Category: Record reviews

• music Record reviews

  Dude, you’re killing me here

  Anyone can plunge into a creative tailspin, or fail to live up to public expectations, or rush off in directions that alienate your fans. God knows I’ve done all of these. I don’t know what happened to Prince in the years 1987 through 1991, but here are some clues. The…

  November 7, 2014
• music Record reviews

  Run-DMSteve is shocked, shocked

  Sign O’ the Times Prince 1987 Back when I worked for Seattle Weekly, I had a conversation with our music editor, Bart Becker, about the fragmentation of commercial radio. Each Seattle station was locked into its own fenced-off musical world. Some formats had Reader’s Digest condensed playlists – Classic Rock…

  October 26, 2014
• music Record reviews

  Play that funky music, white boys

  The Best of Rare Earth 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection Rare Earth 2001 [Editor’s note: Last week I took on Prince’s Parade. Next up is Sign ‘o’ the Times, which requires more thought. Also, the World Series is about to start. While I’m doing all this extra thinking about…

  October 19, 2014
• music Record reviews

  Women not girls rule my world

  Parade Prince & The Revolution 1986 If I were a sensible person, I would’ve listened to Prince’s complete works first, identified continuing themes, drawn some tentative conclusions, and then, armed with this global perspective, returned to his debut and started the project. NFW. I didn’t do any thinking at all,…

  October 12, 2014
• music Record reviews

  And if the elevator tries 2 bring u down, go crazy – punch a higher floor

  Purple Rain Prince & The Revolution 1984 Purple Rain is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. This soundtrack rocketed Prince to the level just below worldwide godhood – an orbit occupied at that time by only two North Americans, Michael Jackson and the ghost of Elvis. (Madonna…

  October 5, 2014