For a glimpse at the struggle for Prince’s artistic soul, listen to “My Name Is Prince.” Reportedly a tune for which he had to battle mightily, he frontloads the song with throat-rending braggadocio: a creation myth. Then comes the threat of beatdown, but it’s strictly musical, followed by some standard all-that-glitters line and some good old eschatology. Then he just tosses it over to Tony M. It’s a bid for hardness undercut by his usual interests, a hip-house track that thinks it’s 2nd II None. Fortunately, it’s chased by “Sexy MF,” wherein Prince hews closer to what he knows: erections and infatuation and the French Riviera. The rhythm guitar carries a constant chime, the horns kill with a thousand cuts, and it has an all-time vocal hook. That’s his kind of cleverness.

After peeks at the Lord in judgment, Love Symbol (which I think is the consensus substitute title) works a more mystical cosmology, painting the kinds of divine imagery not seen since Judee Sill was walking the earth. There’s a benevolent angel in “7,” an evil angel resisted in “The Sacrifice Of Victor”; the frantic seduction song “The Continental” finds Carmen Electra asking our hero to “imagine you’re making angels, angels in the snow.” The promised land is found far beyond Paisley Park, and you gotta fight through a mess of plagues and dark souls to get there. Plus, there’s all the counting: multiple ticks to seven, a host of numbers from one to a hundred million. It’s led by the divine “7,” a swashbuckling, psychedelic journey loaded with close harmonies, swaddled in echo. It peaked at 7 on the Hot 100, which must have vexed and pleased Mr. Nelson in equal measure.

I haven’t mentioned the album’s conceit yet — a series of skits in which Kirstie Alley’s reporter tries to coax Prince out of his shell — and that’s because we have playlists now. Artists ought to go where their interests lay, but their own celebrity is the quickest way off the cliff. Musically, he cuts a new path: reggae! “Blue Light” codes as lovers rock, but it’s actually about blue balls, mostly expressed through Prince’s thudding, decidedly non-island stickwork. Michael B., on the other hand, nearly steals the show on “Love 2 The 9’s,” switching from delicate intricacy to leaning in on the funky sections. It’s not a coincidence that the NPG tracks are the best performances here. “The Morning Papers” has some towering passages, swells created by performers on their A game, capped by a squealing solo that, while mixed a little low, is a fine callback to the days of “Purple Rain.” And they keep “3 Chains O’ Gold” on the right side between epic and merely theatrical, turning a Steinmanesque exercise into something genuinely harrowing, feinting with a flute solo before loading up on a delicious twin-guitar attack and a choir(!).