Lotusflow3r/MPLSound (2009)

Lotusflow3r/MPLSound (2009)

It may be a cheat to talk about these records together – Lotusflow3r features a gaggle of guests, while a Q-Tip appearance is the only non-Prince element on MPLSound – but screw it, they were released on the same day, as part of a three-disc set that included protege Brea Valente’s Elixer. The distribution model this time was a digital release on a Prince-owned site, followed by a exclusive priced-to-move CD deal with Target that got him to #2 on the Billboard 200. The care devoted to the rollout doesn’t extend to the content, much of which was pieced together over the previous four years. (“U’re Gonna C Me” was released as an MP3 in a previous form in 2001. Its drums date to ’84.) The referents are even older: there’s a cover of “Crimson and Clover” spliced with “Wild Thing,” a song titled “Wall of Berlin” – a precious phrase already deployed on 3121 – and yet another better-days jam. That jam would be “Ol’ Skool Company,” delivered through his whiny-kid processing. I don’t know what’s more bizarre: his assertion that once upon a time, “there wasn’t no shorties in sight,” or his belief that the radio wasn’t always controlled by The Man. A half-hearted jab at TARP sits next a half-complete list of his drummers, while a 57th-generation DJ Mustard synth cycle lolls in the background.

Listening to Prince’s last 15 years of output can remind one of Southern Soul – the post-’70s genre that caters to an older audience with the winking familiar. Southern Soul isn’t about returns to form, or reliving the glories of Hi or Stax. It’s about the now: recorded with liberal synthesized instrumentation, playing to the shared experiences of its audience. As such, it’s utterly charming, and deserved to be appreciated on its own merits. In that sense, tracks like the cod-Italian guitar instrumental “77 Beverly Park” and the yearning, piano-led pop-rocker “4ever” offer pleasure, if they can be divorced from the history of their creator. Of course, it’s that history that’s always invoked when Paisley Park fires out a new offering. And double (triple, but still) offerings like this would seem to show a man for whom scripting a tight set — Q control, in other words — is a concession he’s unwilling to make. So we get the aimless igneous rock of “…Back 2 the Lotus”. And the squishy Fergie tribute “Chocolate Box”. And the lo-cal political grumble of “Colonized Minds,” which finds Prince doing a digital Dylan while defending his business practices.

Speaking of, though, I’d still take a third-millennium Prince release over, say, a Dylan record from the ’80s, or a Macca record from the ’90s. The loudest gripes over late-period releases are reserved for those who established the most formidable reps. Everyone else ends up on the A.V. Club’s Inessentials list. Like a select number of greats, Prince has offered so much while withholding an equal amount. Listening to his middling albums, then, becomes a kind of dumpster dive, where his current mood and concerns and consumption habits may be divined.