Review Summary: Prince lets down his coiffed, straightened hair and goes for deep jams with a wild but relaxed vibe in this seriously overlooked very solid mid nineties release.
All I'd heard were his major singles, when i bought this album when it came out. I bought it because I thought I'd give a Prince album a try and it was the one out at the time. Also the cover looked kind of dark, which made me think it would be interesting given the sugary-ness of his hits. Well, it is different.
It was released during his record deal disputes and name changing episode. He was making news for that rather than music as this album was released--an album with an uncharacteristically low-key atmosphere. It just did not grab attention. Not from the master of mind blowing hyper-polished hip-pop funk soul extravaganzas.
Not that the Come album is not technically impressive in terms of instrumentation and production value--it is, as much as any of his releases. But the songs on the whole come from a more relaxed, less pop-conscious place. Its more of a chill-out album tonally than a dance album. It has hard jams--but they're darker and deeper here, even the psycho-spastic "Loose". It's also lyrically relaxed. Sometimes more personal. Sometimes just a little less coy and polished lyrically than we're used to with Prince. It's probably his dirtiest album. No innuendo here. Lets just say when it goes in this direction, it lets it's X rating hang out there for all to see, like, I don't know, a hooker too stoned to know her tits are hanging out, or something, whatever... Again, it's more a stoner than a dance album, you could say.
Well, with most artists, the kind of album I'm describing would probably sound self-indulgent and worth avoiding. But Prince's whole persona as an artist is so tightly wound and "artificial", so polished to perfection, that this "hair-down" album for me is a chance to hear this artist when he himself just chills out and kicks it. To me, it's an artist at the height of his talent, at his most relaxed and un-self conscious.
I never got this feeling from another Prince album. They all can be fun to listen to. But this is the one I like to come back to. Sometimes Prince's brilliance gets in his way. The simplicity of Come is refreshing. And all the brilliance is still present. Here it just sits way down deep in the pocket and jams in a perfect balance of freedom and control.
I'm not going to say its his best album, or guarantee you will love it, or say every song is a 10 (although it is a lean mean album at just ten songs, and two are more segway tracks than proper tracks). But maybe you'll have my experience and find it to be well worth the listen, to offer a welcome window into the talents of this often "closed" artist, and most of all to be an album that stands up solidly to multiple listens, especially when you want a more free spirited chill-out vibe on tap.
Yeah, 4.5 might be a little high, but I'm trying to balance things out here.
