RSSPlayboy Music
Maybe Prince called his new albumLovesexy (Paisley Park)to make it sound hotter thanThe Black Album, announced lastDecember as his X-rated Xmas gift to the world and then withheldor suppressed for reasons some think unclear. Well, it ain't. Iknow because I own a bootleg ofThe Black Album, and unlessWarners quashes a flourishing black market, you can too. Seduction-as-subtletytheorists might argue thatLovesexy is sexier, but for damnsure it never gets on it likeLe Grind, which establishesThe Black Album's fuck-funk from beat one. And for damn-me-to-hellsure it ain't hotter.
Both records trade a powerful P-Funk ambience, long on whompingensemble grooves and wild-ass asides, for the strong songs and relatedpersona-play of last year'sSign "O" the Times, and neithercomes close to topping that tour de force. The difference is thatLovesexy then trades a whole-hearted commitment to the funkfor dollops of message. The official album is the thoroughest explicationto date of Prince's basic belief that sex equals God equals love,and as such it's as confused as you might expect. Not in an especiallydangerous or offensive way, though I wish some musical antidrugpropagandist would create a setting for the slogan "Just say letme think about it." But when Prince reports that there's a heavenand a hell, he doesn't mean here on earth. There's only so far thesecular humanists in his audience can go with that "metaphor."
What makesLovesexy go anyway is the joke-mechanical angularityof the music--good to dance to and good to reflect on, like allprime Prince. But musically,The Black Album is altogetherdeeper, heavier, and more unrelenting. It's also the most unmistakablebid for the black youth audience Prince has made all decade. That'swhy it wasn't released, I guarantee you. And this being funk, it'salso why it has more to give. Consume creatively--you'll be gladyou did.
Playboy, Sept. 1988
 | Aug. 1988 | Oct. 1988 |  |