honorable mention

closing out this prince music month, here are four other prince '90s albums that deserve recognition:

exodus (1995) - this was actually an npg release with prince's bassist at the time, sonny thompson, doing most of the lead vocals. funkiest...album...ever! the segues aren't even annoying. many of them are quite humorous, especially "mashed potato girl" and "new power day." standout tracks: "get wild," "count the days," "the good life," "return of the bump squad," and "the exodus has begun."

girl 6 (1996) - it's the soundtrack for spike lee's movie of the same name. all the songs included on it are prince compositions, but some of them are performed by the artists he gave them to, e.g. "the screams of passion" by the family and "nasty girl" by vanity 6. " it also includes "count the days" from npg's exodus and an edited version of "she spoke 2 me" which was officially released on the vault...old friends 4 sale. the title track, "girl 6" features nona gaye. wonderful compilation of prince work.

the truth (1997) - this acoustic album was the fourth disc on crystal ball, prince's official release of several of his much-bootlegged songs. the truth was all new material. the songs are full of lyrical maturity, addressing loss of a loved one ("comeback"), his name change, loss of popularity and the public's perception of him at the time ("the truth," "don't play me," "fascination").

the vault...old friends 4 sale (1999) - another project featuring prince's much-bootlegged songs from the 1980s and songs he did with the new power generation during the 1990s that never made it on an album. it also has prince's version of "5 women," a song he gave to joe cocker. other songs like "she spoke to me" (also on girl 6), "when the lights go down" and "old friends 4 sale" shows prince's strong vocal ability and growth as a jazz musician.

newpower rave

prince's last two albums for the '90s took him out of the 20th century with a whimper. there are some great moments on both newpower soul (1998) and rave un2 the joy fantastic (1999), but neither are great albums.

newpower soul is more of a mix cd for a party, but unfortunately there are only three really good dance songs on it: "mad sex," "come on" and the hidden track, "wasted kisses." what was supposed to be the standout ballad, "the one" would've worked so much better as an instrumental, especially to better feature rhonda smith's fretless bassline and clare fischer's orchestral arrangement.

the album also feels like an advertisement for the new npg records prince was trying to launch at the time, shining a spotlight on two of his musical mentors, family stone and bass legend larry graham and la grande dame, chaka khan. however, it would've been a better vehicle in which to feature another vocalist he was working with at the time, marva king.

clive davis tried to make rave un2 the joy fantastic do for prince what supernatural did for carlos santana. distributed by arista--in its last days before davis started j records--rave was full of cameos from the hip-hop (chuck d., eve) and pop (gwen stefani, sheryl crow) worlds. but all the cameos in the world couldn't save rave from being boring. the exception is the so-called collaboration he did with sheryl crow, "baby knows." crow plays harmonica and sings background vocals on it. "baby knows" also has another awesome prince lyric: "...and her perfume, it smell like the weekend."

the best songs on rave are the ones on which prince did everything himself: "tangerine," "the greatest romance ever sold," "eye love u but eye don't trust u anymore," "man o' war" and "wherever you go, whatever u do." but that's disappointing, considering this was supposed to be an album of new material meant to relaunch prince's popularity. at the close of the 20th century, he actually ended up receiving more attention for "1999," a song he wrote in 1982.

emancipation or proclamation?

emancipation should've been one good disc with about 17 songs. instead, it was three disappointing discs with 36 tracks. it was released in 1996, just a few months after chaos and disorder which was his final album for warner bros. the album was supposed to be a celebration of prince's new life as a married man and expectant father, as well as a free man fresh off the warner bros. plantation. instead emancipation is just prince trying to prove he's happily married and overjoyed to be finished with his contractual obligations and all the music on emancipation was tied up until it found freedom on three discs. despite his intent, it ended up coming off as an ego trip on a forked road.

disc two was supposed to be the mayte/baby album, prince's expression of how in love he was with mayte and how glad he was to be having a baby with her, but it's some of the most uninspired work he's ever done. it's painful to sit through and i'm still recovering from the one time i did it. the most beautiful and most inspired song on disc two wasn't even written by prince and that's "soul sanctuary" which was penned by singer and former warner bros. labelmate, sandra st. victor. she scored a big hit "ghetto heaven" with her band, the family stand, in 1990.

