Purple reign

Prince’s new album 20TEN explodes into action with a distinct and welcome whiff of déjà vu. The scatty, driving beats of “Compassion”, the frenetic; almost off-pitch keyboards are immediately reminiscent of his pre-90s glory days. The sound is fresh, funky and alive; immaculately produced and impeccably played by a seamless and faultless band. Die hard Purple People might be inclined to chime “ooyee-sha-sha-coo-coo yeah” out of sheer instinct until they are reminded that this isn’t “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” from 1999.

It’s Prince in the new world watching “Polar ice Caps melting and nations rise against nation” while he exhorts “whatever skin you’re in, We all need to be friends.” Treading some of the same turf as the blisteringly funky “Party Up” from his 1980 album Dirty Mind but so much more polished and polite than “We don’t give a damn we just wanna jam …and that army bag, is such a double drag.” “Party up” contains an expletive or two and sounds rough, edgy, almost poorly produced and the vocals are far less polished than what you hear on “Compassion”. “You’re gonna have to fight your own damn war, cause we don’t wanna fight no more” is spat out with venom and every word sounds like he means it. “Compassion” has sophistication and swish, but “Party Up” has guts and soul. “Compassion” is a promising first track but there was a time when a song like “Kiss” was the first track released off a new album. “Kiss” will live forever as a breathtaking slice of pop-funk while “Compassion” will be forgotten in the heap of so-so Prince songs within days. Still it’s a lot more interesting musically than the dull sludge that has been Prince’s body of work over the last 25 years.

The second track “Beginning Endlessly” grabs attention immediately with Prince borrowing elements of the Timbaland Man’s sound and coming up trumps with something that eventually sounds distinctly his own. This is Prince back in the groove and in far better form than he has been for an age. Yet, as a pop song it lacks a catchy hook, something Prince appears to have lost the ability to achieve of late. That said, “Beginning Endlessly” might have the ability to grow on the unsuspecting listener if they give it a chance.

“Future Soul Song” slows the tempo down with a chorus going “sha la la la la this is the future soul song”. This song is maudlin, boring, dull and an example of Prince and his band sounding brilliant if utterly and hideously bland. Prince was once the master of the super slow salacious yet drop dead funky sound with “Do Me Baby” when he squeaked “here we are, looking for a reason, for you to lay me down” you could almost sense smoke rising from the CD player. “Future Soul Song” serves as a jarring reminder as to the bland evolution of Prince’s once edgy sound.

I find myself repeating my thoughts as I trawl through the rest of the album. The recurring one being that Prince, over the years has achieved musical excellence as far as craftsmanship is concerned. There can be little argument that his band is almost faultless now, his music lush and beautifully produced and in terms of sheer musical craftsmanship, it all sounds terribly immaculate yet there is something missing and maybe it is as simple as the fact that Prince has grown up. Gone is the energy, the edge, the anger, the hurt. Essentially the rawness of Prince’s early music was evidently more appealing to some listeners like myself than we realised at first and as the music has grown more polished and sophisticated and it has sounded so much more sterile and I find myself alienated from the Prince I knew and worshipped. Also I am willing to wager that this album will produce not a single hit pop song because Prince has long lost the ability to craft a pop song. He could argue that he isn’t interested in writing pop songs any longer. Maybe it’s just that both Prince and this listener are much older than they once were.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 18^th, 2010.