Prince - Planet Earth

Here it is, me panning an album by my all time favourite artist. Ah well, when you've made 30+ albums your bound to have a shocker or two among the bunch. I'm not sure of some of the edits Wireless Bollinger have done on it, but I guess that's just to fit the formula.

Prince Planet Earth
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Prince has never done things by the book. Equal part musical genius and cold, unapproachable eccentric, his recent decision to threaten his fan sites who publish his image with legal action is just the latest chapter in a bizarre story. While he has always kept his admirers and the media at a distance, firmly looking in from the outside, even now years after his creative peak he has managed to deliver one of the years most talked about albums and a major live drawcard. Not bad for a man about to enter his fourth decade of musical output.

The main reason for all this attention on Planet Earth came from Prince’s decision to give it away free in a U.K. newspaper. A wave of controversy ensued. Surprise, surprise, the record industry managed to survive, and now all we are left with is an album to reflect on. First things first, is it any good. Well no, certainly not by his high standards. In the world of modern music this is below average and in the Universe of Prince, it barely registers on the map. While it’s true it’s been years since he was knocking out classic-after-classic, year-in-year-out, 2004’s excellent Musicology and last year’s more commercially minded 3121 signalled his return as a real force in modern pop music. So where has it gone wrong? Unfortunately the purple one loses his momentum here with a series of symbol-era-like schmaltzy R&B ballads and unmemorable mid tempo pop songs.
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