And then, my droogies, our hero walked back through the gates of the Evil Warner Bros., the label that he had been fighting with for more than fifteen years.1 To mark this reunion, he released two records on the same day. Even though neither approaches his artistic peaks, or the really good level of 3121, they show signs of engagement and energy, and have at least a few songs I’d consider mixtape worthy.
Plectrumelectrum featured a new backing band, 3rdeyegirl. As you may have guessed, it was three woman, and they all play exceptionally well. Don’t get too attached, though! This is the only record he made with them, and they will soon be disappeared. It’s too bad, because there’s more life in the opening track, “Wow,” than all the two Target albums combined and squared and scattered and smothered. The album opens with solid 16ths on the snare leading to a quick kick-snare ka-thunk, opening the doors for loud guitar over a cymbal-heavy backbeat. When Prince starts singing, he seems to be acknowledging some past disappointments, while promising things are about to get better:
Hello. How are you?/You’re looking so fine/No, it’s true/
Remember the time we first met?
You think that was good? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet2
I mean, the song’s not brilliant, but the groove is brick solid, the band is dynamic and in control, and I always welcome the return of Guitar Prince. The rest of the album, alas, is much more mediocre. Part of this is the result of weak songs, and part of this is the result of Prince’s attempt to make this a band album, sharing some of the lead vocal turns. No band with Prince in it should be a democracy, though. “Whitecaps” has a decent lead vocal by the drummer, a soulful vibe, and catchy chorus—but I still wish he had sung it.
One of the strongest songs is actually a cover. I’d never heard of Alice Smith, but “Another Love” sounds like classic mid-period Prince, and the band is once again on point, rising and falling in volume on a dime. In fact, even on the weaker songs, like the instrumental title track, and the trying-too-hard closer “Funknroll,” the band is easily the most energetic he’s had in years. The live clips sound great, also, and leave no doubt that Guitar Prince is once again holding court. I wish I’d had a chance to see them in performance, because I suspect they were an impressive wall of sound.
Art Official Age, released on the same day, throws back to the Prince as one-man-band, complete with a little narration to to get across the concept: Prince has been asleep for 45 years, and is just being woken up in a new world, a world where there are no more first-person pronouns.3 This one sounded better than I remembered, and also seems to be the one more critically favored at the time. While it is true that there are more good songs here, I miss the band, and wish that they’d been given a chance to play some of these tracks instead of the weaker stuff from Plectrum.
The record is also best with too many super-electronic voice treatments that just sound, well, dated. Opener “Art Official Cage,” for example, has a decent melody, and I always like to hear Prince over that super funky rhythm guitar, but the bits of rap, and computerized vocals, keep me from putting this one on a playlist.
“Clouds,” the second track, is much more stronger, combining a strong melody with those punchy little guitar licks the man could probably play before he even had his morning coffee, and “Breakdown” is a solid entry in the Prince “Slow Jam With Falsetto” category.4 As soon as the next track begins, though, one has to cringe—it’s time for another late period “Party Jam,” and those just haven’t aged as well. The other highlights are “U Know,” which is raised several notches by a cool piano melody floating in the background,, and“Breakfast Can Wait,” a fine example of a Prince “Slinky Jam.” I mean, how can you resist: “This here early mornin’/I need somethin’ else on my plate/I think I want another bite of you, babe.”5 Once again, he spends too much time playing overly affected vocal effects, but the song is strong enough to survive.
And then the whole thing runs out of steam. Two tracks spend time trying to resolve the “plot” of the album, and “Funknroll” is, for some inexplicable reason, included again. I guess he liked it a lot more than I do? In his later period, Prince was funkiest, and most successful, when he dialed the tempos down a little bit, and let the grooves breathe more.
The two records could have been smooshed into one much stronger album, but Prince’s determination to write and release as much as possible was both his greatest asset and his greatest weakness, at least in terms of shaping cohesive and consistent albums. And who knew, after these hints that perhaps there was a creative rebound coming, that he only had time to finish two more?
1 A quick summary of all the drama, for those who may have forgotten: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27081344#:~:text=Pop%20star%20Prince%20has%20a,stage%20name%20to%20a%20symbol.
2 Rest of the lyrics here: https://genius.com/Prince-and-3rdeyegirl-wow-lyrics. That’s also where I learned the song had been recorded, with a different title, by one of Prince’s proteges, and you can see that here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HsYSB0OpLg
3 Even the most loyal Prince fans have to concede that plot has never been his strong suit. And I do like Robert Christgau’s line about “our greatest composer-performer of romantic nu-funk erotica [waking] up 40 years later wishing he was Janelle Monáe”.
4 I mean, we can’t all be “Do Me, Baby.”
5 OK, maybe you can, but I’m a sucker for Prince when he’s not afraid to not be too serious: https://genius.com/Prince-breakfast-can-wait-lyrics
