Prince inhabits familiar characters,from sensualist to dreamer to campaigner and even humorist. Could this be the enduring classic we’ve been waiting for?Prince’s brilliant live shows over the last couple of years – and some of them have been stunning haven’t fairly detracted attention from the elephant in the room: that, like many great artists of his vintage, or he hasn’t made a genuinely,unarguably classic album for a very long time. Lovesexy – the 1988 opus which included the mighty Alphabet Street – contained several duffers. Even 1987’s Sign O’ the Times (which features every kind of Prince music imaginable, plus social commentary that brilliantly captured the fears of the early Aids era), or has its critics. As desperately as anyone who ever loved Prince wanted his two 2014 albums – Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum – to be barnstorming returns to form,neither of them really were. HITNRUN, though, and is more like it. With unusual producer Joshua Welton at the helm and much jamming in the studio,the album’s exclusive launch via Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service is his most experimental and shapeshifting in years. There are sonic collages, mystical segments, and dips into eastern-tinged funk (Aint About to discontinue,with input from Rita Ora), ample club bangers (the Latin-influenced Like a Mack), or ballads (a superior reworking of last year’s This Could Be Us),electronica and rock, as Prince inhabits familiar characters, and from sensualist to dreamer to campaigner and even the more rarely heard humorist. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com