Publication: Jam! Showbiz [Internet]
Date: March ?, 1998
Section:
Page Number(s):
Length:
Title: "New US Only Prince Release A Mixed Bag"
Reviewed By: Steve Hill

Crystal Ball reviewed

It's hard enough to fill a single disc with great music, let alone a multi-disc set. Yet, with his expansive talent and vision, The Artist Formerly Known as The Artist formerly known as Prince (still with me?) has pulled off the feat not once, but three times in his career. Having the room to explore his muse resulted in career highs with "1999," "Sign O' the Times" and, to a lesser extent, his previous outing, the three-disc set "Emancipation."

Unfortunately, The Artist's remarkable string of great, multi-disc recordings comes to a shattering halt with "Crystal Ball."

It's a bad omen when the set opens with the rambling 10 1/2-minute chorus-searching-in-vain-for-a-song title track. Excess and The Artist have always gone hand-in-hand. Some times the excess translates into genius. On the other hand, some times it simply translates as excess.

With The Artist, you hope that his flights of fancy will transport you to some new and exotic place. "Crystal Ball" is strictly a commuter flight.

We've been down these runways before, and every destination is familiar. The synth funk jams, meandering ballads and salacious teases are all here, but the themes and riffs seem lifted from other, better Prince/Artist songs.

Ultimately, what we're left with, spread over three discs, is one average Prince record.

The first two discs -- with the possible exceptions of the funk-rocker "Interactive" and the reggae-tinged, X-rated, "ripopgodazippa" -- are washes.

Disc three, with four genre exercises -- the breezy pop/soul of "Last Heart," a live blues jam titled "The Ride," the techno/rave "Get Loose," and the disc-closing balled "Goodbye" -- fares best.

If "Crystal Ball" is any indication, The Artist formerly known as Getting Airplay has forgotten how to write a simple hook.

Which makes it all the more difficult to explain "The Truth," a largely acoustic single disc accompanying "Crystal Ball".

In this new, stripped down setting, freed from the temptations of jamming with his band or engaging in studio trickery, The Artist delivers an inspired set. Backed for the most part by only his acoustic guitar, The Artist's clever playing and focused songwriting demonstrates that some times less is indeed more.

In "Don't Play Me," a broadside at radio for not playing his music, The Artist sings, "My only competition is me in the past."

It's a competition in which "Crystal Ball" is blown out and against which "The Truth" fares quite nicely.