Prince Album: “Black Album”

This album could have been titled "Controversy," mainly because most Prince fans seem to be unable to agree on whether or not it is a good disc. I side with the camp that sees this as a Prince classic. As the intended follow-up to the vaunted Sign 'o' the Times, 1987's Black Album comes straight out of one Prince's most inspired periods. Although the brilliant patchwork of Sign 'o' the Times ultimately yields the finer album, Black Album is Prince's ode to funk, and, as such, is more cohesive, much more of a piece with itself. It is also much more focused and enjoyable than Lovesexy, the album Prince released in place of Black Album, in 1988. Whereas on Lovesexy, Prince obscures his funk with swirls of quasi-religious philosophizing, on Black Album he stays true to one vision: getting it on to the groove.

Here, the Purple One conjures an unrelenting world of joyously insane, black-strap, butt-bumping, booty-grinding funk that struts in with "Le Grind" and doesn't let up until "Rock Hard in a Funky Place" swaggers off into silence. On every track in between, Prince keeps up the pace, refusing to let listeners catch their breath. (One exception to this is the only ballad on the disc, "When 2 R in Love," the one Black Album track to make it onto Lovesexy, where it makes much more sense thematically. On Black Album, it simply doesn't fit in, and is the album's one weakness.) This is not listener-friendly Prince; he is much too hardcore here for casual fans, which could explain why this disc still gets mixed reviews. However, for those who revel in this artist's unique, inspired forays into the fun and unusual, Black Album is just the ticket.

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Officially, this album was not released until 1994, when Warner Bros. put out a limited edition CD. Prior to that, it had been available only on bootleg LPs and cassettes. To my knowledge, this album is now out of print officially, and all forms of it will take some work to find. If you can track down a copy, either official or bootleg, snap it up. It's worth it.

If you don't know the story behind Prince's Black Album, here is a quick rundown. After the break-up of the Revolution and the commercial failure of the excellent Sign O' The Times, Prince wanted to reinvent his image, to do something shocking and different to show the music world that not everything was Starfish and Coffee. Hence The Black Album, the supposed follow-up to Sign O' The Times. It was supposed to be his most controversial album to date, and was a key starting point for his feud with Warner Brothers.

The label, looking for Prince to deliver another Purple Rain, instead received The Black Album, which contained no material suitable for a hit single. And worse, Prince insisted that the cover of both sides of the case to be black with no writing, and his name nor the album title was to appear anywhere on the album. Obviosly, the record label was not thrilled but went into production with the hope that the bizarre marketing strategy and Prince's name alone could carry the album.

With the album days away from release, and hundreds of thousands of albums already produced, Prince called the label and demanded them to pull the album. The label reluctantly agreed and most of the albums were destroyed. A few leaked out to the general public, bootlegs were sold, and the legendary status behind the album grew.

The explanation for Prince's abandonment of the album was that he had a religious revelation, and that God told him the album was evil (there have been rumors that he received this "revelation" while under the influence of ecstasy, but there is no substantial evidence to support this). So Prince went into the studio to create the opposite of The Black Album, Lovesexy.

Warner Brothers reissued the album in 1994 during the height of their feud with The Artist, and it was virtually ignored by Prince and the general public. But with such a history, could this album actually be any good? The answer is surprisingly yes.

While it does contain many instances of Prince's self-indulgence that plague many of his albums, The Black Album contains some of the funkiest songs that The Artist has ever laid down. The lyrics, while uncharacteristically violent and sexist for Prince, are not nearly as bad as what rap artists of today are producing.

It is a shame that this album was dropped with no promotion because it is a very solid album. While not in the same league as his classics, it is better than Lovesexy and pretty much anything he has released since except for The Gold Experience.

Because this album is hard to find and will cost around $30 for a good used copy, and upwords of $100 new, it is not for everyone. Any casual fan expecting a Purple Rain experience should stay away. But for diehards and completists, this is a definate must have. It is the lost gem from The Artist's extensive cannon.

Painless, quick, easy sale.

And this album is fantastic. There are some "odd" moments and choices on it, but if you've heard the apocryphal stories (or listened to the lyrics to supercalifunkifragisexy) then it might make sense, especially in context of the era.

But WOW, this album is a blast. Dance funk, primarily electro, but the incomparable Sheila E. is all over this record as well. From the crazy bassline of Le Grind to the sexy love-groove of When 2 R n Love, Sheila's mind-blowing pocket on 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton to Prince's quoting Jeff Beck guitar lines on Rock Hard in a Funky Place, this record is a hot little gem. Oh, and did I mention the funky drunken-stumble horn line in that last track? It's squeal-worthy.

This Prince album was scheduled for a release in 1987 but weeks before it's release date it was discarded for unknown reasons and Prince released "LoveSexy" instead, and the "Black Album" got this mythical status and was heavily bootlegged to the point that it was officially released in 1994. For those of you that don't know the story behind this let me give a short explenation. Prince had been making alot of commercial music at the time, alot of Pop-Rock and less of the Funky R&B he recorded in the beginning of his career. The "Black Community" weren't happy with this and wanted more Funk, so Prince decided to content them with a raw funk album. But the album never saw daylight and alot of rumours came about about it. Some said it was cause of religious reasons that Prince rather released the mellow love album "LoveSexy", others said it was cause of the explicit lyrics the album had or maybe Prince simply realized that it wasn't good enough, thus giving up the project and releasing something that worked better for radio. The unreleased album without a title became known as the "Black Album" cause it didn't have a proper cover, just a black frame. People were ofcourse curious about it and some lucky people managed to get a copy of it and thereafter the album was spread through bootlegs making it an Urban Legend. But is it really that good? And how does it sound? Read on to find out.

Like aformentioned it's a very funky uptempo album with more beats and rhythm then melody and structure. It also got some quite daring lyrics, not too surprising when it comes to Prince but still. "Le Grind" in an 6.30 minute long orgy of funk, while it's a funky party song it isn't very memorable and lacks good melody and hook. Second song "Cindy C" a plea to supermodel Cindy Crawford is very simular to it's predecessor while "Dead on It" has to be one of the corniest things he ever done. This songs is critisizing the violence in Hip Hop lyrics but it's obvious that Prince didn't know alot about the Hip Hop culture when he wrote it. Ironically he would record alot of Hip Hop songs himself later on with the NPG. "When 2 R In Love" a love song that doesn't really fit into this album later appeared on "LoveSexy". Funk-Rock on the infomous "Bob George" where Prince has a guitar riff sounding like a Machine-Gun and thanks to computers his voice became deeper and he sounds like a thug, but he's talking in the entire song!. More uptempo funk on the daring "Superfunkicalifragisexy" and very enjoyable James Brown infleunced funk on "2 Nigs United for West Compton". An instrumental, but the flashiest song of the album. On the Closer, Another funk number called "RockHard in a Funky Place" we find Prince's voice speed up instead, yeah the title means what you think!. This album never fail to surprise?.

Overall, For many reasons this album is mythical, but it isn't really a legendary album. Not even one song here got a memorable enough melody or hook, it's just beatoriented upbeat funk without hit potential. Prince probably realized this and decided to release something that worked better commercially instead. As a collectors item, this is a must have based on the history and myths behind it but it's not one of the better Prince albums at all.

The point this legendary bootleg does hit is in it's pure

funkiness but 'The Black Album' isn't the work of pure genius

it's said to be.Most of the songs sound like half-finished

outtakes that didn't make the cut of Prince's better albums.

Plus the lyrics are often too profane even for Prince!So it

revels in it's grooves,talks alot but doesn't say much!