The excellent Prince who has never suffered from lack of inspiration, a creator of the greatest pop album Purple Rain has not even once made his fans wait for the next album for more than a year. Yet what he does this year is definitely going to exceed all expectations. Instead of a scheduled one album this laborious artist gives us a whole trilogy releasing all of its parts at the same time. The first one is LotusFlow3r, a pop collection consisting of great luscious melodies with some funk elements. The second one, MplSound is a faultless record meant directly for a joyful and hot party. Finally number three is the work of his new protégée Bria Valente called Elixir. The album MplSound is one of those that are usually called ‘a true return to form’. Prince was especially good at making danceable songs in the mid 1990s and he seems to remember his own forgotten recipe of a successful danceable piece on the new album. Therefore you should not be surprised when you hear the hits from this very creation at most night clubs this summer.
Although Prince is no more that popular as he was a decade or so ago he still manages to keep up with the times and even go ahead of them. The lyrics of the danceable songs on MplSound are simple and at times even primitive as in the greatest part of modern pop compositions and as for the R&B ballads some real soul dramas unfold in them which is also quite characteristic of today’s music of the kind. The album opens with a very contagious song There'll Never B) Another Like Me simply telling of how Prince spends his day and what he thinks about; it is quite a long time that the cult of his own persona started to show itself in him and now it has reached its apogee. Another ready club hit Chocolate Box is naturally devoted to women and here Prince’s sensuality knows no limits whereas Dance 4 Me presents him in the role of a guileful tempter. The ballads for slow dancing U're Gonna C Me and Here are refined with a vivid beat and soft falsetto vocals that the female part of mankind is so fond of when it comes about Prince. The boldest song on the album is Valentina. Prince addresses Salma Hayek’s daughter Valentina on it telling what a hot thing the whole world thinks the actress is and to sound even more persuasive he adds a very sultry guitar solo. Another ballad Better With Time pleases with an interesting production and the album’s unquestionable leader is a danceable track Ol' Skool Company, on which Prince’s vocals are a bit sped up sounding toy-like and the audio effects here combine wonderfully with his trademark guitar hooks. The album closes with No More Candy 4 U telling that it is not always good to be successful reminding us that Prince can be a serious thinker even though extremely seldom.
Prince has started the promotion of his new trilogy yet at the end of the last year launching a web site on which the fans could watch videos, listen to the new songs and buy them. This is already not the first time that the artist finds new unusual ways to attract the audience’s attention to his creations and this time he has demonstrated his brilliant knowledge of how to make it in the easiest and fastest way. He has also promoted two of the three new albums he performs himself, i.e. LotusFlow3r and MplSound, singing at closed live shows. As for the third record Elixir the things are quite different here. This is a debut work of the performer Bria Valente and the critics have already evaluated it as it deserves praising also Prince’s guitar playing and the work of producer Morris Hayes so it is quite probable that she is going to be a success soon. On the whole it is still hard to tell whether this never desponding performer can get his former popularity back but one can be sure that he has done his best to do it this time around.
20ten
LotusFlow3r
Planet Earth
3121
Science & Faith 2010
Applying the method tested on the debut record, the Irish band The Script present their second long player, Science & Faith, were everything is good and… the same as two years ago