another indicator of prince's lack of inspiration is in all of the mediocre remakes on emancipation. in "betcha by golly wow" he even says, "sometimes a man can't find words to express all the things he feels inside. but every just so often the words of another who's truly in love, seem to work out fine" what?! the man who wrote "private joy," "the beautiful ones" and "joy in repetition" is using someone else's words to express being in love? that's a cop-out.

then there's "eye can't make u love me," "la la la means eye love u" and "one of us" which are on disc one and three, respectively. while "eye can't make you love me" and "la la la means eye love u" are pretty forgettable, "one of us" is actually pretty good. but pretty good is just as bad as saying horrible when it comes to a musician of prince's caliber.

on the upside, emancipation has some great dance tracks like "courtin' time," "the human body," "face down," "style" and "sleep around." the mid-tempo grooves are pretty fantastic, too: "somebody's somebody," "white mansion," "damned if eye do" and "in this bed eye scream"--which shows more vulnerability and honesty in its nearly six minutes in length than the entire 60-minute disc two does, and it was inspired by ex-bandmates wendy & lisa and ex-girlfriend (and wendy's twin sister), susannah!

prince would've had a better chance of having a proclamation to make with emancipation if he would've just taken all the filler out of his speech first.

gold chaos

it took more than a year for the gold experience to come out. prince performed songs from the album's original incarnation on american t.v. while butting heads with warner bros. over its release. he premiered "interactive" (which was later released on 1997's crystal ball) and "endorphinmachine" on the vh1 honors program in 1994. he also performed "dolphin" on the late show that same year, as well as several other songs that didn't make the final cut, on soul train and the american music awards. "319" and "ripopgodazippa" (officially released on crystal ball) showed up in the showgirls movie.

"the most beautiful girl in the world"--prince's biggest commercial hit under the symbol moniker--was originally released on bellmark records, stax legend al bell's label. there were several versions of the song on the beautiful experience ep, another project that was released before it found a home on an actual album. it's almost as if warner bros. tried to cash in on the song, too, trying to make the rest of the gold experience as commercial as "the most beautiful girl in the world." the result was an album that was overproduced and undermarketed. the gold experience had undergone so many changes by the time warner bros. released it, it was too polished and not as grimy as its original form--not even as spectacularly dark as come.

there are some great moments on it, though: the poetry of "shy" and "dolphin;" michael bland's sick drum work and prince's thunderous guitar on "shhh" and "eye hate u;" everything about "p control" which is the best feminist anthem since...ever; and the great fishbone sample on "billy jack bitch." however, the lackluster political statement and misuse of nona gaye's vocals on "we march" and "gold," which was just a boring, half-hearted attempt on prince's part to outdo "purple rain," make the gold experience anticlimactic, especially after more than a year of waiting for it. the unnecessary segues are a pain, too, especially when trying to import songs like "eye hate u" and "billy jack bitch" to itunes.

one of the best things to emerge from the gold experience project is the "eye hate u" maxi-single, which has a great remix on which prince makes some humorous forrest gump references.

chaos and disorder is another example of a bunch of prince songs being put together for an album, but in this case it seems to work better because it's imperfect and some of prince's best work is often found in the imperfections. the songs are short and bittersweet and most importantly, rosie gaines is back! she saves the title track, as well as "i rock therefore i am," and keeps the back-to-back ballads, "into the light" and "i will" from being too melodramatic. the album would've been an ideal, 10-song prince album if "right the wrong" wasn't included. other than that, it's garage band prince on his continued FU crusade against the record industry status quo.

if nothing else, this album can be appreciated for three reasons: the joni mitchell-inspired "dinner with delores" (his songs with names in the titles are always winners, see "the ballad of dorothy parker" [sign 'o the times, 1987] "lolita" [3121, 2006] and "zannalee," also on chaos and disorder), the album-ender "had u" and "i like it there" which has one of the best lyrics on which prince sings, "do you know how much i love you? more than i love my hair!"

