Publication: Houston Chronicle [US]
Date: December 1, 1996
Section:
Page Number(s):
Length:
Title: "Formerly Prince, still prolific: Bulky 'Emancipation' Includes Artist Best Work This Decade"
Reviewed By: Rick Mitchell

There are two ways to look at TAFKAP's new three-disc release. You could be buying three pretty good albums for the price of two, which is a baragain. or you could be getting one great album - also for the price of two - which is not such a bargain.

Either way Emancipation represents Formerly's best work since 1987's Sign O' the Times when he still was known as Prince. His subsequent albums have degenerated into scattered moments of brilliance buried among the aural scriblings of an artist who is either too arrogant or lazy to pick up a red pencil and edit his own material.

TAFKAP's disinclination to limit his output is what led to his falling out with his former label, Warner Bros. The label, logically enough, wanted him to hold back his best stuff and put out representative, commercially viable albums every year or two.

The artist wanted the label to release what he gave them, when he gave it to them. He also wanted their continued support for his vanity label, Paisley Park, despite mounting financial losses.

That dispute is what led Prince to change his name to a hieroglyphic symbol and to disown his previous work. As the legal argument wore on, he took to walking around with the word "slave" painted on his cheek and the symbol carved into his scalp.

Now that he's been "emancipated" with a new label called NPG and a new distribution deal with EMI, Symbol's Man creative juices seem to be flowing more freely than ever. Emancipation consists of three 60-minute albums, each containing a dozen tracks. Countin his final release on Warner Bros. the rock-oriented Chaos and Disorder, and his soundtrack for Spike Lee's joint Girl 6, TAFKAP now has released the equivalent of five albums this year.

On the set's first track, the immodestly titled Jam of the Year, the artist makes his intentions clear; "Been chillin' in the cut\Now I'm coming 2 get mine. ..." With it's slammin party groove, wailing sax and soulful backup vocals, the jam justifies its title. With other titles like Get Yo Groove On and We Gets Up, Disc 1 focues on the sort of funky dance music some fans have been waiting for Formerly to get back to since 1999.

He offers a sweet reprise of the Stylistic's soul ballad Betcha By Golly Wow, on which he sings all the harmony parts, and also covers Bonnie Raitt's heart wrencing epic I Can't Make You Love Me. (Naturally, he can's resist turning it into a seduction plea.).

The rap on his Tiny Highness has been that he's a wizard at synthesizing musical styles without much lyrical substance to back it up. Both his never-ending sexual come-ons and his occasional attempts at spiritual testimony tend to sound contrived to more mature listeners.

Disc 2, a portrait of the artist as a man in love for the first time, comes closer to reconciling this apparent contradiction than TAFKAP ever has before. The disc's first track Sex in the Summer, is a joyful paeon to young lust. But midway through the program when the nasty Joint 2 Joint segues into the reverant The Holy River, lust is miraculously reborn as true love. The artist sounds as surprised by this transformation as every one else. So that when he screams "How did I ever come this far without U baby?" in the song Saviour for once, you believe him.

Disc 3 offers Formerly an opportunity to vent at his previous record label while moving from Slave to Emancipation. In Face Down, he dances on the imagined graves of his enemies, while the more politically minded Da Da Da. feature an angry rap by Scrap D. Somewhat incongruously mixed in here is another Stylistics cover La,La,La Means I Love U, and a mindless techno-dance track called the Human Body. Far more striking is the version of Joan Osborne's One of Us featuring an impassioned vocal and sizzling guitar.

Taken as a whole, Emancipation is impressive for its sheer bulk; not since the Beatles has pop music witnessed a more prolific songwriter and studio creator.

Still its tempting to think how this album could have sounded had TAFKAP summoned the resolve to whittle it to one stunning 12-track disc. Now that really would have been the jam of the year, not to mention the crowning acheivement of an idiosyncratic career that has yet to fulfill its promise. Even geniuses need an editor sometimes

*** out of ****