If you know anything about the history of "The Daily Vault," you'll remember that for about 15 years or so, I banned Prince from our pages due to his litigious nature against fan sites (even ones who printed positive news about him) and his threats to sue anyone who used his album covers, even in the course of a review.
So, if you see Satan grabbing an extra blanket... yes, Hell has indeed frozen over. I'm writing a review of a Prince album. But, not just any album from the late Prince Rogers Nelson... we're tackling the legendary disc The Black Album.
Originally scheduled to be released in late 1987, Prince pulled the disc from the market at the literal last minute, the reasons for which will be debated until the end of time. (A bad ecstasy trip? A religious epiphany?) For the longest time, you could only get this disc at specialty record stores who dealt with, aah, "underground" releases. (That is how I obtained a copy for someone when I was in college. My dad said a co-worker wanted to know if I could get my hands on it; I told them, "Give me a running start and enough Old Style, and I can find anything." I can't help if I happened to make a copy onto a blank cassette before I delivered it to her.)
Finally, in 1994, Prince allowed The Black Album to be released in order to satisfy his contract with Warner Brothers. If you didn't purchase it then, you're stuck paying outrageous prices for it on Discogs, 'cause this is one not available on the streaming services. Over the course of eight tracks, Prince is featured at his funkiest, his most risque - hell, even his most violent.
Yeah, but is it his best? Sadly, the answer is no... but it has some incredible music among its eight tracks.
The disc opens with a one-two punch of "Le Grind" and "Cindy C," tracks which seemed to challenge the popular beliefs that Prince had abandoned his funk roots (though Sign o' The Times should have been proof of that). If sex sells, then Prince was having a Kmart special, the former leaving precious little to the imagination, the latter being a love letter to Cindy Crawford. The thing is, both these tracks are so well written and executed that the listener is locked into every note.
The same can't be said, though, for such songs as "Dead On It" or "Superfunkycalifragisexy,"funk-fueled raps that just don't go anywhere. And "Rock Hard In A Funky Place"? Simply put, not Prince's best moment. Are they terrible? No... but they're also not tracks I'd find myself going back to on a repeated basis, as I would others on this disc.
Exhibit "A": "Bob George". It's five and a half minutes of vulgarity, violence and self-deprecating humor - and I can't stop listening to the damned thing. Lowering his vocals with computer effects, Prince plays the role of the abusive husband who assumes his wife is seeing the titular character, a rock star manager. ("Who? Prince?!? Ain't that a bitch! That skinny motherfucker with the high voice?") On one hand, I can understand why his long-time fans might have been taken aback with this track, and the way it handles the concept of domestic violence. But Prince, to my knowledge, was never this loose about himself, and musically it lays down a solid funk beat.
The same can be said for "2 [redacted] United 4 West Compton" - a mostly instrumental track (other than some interspersed spoken-word pieces at the beginning and end) that sounds like something Prince would have pulled out to loosen up the band with some improv jams. You don't have to like the use of the truncated word in the song title, but you can't deny the funkiness.
The allure of The Black Album, to me, is that it was so verboten in the late '80s/early '90s that the only way you could get your hands on it was as a bootleg. Even now, after being officially released, the disc is out of print, and does not appear to be available on the biggest streaming services. Its rarity made people want to seek it out, and perhaps painted the music in a brighter light than it sometimes deserved.
But, if we're truly honest with ourselves, The Black Album is simply average - that is, a hodgepodge of great work mixed with what could essentially have been seen as throwaway tracks. It is worth searching out, if only to say you've heard it. But it certainly isn't Prince's best work.