Post by The Curmudgeon on Jul 19, 2009 1:28:49 GMT 2
The Curmudgeon's first ever review..
And hey, it had to be something special, didn't it?
Introductions first, then. I've made it a.. let's call it "mission" for now, of mine to review the very worst things that Amazon has to offer. Terrible singles, terrible albums, terrible movies - if it sucks, if it insults intelligence and basically doesn't deserve to exist, you can bet your life The Curmudgeon will have rated and slated it on that site, facing the wrath of a million "OMG how cn U say dat its da bst album eva ure just jeluss lol" bottom feeding cretins that have pretty much ruined Amazon.
Anyway, I decided when I first joined Lunch that I wasn't going to go down that road here. For one, Lunch seems to be home to more evolved members of society (for now) and two - well, been there, still doing that elsewhere. I thought it'd be nice, then, to have Lunch as a platform to show what I'm reading/watching/listening and basically digging at the moment. Think of this as The Curmudgeon's Twitter but, you know, with an actual point to it.
So, I had to have something that actually meant something to me to open up proceedings, and while I follow a great number of bands and artists, buying every album etc - Prince has always, ALWAYS had top priority with me. In a short, gushing, knowingly fan-boyish statement - he's my absolute hero and encapsulates pretty much everything I've ever loved about music.
In spookily timed fashion then, Prince's 3 CD set "Lotus Flow3r" is available, but let's get something out of the way first of all - it is, actually, a 2 CD set of new Prince music, the third disc is a pretty grim album by Prince's (smoking hot) new protege Bria Valente, written and produced by the man himself, and while Prince may be able to enjoy her music (probably being ball-deep at the time), its a tepid collection of mid-tempo R&B joints that will test the patience of the most hardened Prince fan and have little to no interest for anyone else. So let's just pretend it's not there, hmm?
One of the joys of being a Prince fan is the genuine uncertainty of what you're going to get. He's tried his hand at pretty much every musical genre, so its impossible to know just quite what the next track will sound like, and the first disc, Lotus Flow3r, is a suitably mixed bag of styles, with a slithery, seductive cover of "Crimson & Clover" (with the chorus from "Wild Thing" thrown in for good measure), the tight, energetic rock stomp of "Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful" where Prince unleashes the ghost of James Brown with some fun results. Or how about the none more Hendrix inspired guitar work of "Dreamer", a hard rocking stormer attacking racism? All good, Bat-fans.. but the best is yet to come.
That arrives on the 3rd disc, MPLSoUND (why does Prince give everyone a headache when it comes to writing his album titles?), a slim volume by Prince's standards (only 9 tracks) but one that packs more inventiveness, passion, style, fun and funk than anything else you'll hear this year. Swoon to the seductive make-out session "Better With Time" (an ode to his female co-star of "Under the Cherry Moon".. well, he's certainly not talking about the movie itself), or just you try not dancing to "Chocolate Box", that's as fresh, relevant and "now" as anything from lesser beings like the Black Eyed Peas. Most interesting is the 80s fizz of "No More Candy 4 U", a damning middle finger at today's music scene, from fake rock stars to reality show morons, its in the same vein as "Ronnie Talk 2 Russia" from his Controversy album, and shows Prince still with his finger on the pulse and still effortlessly ahead of the game.
A strong Prince album is something to be celebrated - the fact two come along at once really is something special. Chocolate Box and 4ever aside, there's no real stand out obvious hit singles, but I doubt Prince is worried about that anymore, nor should he be. In an age where solo artists are either Simon Cowell spawned jokes or one trick dullards like Ne-yo (Justin Timberlake being the notable exception), the fact Prince is still making records of this quality, still pushing the envelope of not only the music we listen to but how we actually listen to it, is something we all should treasure.
And that, my friends, is a slice of Curmudgeon history - my very first review. Stick around for the rest, won't you?
