Publication: Dallas Morning Star [US]
Date: November 22, 1996
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Title: "TAFKAP Throws A Great Party: But ‘Emancipation’ Celebration Is Too Long"
Reviewed By: Thor Christensen

Emancipation
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince
New Power Generation, 180 minutes

When the Artist Formerly Known as Prince painted the word "slave" on his cheek, he did it to mock his record label, Warner Bros. But Symbolman could also have been referring to himself.

As he reminds us on his new 36-song triple-album Emancipation, The Purple One is also a slave to his own hyperactive muse.

The singer's prolific work habits were what caused his rift with Warner Bros.: The company simply refused to release his albums as fast as he cranked them out.

Now finally free of his contract with Warner, TAFKAP celebrates with a megaparty that simply goes on too long. With a little trimming, Emancipation could have been just as powerful as his two previous double-albums: 1987's Sign 'O' the Times and 1982's 1999.

The collection - which sells for $25 on CD - not only boasts some of the best songs of his career, but also some of his weakest. Dreaming About U, with its hokey lyrics and bell-like noises, sounds like a parody of Babyface. Another cloying ballad, Curious Child, practically floats away in syrup, while his clumsy attempt at techno, The Human Body, makes 1989's Batdance seem like a dance masterpiece in retrospect.

But Emancipation is also chock-full of the same sort of propulsive funk-pop he debuted in the early '80s. The jazzy set-opening Jam of the Year, a duet with singer Rosie Gaines, is one of the most soulful things he has ever done, while the lighter Get Yo Groove On is Raspberry Beret crossed with Kool and the Gang's Celebration.

Singing falsetto more often - and more comfortably - than in the past, he emerges as a first-rate R&B crooner on stirring remakes of the Delfonics' La, La, La Means I Love You and the Bonnie Raitt hit I Can't Make You Love Me. (He's less successful on the set's other two remakes: a bombastic take on the Stylistics' 1972 classic Betcha By Golly Wow and a shrill, albeit rockin', rendering of the Joan Osborne hit One of Us.)

Most of the Glyph's past songs centered on a thematic trilogy of sex, love and God. But on Emancipation, he adds a new lyrical twist - fatherhood. Coming from the guy who inspired Tipper Gore to form the Parents Music Resource Center (after she heard his R-rated Darling Nikki), he sounds surprisingly at home in the paternal mode of Let's Have a Baby and Friend, Lover, Mother/Wife.

But the proud papa definitely hasn't gone soft. Brash hip-hop tunes such as Face Down could have fit on The Black Album, and the singer kicks out hard-edged jams throughout the three CDs (these improvised moments round out each 12-song disc to exactly one hour). The album might not be the former Prince Rogers Nelson's equivalent of Citizen Kane, as he recently boasted to an interviewer. But if you skip over the filler, Emancipation is quite a proclamation.