Publication: Esquire [US]
Date: March 1997
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Title: "The Artist, Formerly Known"
Reviewed By: Mark Jacobson

The rumor stalked the e-zines: With his three-disc Emancipation, the Artist Formerly Known As Prince -- or , for those us with the unpronounceable symbol on our keyboards--would change his name back to Prince.

On Oprah, however, the Artist squashed the gossip. Beside his bride, Mayte, who contends was either his sister or himself in a previous life, he said, "I very much feel divorced from Prince."

Which is too bad, for does not compare to Prince, the Artist dominated the eighties music scene as Louis Armstrong did that of the twenties, as Charlie Parker did that of the forties. Eloquently exploiting his gender/race dichotomies with a horny sincerity that made him the legitimate successor to such crossover gods as Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix, the Artist was indisputably the Man. His ten greatest masterpieces, in order of greatness, are "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man," "When You Were Mine," "If I Was Your Girlfriend," "Little Red Corvette," "Dirty Mind," "Let's Go Crazy," "17 Days," "When Doves Cry," "The Cross" and "Erotic City"--but "1999," "Manic Monday," and "I Would Die 4 U" are not too shabby, either.

The slip into the curiosity that is seems inevitable. (Name his masterpieces of the nineties--"7"? "Insatiable"?) For Achilles, or Hank Williams, the short, hot, glamorous life led to an early grave. Prince, getting off light, simply became unnameable. Still, the fan discerns a pattern in the Artist's decline.

Should you recall the "plot" of Purple Rain, the minisize Minnesotan megalomaniac struggled with his obsession for control, eventually allowing Wendy and Lisa to do "their own" music. Acceptable in a low-tech kiddie band like the Revolution, this openmindedness blunted when he was tamed with the studio- oriented New Power Generation. His public spectacle aside, the Artist is better insular, off on his own, writing the songs, playing all the instruments (drum machine included). NPG, full of savvy chops, only muddied the darkening vision.

So it was with anticipation that the TAFKAP community awaited Emancipation, 's trumpeted deliverance from his $100 million bondage to the corporate pinheadness of Warner Bros., which sought to restrict the Artist's desire to release records every other month if he so wanted. In freedom, the pure, regenerated vision would pour forth, copiously. The thirty-six-cut result is kind of a downer. The plethora of cruddy, half-baked numbers is no big deal; with Prince, you accept the jack-off ditties as a necessary route to true manna (something WB couldn't understand). Here, though, there's no grail, no seminal spew. There's plenty of the okay--okay seventies-style falsetto singing, okay dance tracks; "In This Bed I Scream" is okay creepiness. Even the lovely "The Holy River" (his sex/salvation gospel is always a strong suit) seems more craft than inspiration. But in the end, Emancipation manifests a modicum of domestic bliss for . Good for him. How long could anyone be Prince?