come forth, symbolically

1992's o(+> was a more straightforward version of diamonds and pearls because there was a definite inspiration for o(+>, which was the woman who would be prince's first wife: mayte. prince seemed to be dreaming of a woman to inspire him on diamonds and pearls and he found her for this album. prince's battle with falling in love with a very young girl is all through it, too. mayte was barely 18 when it was released and prince's frustration with the legalities of love and sex can be heard in songs like "i wanna melt with u" in which he blatantly fantasizes about being mayte's first sexual experience.

while prince's desire for mayte is blatant in the album, other parts of o(+> can be less clear. it apparently includes songs from a rock opera he was working on ("3 chains o' gold," "7," perhaps even "arrogance," and "the flow") and segues on which actress kirstie alley can be heard as a relentless reporter named vanessa bartholomew. it's also the beginning of prince's use of the n-word in his lyrics--a precursor to what i call his angry period. for it was months after o(+> that prince changed his name to that very symbol. maybe prince's renewed bravado was his attempt to keep up with hip-hop which was growing by leaps and bounds in popularity due in part to the success of renegade artists like public enemy and n.w.a. prince only hinted at such anger on the black album (1987) on which he also used the n-word.

my favorite song on o(+> changes all the time. for awhile, i resented "7" because it was the hit. but the more i listen to it, the more it blows me away. that song is a choir of princes. what he does vocally on the chorus alone sounds like 100 voices, especially the last time the chorus is sung. it's a refrain of sorts: he sings the chorus twice before he gets to the first verse. both times, the lead vocal is on top--the same voice he uses for the first verse! sure it's repetitious, but prince manipulates it in such a way that makes you hear it differently each time, giving various cues before the chorus starts ("we will watch them fall," "i will watch them fall," "sing it while we watch them fall..."). "7" also displays the influence mayte's bellydancing had on the instrumentation. the middle eastern sounds dispersed throughout have a fuller effect on "7" than they did on 1985's "around the world in a day" maybe because the influence on "7" is directly related to prince's relationship with mayte and "around the world in a day" was more of a contribution from the musicians prince was working with at the time.

come is the album i picture prince recording with his shirt off--nappy chest hair glistening with sweat, while holding his crotch in his right hand and giving the finger with his left. it was released in 1994, a year after prince's name change. in his ongoing battle with warner bros., the album is only given a prince credit with his birth year (1958) and "death" year (1993) included on the cover. it's my favorite of his '90s work and also the first one since 1988's lovesexy i could listen to straight through. it's focused and concise (less than 50 minutes long) and one of my favorite things about it is that about one-fourth of the album is one song, the title track, "come."

"come" is an orgasmic 11-minute jazz suite. two minutes of the song display just how nasty prince used to be. i mean, the oral sex noises he makes leave you wondering if he was simulating or actually doing the real thing with a microphone nearby. that's why the song "orgasm" is unnecessary. it's merely a rusty bookend for "come." the only thing enjoyable about "orgasm" is the sample of prince's guitar solo from 1981's "private joy" on the controversy album. it's another example of how prince started sampling himself during the '90s. we see it in other songs like "my name is prince" from o(+> on which he samples "i wanna be your lover" and "controversy." by 1994, he had already created a bulky body of work (he'd released 15 albums up to this point), so he could effortlessly borrow from old projects and infuse them into the new ones.

other great standout tracks on come are "space," "loose!" "papa" and "letitgo," which is actually three words: let it go but prince made it one so as not to interrupt the continuity of one-word song titles for the album. "space" and "letitgo" were officially released as singles which also contained some of his best remixes, particularly "universal love" for "space" and the sherm stick mix of "letitgo," which uses an incredible sample of "the ballad of dorothy parker" (sign o' the times, 1987). "letitgo" is one of prince's most honest first-person narratives, containing lyrics like "all my life this heart's been under lock and key/my curtains were drawn, there wasn't nobody home...better off dead if i couldn't be alone."

he does some great screaming and guitar playing on "loose!" and "papa." both songs are like a shaken soda can: they explode when opened, then the explosion ends abruptly. "loose!" is a rave/frantically-dance-around-your-house-in-your-underwear chest-thumper, while "papa" is a desolate tale of child abuse that may be autobiographical.

