Wiki
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Release Date
30 September 2014
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Length
12 tracks
If Art Official Age is a juicy reaffirmation of Prince pop basics, Plectrumelectrum, his collaborative album with 3rdEyeGirl, represents a more intriguing departure, even if it too reaches back into the past, making a bold connection with a time when Jimi Hendrix was the last great black American rock star, before funk really left rock 'n' roll to the white man.
There is more than a whiff of Hendrix about the bravura title-track instrumental, a mesh of thick twin guitar hooks and free flying improvised solos over a rolling groove that keeps shifting beneath the heavy rock surface. It is, really, this underlying funkiness that makes Prince’s rock so alive, while the act of performing with other players of skill and character (guitarist Donna Grantis, bassist Ida Nielsen and drummer Hannah Ford Welton) adds a meaty, organic character to the whole album.
As rockers go, Wow is audacious and brilliant, fixurlifeup is a rip-roaring stomp and Anotherlove absolutely fantastic, with a soul-powered vocal and a wild air guitar outro.
It is not particularly an album for metal heads, Prince being too multi-faceted to get bogged down in a single genre. He gives fellow band members lead vocal duties on sassy, deliciously lightweight girl-band pop rock tracks like the hip-hop inflected Boytrouble, lovers rock-flavoured Stopthistrain and sensuous groover Tictactoe.
Perhaps because he can’t just rely on elastic grooves to hypnotise listeners, the rock format appears to have concentrated him on songwriting basics. Whitecaps is a highlight, evincing a California dreaminess worthy of classic Fleetwood Mac. Both albums include the track Funknroll, his solo delivery sleek and spacious, the band version a wilder, looser delight.
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At 56 years old, there is a temptation to proclaim that Prince is emphatically back, although I am not sure if he ever really went away. He may not have had a big hit single since the early Nineties but these represent his 33rd and 34th albums (some of which have been double, triple and quadruple sets).
It would be ridiculous to accuse a genuinely great artist of excessive creativity but somewhere along the line he lost pop penetration, swamping listeners with so much music only a dedicated aficionado could hope to keep up. What elevates and unites these two offerings is a sense of commercial purpose and attack, an attempt to refocus the Prince brand.
Best of all, Prince sounds like he’s having a lot of fun, and fans will too.
~ By Neil McCormick6:39PM BST 26 Sep 2014
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