Publication: The Jerusalem Post [US]
Date: August 16, 1994
Section: Arts
Page Number(s): 7
Length: 667 Words
Title: "Prince's Not-So-Comely Album"
Written By: Tirzah Agassi

HIGHLIGHT: NEW RELEASES

PRINCE, or Symbol as he now calls himself, has a new album out called Come (Hed Arzi), featuring orgasms as a central theme.

Subtle it isn't. In fact, when the lyrics get to graphic descriptions it goes beyond soft-core pornography.

The strange, little sexual Napoleon from Minneapolis has not completely lost his remarkable talent. These 10 songs were all produced, arranged, composed and performed by Prince and his extremely competent team before his name change on June 7, 1993.

I feel like an idiot commemorating that date in print. But it reflects the amount of hype surrounding the multimillionaire author of this masterpiece of "cool funk, hot soul, smoky jazz, and sizzling rock," to quote the PR package. The album is topped off by "provocative poetry. No borders, no rules. Can't let taboos stand in our way. A release of inhibitions, a swift kick in the ass 2 the politics of repression," as Prince states in the package.

Prince is still a slick and inventive musician, and his voice is as limber as ever. Many of the instrumentals are brilliant. But he is very weird, and the fact that he is being taken so seriously is rather scary. "Come," the first cut, has an obvious message, as does the last one: "Orgasm." The finale is supposed to sound like our favorite androgynous sex symbol satisfying his apparently female lover. The sound effects are arousing, but it doesn't really sound like a very deep orgasm. And Prince is so obviously hell bent on dominating both his "lover" and us that it's not much fun.

But these two songs do not make up the entire body of this work. The album's most talked-about song is "Papa," in which Prince "comes out" about having been an abused child. It contains the album's best line: "Don't abuse children, or else they turn out like me," and it ends with the message: "If you love somebody your life won't be in vain/and there's always a rainbow at the end of every rain." With its "smack, smack" chorus and its mix of genuine poetry and pathetic nursery rhyme, it is truly effective.

"Race," the staccato political number that follows, is also not bad. But "Dark" and "Solo," two confessionals about how lonely it as at the psychopathological top, are so mannered that they lose their effectiveness.

"Pheromone" is an S & M number with references to "tied hands," a pistol and masturbation. Prince, the voyeur in this number, is very turned on by this. "Loose" is for dancing, and the first single, "Letitgo," which has a very catchy hook and is a build-up for the "Orgasm" finale, has a chorus that's supposed to get you to a real and joyous place. It's not bad, but its joy sounds forced.

What can one say? Prince's megasuccess does not bode well for the future of Western civilization. It is somewhat alarming to hear concepts and slogans about political and psychological liberation, which once had at least a smidgeon of integrity, hijacked by big business.

But then again perhaps the mass psyche is in such bad shape that it takes a somewhat perverse mega-vehicle to get across the album's one truly worthy message about child abuse.