…STOP!!!
Dear Prince,
I love you very much. “Sign o’ the Times”, most days, is one of my three or four favorite albums of all time. “Dirty Mind” and “Purple Rain” are probably in the Top 20. When you first came back in 2004 with “Musicology”, I was overjoyed. I was even more thrilled when you released the excellent “3121”. Then came “Planet Earth”, which was kinda “meh”. But there was the Super Bowl performance! THEN there was the “Lotusflower” and “MPLSound” from last year-a set of albums I couldn’t even bring myself to listen to all the way through twice. Why do you tease me so, Prince?
You premiered a new song, “Cause and Effect” on Minneapolis Public Radio this morning. I was excited, as I always do when rumors surface of new Prince music. However, much like the kid who runs down the stairs on Christmas morning only to find socks and draws, I was disappointed. You’ve written some great, riff-tastic, kick-ass rock songs over the years-“Bambi”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Dolphin” all come to mind. However, this song is pretty tired. A couple of decent ideas do not a good song make.
Hopefully, this is just a song you wanted to send out to your fans as a teaser for something bigger and better. I will still be waiting with baited breath for your next album. That said, I’m hoping it’s much more “3121” (since it would be foolish to expect anything remotely close to what you recorded from 1979-1988 again) and not so much “Lotusflow3r”.
Signed, Popblerd
(who is secretly still hoping you can get Denise Matthews to record and sing again so we can have a Time/Prince/Vanity 6 reunion tour).