lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
Hot damn. I enjoyed Prince's last album, Musicology a lot, but at times it felt like P on autopilot. I'd compare it to ATYCLB in that it had great songs, but the artist seemed to be "applying for the job" a little too hard, despite him not wanting to call it a comeback. It was far from a loose album, and Prince is better when he's free to do ANYTHING. This album isn't a long-winded experiment like The Rainbow Children (which I enjoyed immensely), but classic Prince. You feel like you don't know what's coming next with each track. And like classic Prince, every song seems like it's about FUCKING, even if it really isn't (song titles on 3121 include "Lolita", "Black Sweat", "Incense and Candles", and "Satisfied"). No other artist so unabashedly acknowledges the inherent sexual aspect of music, and gets the listener truly freaky.
This may be his best album since Androgynous (that one with "the symbol") from '93, perhaps even further back. There is some guitar playing on here raw enough to conjure up memories of Let's Go Crazy (anyone who saw his recent SNL performance will testify that he tore the roof off the fucking place with his fretboard fireworks). There are jams on here so funky and weird (electronically-altered vox included) that you might think you're back in the mid-80's when P was putting totally alien sounds on the airwaves. And there's a couple of ballads, including the Latin-flavored Te Amo Corazon, that are sophisticated without being boring.
At his best, Prince fuses the best tendencies of P-Funk, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone, etc. and on 3121 he's doing it very, very well. This album hits stores next week, unless you're lucky enough to find it sooner like I did.
The Return of the King, indeed.
This may be his best album since Androgynous (that one with "the symbol") from '93, perhaps even further back. There is some guitar playing on here raw enough to conjure up memories of Let's Go Crazy (anyone who saw his recent SNL performance will testify that he tore the roof off the fucking place with his fretboard fireworks). There are jams on here so funky and weird (electronically-altered vox included) that you might think you're back in the mid-80's when P was putting totally alien sounds on the airwaves. And there's a couple of ballads, including the Latin-flavored Te Amo Corazon, that are sophisticated without being boring.
At his best, Prince fuses the best tendencies of P-Funk, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone, etc. and on 3121 he's doing it very, very well. This album hits stores next week, unless you're lucky enough to find it sooner like I did.
The Return of the King, indeed.
