Prince, Lotusflow3r/Mplsound/Elixir

review by dave heaton

Prince turns the ordinary grandiose, always. He makes himself a mythological creature. On the cover of Lotusflow3r his face appears, partially, inside of a crystal ball, near a pyramid, a city (Minneapolis), and the universe.

Of course, it’s more than just an LP. It’s two Prince LPs, Lotusflow3r and Mplsound, and one album by Prince’s latest female protégé, Bria Valente (Elixir). Above and beyond that, the back cover lists an web address where you can get “the entire galactic experience”.

Lotusflow3r starts with a mood-setting instrumental which also introduces a central character: Prince’s guitar. This is still not the guitar LP of Prince fans’ dreams, but he does jam a lot on electric guitar, and often his solos transcend the songs. The most interesting mood throughout comes when electric guitar leads the way into a dense, low, funk groove. His guitar amplifies the huge-ness of the whole thing. It brings gravity to a cover of “Crimson and Clover”, fire to the infinity love ballad “4Ever”, transcendence to the murky social-political-religious “Colonized Mind”. At the end of the album, on “Dreamer” and “…Back 2 the Lotus”, he lets the guitar fly.

Prince the singer/lyricist/songwriter does have some moments here, but not many. Less than on his last three albums, which, uneven as they were, together as a three-disc set would wallop this one to smithereens. The aforementioned infinity ballad “4Ever” is nice. On “Wall of Berlin” he trips through time and fantasy in a sort of surreal way, using the falling of the Berlin Wall as some kind of metaphor. There’s a nice, upbeat-jazz flavor to “$”, probably the best track here. He sings of the glamorous life while casting a bit of a sneer towards it: “what difference does it make who got the most bank? / it’s just ink and chlorophyll”.

Mplsound is more fun on the whole, though that’s not the same thing as better. It’s a party album, the loosest of the three, and the loosest overall LP he’s done in a while. It’s also the most retro of these three albums, probably, and the one with the most song titles that substitute letters for words.

At the same time, the choruses are just this side of annoying…that is, until the party-killing final track, “No More Candy 4 U”, which is nothing but annoying. As with Lotusflow3r, the overall sound is more enjoyable than most of the songs. It’s a different sound, though: cool, fun, light, and futuristic, in a 1980s way. It’s more playful too, like the age-joke “Valentina”, where he sings to a hot young girl and asks her about her mother.

The album sometimes seems marked by singlemindness, sheer dedication to the task at hand. “I like it when you dance for me,” he sings like a robot, which is interesting at least. There’s joy in repetition, Prince of course knows, and joy in excess too. But also in breaks from that excess after it’s been established. I like the gentle ballad “Here” as a clam respite.

That song and the duller “Better With Time” anticipate the Bria Valente album, or what it could have been if Prince had sung the songs instead of just writing, producing and playing the instruments. Elixir sounds like a quiet-storm Prince album, but as a singer, his new protégé lacks any sort of presence. She’s invisible. Still, it’s not as bad and it has and will be depicted. It just feels blank. It’s romantic fantasy music, but strange in its blankness. Listen to her sing about taking a shower, preparing for her lover (on “Here Eye Come”), and try to hear it as really about people. It feels impossible. That quality makes it harder to listen to than even the most grating parts of the two Prince LPs. Say what you will or Prince, but he can never make himself disappear.