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On MPLSound, Prince takes his retro mission seriously enough to offer up a few songs nervy enough to be singles, even if the synthesized thrill of this handful of tunes is undercut by a bunch of slow-burning ballads that do their best to rival 'The Arms of Orion.'
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MPLSound is (surprise) momentarily enjoyable and completely inessential, happy to provoke Palovian responses since the hard work of honestly juicing your head, heart, or hips is antithetical to the whole idea.
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Five of MPLSoUND's nine songs sound like lost B sides from assorted classic Prince albums (Dirty Mind, 1999, Controversy, etc.); these days, even a really good Prince song usually reminds the listener of a better, earlier one. What really hamstrings the album, though, is a four-song sequence in the middle.
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The beats do the heavy lifting, often making the album sound like a throwback to the ’80s funk he helped define.
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Third disc MPLSoUND is the strongest of the bunch, though that's faint praise; even standouts like the teasing, breathy 'Chocolate Box' and the bedroom-ready 'U're Gonna C Me' feel, at best, like pale lavender imitations of better times.
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On an individual song-for-song basis, the lyrical hooks are even shallower than they are on LOtUSFLOW3R.
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'Dance 4 Me' cribs the throwback electro beat of 'Erotic City,' while 'Here' should be served with a tall glass of wine to wash down all the cheese. 'Valentina,' the album's most unintentionally hilarious song, is a musical valentine to actress Salma Hayek.
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MPLSound, the funkiest of the three discs--transcends its own hectoring. The put-downs aren’t half as good as the come-ons.
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MPLSound appeals to nostalgia both implicitly (a reminder of the reasons for our adoration) and explicitly (the album sounds good because it sounds like Sign O’ The Times).
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Mplsound is sometimes stronger still [than "Lotusflow3r"], with the party whoop of '(There'll Never B) Another Like Me,' the delicious dirty mind of 'Chocolate Box' and 'Ol' Skool Company,' which will have you partying like its 1985.
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MPLSound might be the most pristine for what it ultimately lacks: the sense of real, lusty sin.
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MPLSound could be a thank-you note to those Parade-era purists patient enough to have stuck around.
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The drum machine hallmark of his 1980s heyday is a staple of MPLSound, a disc that hauls that sound into the present with mixed results.
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If after swallowing that Elixer, you still have the stamina for more, you will be amply rewarded by Minneapolis Sound, or as Prince spells it, MPLSoUND.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 19
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Mixed: 1 out of 19
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Negative: 6 out of 19
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MarkLMar 31, 2009