After spending the better part of a decade making music seemingly no one but he wanted to hear, Prince made an unexpected but entirely welcome return to pop music with 2004's spectacular Musicology. His recently-released 25th album, 3121, proves his return to form was no one-off. For reasons we may never know, Prince has decided to make a long-term return to the public consciousness, release (and produce, arrange, compos & per4m) the kind of music people want to hear from him, and best of all he is making it sound just as effortless as it did on his first classic album, 1980's Dirty Mind.
3121 is a continuation of his success with Musicology. It combines all his musical influences—smooth soul, hard funk, psychedelic pop, rock, Latin, dance and gospel—to create an album that is less immediately grabbing than Musicology but overall more satisfying. While nothing stands up to his best '80s songs like Musicology's title track and Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance\ did, nearly every song on this album is consistently satisfying, making 3121 hold up better as a whole than its predecessor.
Forget the Latin-tinged ""Te Amo Corazón,"" this album's lead single—""3121"" is the song Prince should be promoting to take American musical minds by storm the way he did 20 years ago. ""3121"" is a club anthem that moves slow but never lets go. Prince employs his know-it-all, urban demeanor for off-hand delivery of lines like ""This is where the purple party people b,"" and adds his ridiculously high-pitched alter-ego Camille for background vocals, some sly funk breakdowns and a circus-like bridge between verses. This is one of those classic Prince songs where his very vocal styling seems to be telling you, ""Listen, we're at a party. You can come if you want to. No one cares if you don't, though, because the VIP is already here.""
Does 3121 find Prince still being an ego-maniac? Perhaps, but with songs as delicious as the album's second single, the hard funk workout ""Black Sweat,"" who really cares? ""Black Sweat"" also features vocals from Prince's latest protégé, R&B singer Tamar, who duets with Prince later on ""Beautiful, Loved and Blessed."" Tamar, who will open for Prince on his upcoming tour behind 3121, manages to hold her own with the Purple Prince, but neither addition she makes to this album demonstrates any remarkable talent.
""Lolita"" and ""Love"" are the album's other two modern Prince classics, each demonstrating that although this album is a stylistic return to Prince's '80s output, he is still developing his aesthetic and voice in ways that will surprise fans. Musically, ""Lolita"" is gloriously—though safely—within the constraints of his synth dance-pop grooves from 1999. The song's lyrics, however, are a shocking departure from form.
""Lolita"" finds Prince telling a young, gorgeous dance-floor diva that she should probably go away, because she'll ""never make a cheater out of [him]."" Yes ladies, read those lyrics and weep: Prince is a married man. That's his story and he's sticking to it. He may still tell the appropriately named Lolita that ""If U were mine we'd bump, bump, bump ... like Frank and Ava / We'd paint the town,"" but that's as far as he'll go.
""Love"" is nothing radical lyrically, but suggests new musical territory for Prince. His late '80s/early '90s albums like Lovesexy and Diamonds and Pearls often tried to incorporate the sounds of the exploding hip-hop movement into his existing amalgam, but the results ranged from enjoyably awkward to just plain embarrassing. With ""Love,"" however, it seems Prince may have found a way to adjust to the hip-hop/electro club beats that knocked him off the vanguard of popular music. Instead of trying to imitate rap, Prince incorporates the sparse, minimalist club-boiling beats of hip-hop producers like Timbaland and The Neptunes (think ""Drop It Like It's Hot"" or ""Get Ur Freak On"") into his existing palette.
The result is one of the album's best songs, which promises that while Prince may not break down genre barriers anytime soon, he can still expand his sound without imitating and without compromising what his brilliance is all about.
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