Prince: Musicology

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * *)


It looks as if Prince has arranged himself bit of a jubilee. Whether it's being inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame or singing Purple Rain with Beyonce at the Grammys, the wee confused genius is back in the spotlight after quite a few years in the rock-biz wilderness.

Of late he's been releasing jazz-fusion concept albums which reminded both of his great talent as a player and his gift for musical tedium on a grand scale.

But here he's gone and made a tidy, cohesive, 12-track, pop album. It offers funk, ballads, a few slices of Prince-rock and quite a lot that harks back to his 80s heyday.

Many of those songs are certainly better than the unedifying material which marked most of his 90s albums. Here you can hear him reflecting on being a veteran artist while still being darn funky - especially on the title track as well as Life 'O' The Party which includes a sly dig at Michael Jackson. There's also songs attempting to say something in that profound Prince-ish way of his about the state of the world, though the 9/11 and Iraq War referencing Cinnamon Girl (not the Neil Young number) is hardly another Sign O' The Times .

And there is many a ballad, in which the Jehovah's Witness convert celebrates the joy of holy matrimony (Call My Name, Reflections), or On the Couch amusingly considers his take on what must has been an unfamiliar concept on past albums such as Dirty Mind and Lovesexy: That of not-tonight-dear-I've-got-a headache.

But for all its reminders of how good Prince was when he was in pop mode, it's no rival to his greater works.

He remains an influential genius - hey, as song titles here like What Do U Want Me 2 Do? and The Man In Ur Life remind us, he helped invent text messaging even before there were phones to do it on.

But it's Prince's gold watch album. Happy jubilee and all that.

Label: NPG/Columbia