CD Odyssey Disc 295: Prince

One thing about the CD Odyssey is that it makes me constantly adjust my ear to new forms of music. Having just listened to the seventies folk of Gordon Lightfoot, it took me a couple of listens to retune my ear to this next selection. Once I had, I found myself enjoying it.

Disc 295 is...Around The World In A Day

Artist: Prince

Year of Release: 1985

What’s Up With The Cover?: A very ugly piece of art, reminscent of collages (of which I've never been a fan). I believe that various songs are represented artistically on the cover (which carries on to the left if you fold out the CD cover, but isn't worth sharing). Also -the title of the album while here, is nigh impossible to read. I give this cover an emphatic thumbs down.

How I Came To Know It: I knew some of these songs from my high school days, but this album was brought to the house by my wife, Sheila, who remembers it from around the time she graduated (one of those cases where an age difference of three years now is nothing, but twenty-five years ago was more significant).

How It Stacks Up: We have four Prince albums, and I think we've each bought two of them, so it is fair to say we both like him. I'd put this one third of the four.

Rating: 3 stars.

"Around The World In a Day" (hereforward to be referened to as "Around The World") is Prince's follow up to the wildly popular soundtrack to "Purple Rain". It is no "Purple Rain" but "Around The World" is a solid album on its own merits.

This is one of those records that I admire technically, but overall doesn't resonate strongly with me. Amazingly, it is Prince's sixth studio album (seventh when you count "Purple Rain"), and by this point he is an established artist. Prince has always been willing to expirement with sound and melody, and being so established could only encourage him.

Of note, the title track that opens the record adds in traditional Indian sounds which seem very commonplace in today's pop/hip hop scene but I suspect would've been pretty innovative in 1985. Yes, the Beatles used the sitar, but this more Bollywood sound comes much later, methinks, and Prince is at the forefront.

Prince is never afraid to take risks, and for the most part his musical genius allows him to carry it off. As an example, the song "America" combines funky guitar, drum machines, liberal borrowing of the old standard "America the Beautiful" and then adds lyrics about the Cold War. Surprisingly the song works.

Similarly, the last track "Temptation", combines an urban drumbeat with what is more than a little reminscent of metal guitar noodling - then inserts classical piano sounds, the saxophone noodling ubiquitous to eighties music, and right in the middle adds in some spoken word rap about the subject in the title - specifically noting he's 'talkin' about sexual temptation." This bizarre combination of everything under the sun comes in at a less than humble 8 minutes, 18 seconds. Despite having no business doing so, this song generally works as well.

In fact, there are many places in the record where I found myself saying to myself, 'sure it kind of works - but why do it?' The only answer seems to be that he can, which sums up Prince's musical career pretty well.

After many reviews where I have savaged eighties production, I will say that it was refreshing to listen to an album where that style of production perfectly suited the music. Prince's music was built for that tiny, proto-electronica sound. Not only does it match, it even defies the odds and actually sounds pleasing to the ear.

I do have a gripe that Prince insists on spelling "for" as "4" and "you" as "u", years before texting caused an entire generation to downgrade their grammar. Hey, Prince - some trends aren't worth setting.

The best song on the record is the big hit, "Raspberry Beret". It is a real earwormer, and comes unbidden to me even years between listens. It is just a catchy, whimsical little story about a girl in a raspberry beret (and when it is hot out, 'little more').

When I go out for dinner at a restaurant, I'm fond of having sorbet for desert. Whenever there's a raspberry sorbet, I always state my order as "I'll have the raspberry sorbet. You know - the kind you find in a second hand store." The server, usually in her twenties, then stares at me blankly while my wife chastizes me and says, "she doesn't know what you're talking about!"

But I'm going to keep doing it. Sure it is an uneven joke, and not everyone appreciates it, but hey - if Prince can do his own thing, so can I.

Best tracks: Paisley Park, Raspberry Beret, The Ladder