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.