graffiti pearls

unfortunate distractions often influence how people listen to prince's music. in graffiti bridge's case, the poorly-written and dimly-lit movie took people's focus away from the great songs prince contributed to the album/soundtrack.

the two best songs are "the question of u" and "joy in repetition." prince did all the voices and instruments on both--the former being one of the sexiest songs he's ever written. the bass and drums mimic the sound of thunderous pelvic thrusts against wet pavement, while his vocals and guitar solos weep over the track. prince does all the verses (all in the form of questions) back-to-back for "the question of u." the bridge and one-line chorus meld, only taking up about a minute of the song. he focuses on the instruments for the remaining 2:40, using his voice as an accent until the song fades.

the opening of "joy in repetition" brilliantly samples the dialogue at the end of "eye no" from prince's lovesexy (1988) album. the song hypnotically describes a lonely soul falling in love with a poet whose poem only has two words: "love me." this meeting of two love-starved people happens against a backdrop of the coldness of the club scene and the other lonely souls who gather within it. "joy in repetition" is another beautiful poem from prince, written with a similar clarity we see in his later songs like "strollin'," "shy," "eye love u but eye don't trust u anymore" and "reflection."

the rest of graffiti bridge is made up of work prince did with other artists: george clinton, tevin campbell, the time and mavis staples. his best collaborations are with clinton ("we can funk"), campbell ("round and round") and staples ("melody cool"). the songs he did with the time sound like throwaways from the band's reunion album of sorts, pandemonium.

prince abandoned poetry for popularity on diamonds and pearls. it was his most commercially successful album during the 90's, due in part to the fact that most of its songs are single-ready.

although "cream" was the popular song on the album, "willing and able" is the best one. prince mixes gospel and blues in it, allowing his whole band to contribute to his vision: rosie gaines and the steeles on background vocals, levi seacer, jr. on rhythm guitar, sonny thompson on bass, tommy barbarella on organ and michael b. on drums. eric leeds' flute work on "gett off" (and the flutestramental version on the maxi-single) is the icing on that funky cake of a song.

vocally, prince does some stellar work on diamonds and pearls. this is particularly evident in how he utilizes his tenor and baritone on the song "diamonds and pearls" and his falsetto on the verses for "strollin'" and baritone for the same song's harmonies. rosie gaines' golden throat is the perfect compliment to prince's music. obviously, prince thought so, too since she's the featured vocalist on diamonds and pearls. she was even a better rapper than the featured rapper for the album, tony m.

diamonds and pearls' greatest perk was all the maxi-singles and videos prince released in conjunction with the album. the "gett off " maxi-single and maxi-video, the diamonds and pearls video collection and the maxi-single for "cream" were great ways for people who couldn't see him in concert to get their prince fix. he did some really neat things on those side projects, too, including the hilarious crank phone call segues on the "cream" maxi-single. "violet the organ grinder" on the "gett off" maxi-single and video is another great display of prince's humor.

a few missteps on diamonds and pearls keep it from being as tight of an album as it could've been. "walk don't walk" should've only been a b-side for "cream," perhaps as "live 4 love" should've been for "money don't matter 2 nite." "jughead" and "push" either should've been one song or dropped from the album completely, while "insatiable" could've been at least 1:30 shorter.

prince & the 1990's

june will be prince music month on DPresents.

in anticipation of his forthcoming album, planet earth and in honor of his 49th birthday (june 7), i will examine some of his most underappreciated work during the decade his music was most ignored: the '90's.

unfortunately prince's contractual issues and master recordings battle with warner bros. and subsequent name change to a symbol greatly distracted from the music he made during that time period.

he was arguably at his most prolific and turned out startlingly diverse songs and albums. from graffiti bridge (1990) to rave un2 the joy fantastic (1999), each album stood on its own, sounding nothing like the one that preceded it.

this series will start with a look at graffiti bridge and diamonds and pearls (1991), and end with new power soul (1998) and rave un2 the joy fantastic.