Design By Humans
Published On: Wed, Oct 1st, 2014

Prince: Art Official Age

princePrince
Art Official Age
(Warner Bros.)

Buy it at Amazon!

Prince (yes, using his name and releasing records through Warner Brothers once again) is giving us two full albums this month. This one, Art Official Age,Ā is a solo funk weird powerhouse concept.

What strikes me here as much as the tight proto-funk ’80s snyth stuff, is how in-your-face Prince is with his lyrics. On ā€œART OFFICIAL CAGEā€ a drum looping, weird voice funk opener with wailing leads, Prince is telling us what its like to wake up now bemoaning ā€œHow come Iā€™m second class when I got here first?ā€ while the bass is poppinā€™ and sandpaper snap of ā€œCLOUDSā€ is pure sexy Prince waxing poetic on the power of a kiss on the neck Ā or rubbing your loverā€™s back and that these days our expressions donā€™t much matter if ā€œthey ainā€™t on the stage.ā€ Mr. Nelson is waking up in this tune as a female voice tells us heā€™s been in suspended animation for 45 years, with some trickling acoustic guitar before again we get the big expressive lead guitar as only Prince can play.

ā€œBreakdownā€ is a masterpiece, dramatic strings, big bass, falsetto vocal on this ballad of who Mr. Nelson used to be. ā€œTHE GOLD STANDARDā€ has a low synth voice and just moves, very much like the crunchy and loud ā€œFUNKNROLL.ā€ I was reminded of an old Prince big brash tune, “Housequake,” during both of those.

ā€œWAY BACK HOMEā€ might be the most confessional Prince tune ever, with padding-like percussion and bass burbs-led ā€œTIME.ā€

Ok, the concept might be slightly weak on what is for all intents and purposes like Prince of old, a true solo album from the Purple One where he plays and sings almost all of it. But Art Official Age is brilliant, funky and fun.

About the Author

Displaying 1 Comments
Have Your Say

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these html tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Videos

Prince: Art Official Age