GETTING READY FOR ARMAGEDDON!
"NO, I DIDN'T LOSE A THING."
Prince shakes the '90s but can't find the '80s
By CHUCK CAMPBELL
Scripps Howard News Service
03-APR-06
"3121," Prince (Universal)
Time is getting away from Prince, but it hasn't left him completely behind.
He was a pop pioneer in the 1980s before he succumbed to his eccentric egotism and flamed out in the 1990s with bad music and off-putting weirdness.
Prince made a semi-heartening comeback in 2004 with "Musicology," a modest return to form, and his new "3121" is much the same _ playful and funky, but hampered by blanching innovation and quaint conservatism.
Although it opens with an underwhelming "we're gonna party!" title track and closes with a "Get on the Boat" that sounds like one long fade, much of "3121" invigorates. His rumbling bass and squealing falsetto on the muscle-massaging, powerful single "Black Sweat" is vintage, and the confidence with which Prince embraces the life-affirming swagger of "Love" is irresistible.
Plus for the softies he flaunts his flair for empathetic romanticism on the string-supported "Te Amo Corazon" and the lush "The Dance."
Yet Prince often seems like a photocopy of his old self, and he's running low on toner. On such generic cuts as "Incense and Candles" and "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" (featuring Tamar, his most bland protege to date), Prince sounds like he's imitating Justin Timberlake imitating Michael Jackson imitating Prince. Meanwhile, he repeatedly distances himself from the sexual electricity he once mastered, offering lyrics like, "You'll never make a cheater out of me" on the choppy "Lolita" and "I'm just trying to get you satisfied/I ain't talkin' about nothin' physical" on the silky "Satisfied." Even in the vivacious context of "Black Sweat," he dishes out, "Don't want to turn nobody on, 'less it's you."
The now-modest Prince, a 47-year-old converted Jehovah's Witness, more overtly espouses his morality and religion on "The Word," "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" and "Get on the Boat."
His turn might have been inspirational if he had come up with a fresh platform for his message. But as it is, Prince is just teasing us with old tricks.