Publication: Musician [US]
Date: March 1997
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Title: Musician Review
Reviewed By: Chip Stern

The Artist
Emancipation (NPG/EMI)

Of all the pop stars out there, I can’t think of anyone who has the talent, musical overview and ambition of Prince Rogers Nelson, by that or any other name. At least, thats the way I used to feel. For me, 1987’s LOVESEXY and its accompanying tour were watersheds of modern R&B and rock and I saw in Prince a pop Ellington for the 90s, one whose reach never exceeded his grasp. The music seemed to just pour out of him and it was everything he could do to get it down. But, alas, our hero ran afoul of his old record company when his desire to release this deluge ran contrary to er, sound business practices and for several years his career seemed stalled as he sought to free himself from a business marriage that wasn¹t working: much of his subsequent output ranged from the inspired to the indulgent to the indifferent.

But having dissolved his label marriage and entered into a real one, He Who Haveth No Name has apparently re-emerged, re-energized. Emancipation is Prince’s White Album, 3 CDs worth of fresh songs and arrangements that proceed with such joy and rage, sensuality and devotion, it’s as if he’d never left us. I won’t even pretend to have digested all the narrative and musical details in this elaborate trilogy-there’s simply too much music, too many self-referential asides-but Prince¹s resounding production values and commanding technique invite the listener to jump in anywhere and any number of times without tiring of the game.

For me, each of the 3 CDs sustains its own sense of mood and purpose. Roughly speaking, The Artist engages in an operatic depiction of the conflict (or rather, the confluence) between his spiritual quest and his sensual longings and a streetwise expression of indignation as he strives to project and protect his vision of artistic growth, personal freedom and family values. Yeah, family values, because while aka Prince still enjoys dressing up, playing at being an adolescent as it were, it seems clear in jettisoning his old name (again) "the artist formerly known as..." seems determined to transcend his old image as well-even as he reveals in it. Thus on disc 2 he proceeds from a typically elaborate, sexed up funk arrangement of "Joint 2 Joint" (in which he goes through more intricate harmonic and rhythmic modulations in one song than your garden variety R&B band would in a lifetime), through deceptively bucolic depictions of death, deliverance and re-dedication of purpose on "Holy River" (with its echoes of Dylan, a rocking release and the novel assertion that "relationships based on the physical are over and done..if only one") to a remarkably tender keyboard bass inflected ballad ("Let’s Have A Baby") featuring his keening feline vocals to the personal revelations of "Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife." Rarely has the Glyphed One ever peeked out from behind the convenient ambiguities of his character to reveal such deeply felt emotion.

There are also a wealth of giddy instrumental details worth savoring-nods to the guitar styles of B. B. King and Wes Montgomery, even intimations of Frank Zappa’s rhythmic ensemble flourishes-along with a few radio-friendly evocations of the power ballad, dancing jams, sly soul covers and pop standards, some truly nasty rhythmatic exorcisms of pent up rage and a hip-hopping comment on the vanities of vanity ("Style"). From the tongue-in-cheek big band jazz of "Courtin’ Time" to the futuristic techno of "New World" and "Human Body", this Artist has put his stamp on an amazing range of musical styles. Given the newfound freedom that rings through every note of Emancipation, it’s clear that for him there’s no turning back-he’s already way past 1999.