Post by The Curmudgeon on Nov 16, 2007 1:10:20 GMT 2
Heartbreaking.
Here's a little history into the reason behind this introduction. Now, I've made it my goal in Amazon to create a Room 101, a place where only the very worst DVDs or CDs or whatever go. And you know, sometimes I get sick of ripping apart the latest reality show dud or boyband disaster, and I began looking through my own personal record collection for something that I own that's horrible, terrible and downright wrong.
So I almost skim past my Prince collection (I've got pretty much every album and single the guy's released) 'cos there's nothing bad in there.. wait a minute. Of course! I pulled the wretched record from the shelf and blew the six inches of dust from it.
1999: The New Master.
NEW Coke, The NEW adventures of ANYTHING always sucks, a NEW line up of a band is always vastly inferior.. in short, the "new" anything is never good. And Prince was unable to counter that statement.
I suppose you can't blame the guy. You write a hit in 1982 and suddenly its on the radio every time you turn the dial - and you're in a major dispute with the record company who now own it. So why not make an EP to both celebrate the success of the song that brought you to the dance and also to show you've still got it, that you don't have to ride on the coat tails of that song?
If those were the reasons behind the making of this, then its a damn shame that it not only makes you pine for the original song, but it also makes Prince SOUND like he doesn't have it, that whatever magic he had in 1982 is long gone. We all know that's not the case but, damn, this is bad. Not just "not very good", but absolutely AWFUL. Borderline unlistenable. And, unlike the original, horribly, horribly dated.
And you know, I actually think Prince knows it. He sounds bored, hell, he vanishes for most of this EP, leaving the pointless filler rap of Doug E to increase the run time. If this were the work of some tacky euro dance band cashing in on a famous song it would be understandable and unsurprisingly rubbish. The fact it's the original artist - the fact that it's THIS artist, is jaw-dropping and really quite depressing.
Thankfully, this dross has long been forgotten and Prince is now more popular and relevant than he has been in years. At least, this time in The Curmudgeon's Room 101, there's a happy ending.
