reviews (as well as some orgers critigues) it as if they expect Prince to re-create the concept of music with each CD release. He is only human. An exceptionally talented human. Some seem to miss what's there by being so intent on what's not.

tricky99 said:

Co-sign, co-sign and CO-SIGN.

purplecam said:

yesss sirrr!

mochalox said:

Keep in mind all, Musicology is a little tame by design. It had to be accessible by the masses in order to get his name back in the public realm. 2004 provided the perfect elements for him to re-introduce himself (RRHOF, PR anniversary, Grammy's), a "Rainbow Children or ATHWIAD would have been a waste of the opportunity.

Once he is back he can take more chances.

2funkE said:

thats actually what the review says: "It’s encouraging to think that Prince might be egged on to some sort of creative rebirth by his new public fortune"

tricky99 said:

i think the reviewer is lamenting whats not there, rather than simply slamming it. and he didnt diss prince the person, or his persona, he talked about the music so its not THAT bad a review.

Lost me at "elfin''.
Come on, nah.

tricky99 said:

Preach on bruh...preach on! Amen.

blackwell1 said:

lol.it could have been worse. it could have been impish. or diminutive.
[This message was edited Tue Jun 1 12:10:37 2004 by thirstinhowlVIII]

Well, the reviewer has a point. But I don't think Musicology is in any way tepid. If it was released just after 1999, poeple would be all over it about how it was a clever homage to the retro sounds of James Brown and P-Funk or Marvin Gaye. I think what Musicology lacks is fire--none of the songs make you say "wow". And it also suffers from timing--an album of this nature to be the one that catapolts Prince back in the spotlite is dissapointing. It should have been The Gold Experience.

But this matters less to me than to know that Prince is once again in the spotlight. This exposure and success is perhaps the best thing that he needs to get his groove on. And it's nice to see someone you listen to for the last 2 decades not only sustain music sales, but garner some new fans and reaffirm the public's respect.

Pretty harsh critic. It reminds me of those snotty reviews Prince used to get from the British press in the 80's, only more flashy in its trend arbitrer pretensions. Musiciology is not the greatest Prince album ever. Neither is it "tepid" or "embarrassing". In fact, I'm willing to bet this review will be embarrassing in a few years, when Musicology will simply be one of Prince's B+ recordings. This reviewer's desire to pop the Musicology hype balloon is just too obvious.

Aerogram said:

agree on the last point. but to be honest, i think it makes a bit of a change from all the glowing, typically positive, articles from reviewers who dont even go in depth into princes music other than the usual surface details.

tricky99 said:

Pretty much... It's amazing how much artistic authority some critic feel they have simply because they can write clever articles. Some of them even think they are greater artists than most of the artists they review.

thirstinhowlVIII said:

I appreciate the details, but there are part and parcel with the deeeep thoughts this guy is supposed to have. There's a brand of reviewers that seem to write for other reviewers --- this is one of them.

Aerogram said:

personally, i think critics can get a raw deal from prince fans, just cos the critics have given prince sucha hard time over the years (though not all the time). buit i like reading stuff like this cos i learnt a lot about princes music and how to apprecaite it even more from reading reviews, articles, books on him. i think it can be really useful and thought provoking, even if you dont totally agree.

Helllllooooo

thirstinhowlVIII said:

Too bad for them They are on the wrong side of musical history. They have ignored and often ridiculed one of the true great musicians of our time in their pursuit of the "edge". Yeah, there is "edge" to reckon with every year... but what does it matter in the long term? A lot of pretnesion, for the most part. Prince's work will be with us long after the dust settles. Even with all the glowing reviews of his career, a lot of his work is still unknown and underrated. That will come out properly one day.

PRINCE is the coolest

Aerogram said:

well, yeah, but you could say that about many many other artists who are just as deserving as prince but far less known by the masses. hardly anyone really appreciates what sly stone did at the time in the late 60s, or what george clinton did in the 70s compared to prince. while im at it, noone even really appreciates all that james brown did either, and im talking about people on this site. prince sold more records than any of them, is better known, is richer, and is better of in 4839284 respects. i love prince to death but i dont feel the need to defend him in this case. especially as the critics love him so much right about now - one small review on a website isnt going to ruin him!

PRINCE

Well, PRINCE is not for everyone. I'm sure true fans will appreciate all of his new releases to some degree. It may be only one song, only one guitar solo or even only one moan, but every Price album has SOMETHING to draw from.

thirstinhowlVIII said:

I'm not protesting the review. Just saying this guy suffers from a certain syndrome that I've seen often... as far back as the ATWIAD/Parade/Sign O the Times days (don't think for one second SOTT was hailed as classic right from the first few weeks by every critic.... and ironically, that's what Musicology is supposed to be sounding like for a certain type of critic).
[This message was edited Tue Jun 1 19:30:28 2004 by Aerogram]

tricky99 said:

I totally agree with u. He could have written this review about any 40+ Icon with a new cd coming out like when Santana's came out.And timing is everything just like if some of P's 90's works would have came in the 80's they would have gotten much love!

ELBOOGY said:

yeah if return of the bump squad or pusy control came out in 1984 it would have been hailed on the level of summertime by gershwin!