Publication: The Toronto Star [Can]
Date: August 18, 1990
Section: Entertainment
Page Number(S): G8
Length: 583 Words
Title: "Prince Shares Glory But Keeps All Control"
Written By: Chris Dafoe

Not to mention as a tiny, reclusive, sex-obsessed genius with a messianic streak - Prince certainly is generous with the spotlight in his latest album, Music From Graffiti Bridge.

Containing music from his forthcoming movie, the album - which, barring a sudden change of heart a la The Black Album - will be in stores Tuesday, features guest spots from the Time, Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell and George Clinton. And these are more than mere cameos. The Time, who reunited for the film, get four of the 17 tracks on the double album to themselves; between them Campbell and Staples get three.

But while his Purpleness may be sharing the glory, he hasn't given up much control; all the remaining tracks are Prince solo and his inventive, eccentric touch is evident throughout.

That touch, as fans have discovered over the years, is not such a bad thing. After the lock-step of his Batman soundtrack, in which he partially sublimated himself to the movie's characters, Prince has returned to familiar themes. Graffiti Bridge toys with the tension between the spiritual and the physical, between the crusade and the orgy, between the trancendence of the soul (as in the gloriously gospel-inspired "Still Would Stand All Time") and the temptation of the flesh (as in the sex-bomb of "Tick, Tick, Bang").

I'll be damned if I can figure out the details of Prince's theology - I tried that with Lovesexy and it just ended up sounding silly - but his musical gifts, given free reign here in a way they weren't on Batman make the figuring enjoyable most of the time.

Working with some unlikely sounds and radically reworking more familiar ones, Prince makes music that is almost shockingly fresh. On "The Question Of U", for example, he marries a thudding elephantine beat - Captain Beefheart would have called it the floppy boot stomp - with a gracefully bluesy melody to create a musical oxymoron, a song of primitive refinement.

On "Shake!", the most likely choice for a second single after the exotic "Thieves In The Temple", he gives the Time a stiff funk beat, a quirky guitar fillip and the stuttering organ from "96 Tears" and lets them make a wonderfully cheesy dancefloor ditty out of them.

While Prince does indulge his baroque side on Graffiti Bridge it's the simple things that work the best. "Joy In Repetition" lives up to its title as Prince sings, in a voice strung tight with erotic tension, of a seduction, his words backed by a simple beat and a flowing guitar line. Even the album's opening track, the light-footed "Can't Stop This Feeling I Got", is simpler than it sounds, just a trebly guitar and a simple keyboard twist.

There are a few weak spots on the album. "We Can Funk", Prince's collaboration with Parliament/Funkadelic mastermind George Clinton, falls short of the lofty expectations one naturally brings to the track as the quirks of the two noted eccentrics cancel each other out. And the joyous tone of the title track, which features Staples and Campbell, comes across, on first listen at least, as the sort of shrink-wrapped, manufactured happiness one would more likely find daily at DisneyWorld than on a Prince record.

Other than those weak points, however, Graffiti Bridge is as inventive and accomplished as anything Prince has recorded. The movie may stink when it comes out - indeed, given the little guy's track record, it will probably be abysmal - but then you can always close your eyes. The soundtrack will carry you through.