Thursday, May 04, 2006

Review 50: Prince - The Gold Experience




For A Limited Time Only! Things The Curmudgeon Actually LIKES!

As a celebration of the fact The Curmudgeon reached 50 reviews slating the worst of the worst, the baddest of the bad, I thought I would do something a little different and review 5 things that The Curmudgeon actually LIKES. Well, it's either that or I review King Kong Lives - you choose.

Prince is my favourite musician of all time. I love music, go to gigs all the time and all my spare cash gets spent on either CD's or DVD's. And even though I love other albums and artists, it's always Prince I go back to the most.

The Gold Experience is arguably not Prince's best album (the cliche is, of course, to say Sign O' The Times), but its The Curmudgeon's personal favourite, because not only does it still hook you in with its irresistable opening song P. Control (an outrageous spin on girl power.. put it this way, the "P" is another name for a cat. Mm-hmm.) to the heartbreakingly gorgeous finale of Gold, but because it brings back so many memories of when I first listened to it on its original day of release. I knew from the opening few beats that I had just bought something very special indeed.

This is Prince's first album under the Artist Formerly Known As name (which, by the way, I LOVED everything about.. the idea, the way he brought it into his music, everything. In fact - rare Curmudgeonly scoop - I have the Prince symbol tattooed on my arm). As a result, its full of "Prince is dead" type messages, but lets talk about the music some more.

Prince's only UK number one (Jesus, how sad is THAT?!) The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, gets another airing and different mix, (already available in a single and 8 different versions on The Beautiful Experience EP), as well as axed single Dolphin, a gorgeous pop song with some superb lyrics and guitar - a real shame this was never heard on the radio.

18 tracks in all, there isn't much in the way of filler, even if Billy Jack Bitch turns into a bit of a tedious noise near the end. The likes of Shy, Eye Hate U and Now will have you playing this album for YEARS.

You need it in your life.

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