why did you need to compare?

why did we need the history lesson?

it's not the best review i have read try using big words the next time. FYI there's nothing wrong with being " world-humping sex freak" better than this read from the Sunday school fanclub

Two albums released on the same day all but demand comparison.

Where did you get the sense that I was anti-world-humping sex freak?

And I'd be tempted to honor your wish for bigger words, but your reading comprehension skills seem pretty iffy already.

well said David!

Non-musician? I really dislike the need for critics to compare an artists catalog to their new work. Music is just that, music. One album exist independent from the other. The albums have nothing to do with any of the acts you bring up in the article. I made an omelet this morning, but it was nothing like the omelet I made 34 years ago. You either like the music or you don't, billboard is not a gauge for anything but industry programming. 90 percent of the acts in the top 100 are just that acts. Real music has been replaced with microwave poopcorn. Artist make art, take or leave it. It is. Real artist move forward as soon as the last project is done. All that said, I know the article would of been a lot shorter if you had not done the comparison thing. I like the article, but not as much as the last you wrote. You used to many periods in this one.

Great review, David! Thank you for giving your attention, time, and thought to this - Art Official Age is on repeat in my head when I don't have it playing out loud. Plectrum Electrum - not so much. WOW and Anotherlove are infectious tracks, though!

Good review. For over half his career people would often (and still do) compare Prince to Michael Jackson, but that only makes sense from the most superficial, eye-of-the-consumer viewpoint. Talking about Stevie Wonder's legacy is much more interesting conversation.

I wonder if the average college student knows who Prince is. Beyond that guy on the Superbowl who their parents seemed to think was cool.

I haven't heard anything since Musicology, but I do like that album quite a bit.

"better than 3121" isn't really high praise.

@7 You can tell the college students that Prince is the guy who sells out Key Arena within a day or who books two shows a the show box - where tickets are $250 a pop.











That guy.

I'm unaware of Springsteen's two albums at once deal, so I have to assume it came long after his peak of popularity, which is true of these two Prince albums. That may explain why it wasn't successful while GnR was.

I think a lot of prince haters and consequently this review are the kind of dudes who have sex only in the missionary position while repeating mars hill church mantra. @me2014 you compare an artist's new work to his catalog so you can catch a glimpse of where said artist is heading, what's on his/her mind. this being said, i can't think of one singer-musician-composer-producer who after 30 plus years of output is still trying to explore new ideas in a musically relevant way. Very few have realized how truly great Prince's Emancipation "vault" release was. The quality of music there was astounding. I had always wished that his releases after that one would follow suite. And David calls it 100% correct, this one is Emancipation II! Pound for pound, his purple majesty is the greatest musical artist of our times. No one compares.

^Emancipation wasn't a vault release...Crystal Ball was.

To my ears, Art Official Age his best since Lovesexy. It's gorgeous.