Publication: St. Petersburg Times [US]
Date: April 12, 1987
Section: Arts; Records
Page Number(S): 2E
Length: 905 Words
Title: "Revolution's Over, But Prince Is Still Fighting"
Written By: Eric Snider

Prince: Sign O' the Times (Paisley Park/Warner Bros., list price $ 15.98) We Say: Neither purple nor paisley.

The Revolution is over. Prince canned his band for his new double album Sign O' the Times (which is giving reviewers everywhere a headache because the "O" used in the title actually is a peace sign.) He went into the studio by himself, playing and singing most all the parts, which recalls the days circa 1999 (and before) when he became the world's most popular and enigmatic one-man band. But this album is not a revisitation of 1999 or Controversy or Dirty Mind. Prince has been on a long, strange musical trip in subsequent years - from purple to paisley - and he's confounded fans and media alike. But enough of that. Is this album any good? A lot of it is - especially the powerful title song - and then some of it sounds hastily thrown together and self-indulgent (which is a fairly familiar domain for Prince). Most of the album has a low-budget demo feeling - which is not to say that the actual sound is bad, just that it seems as if Prince didn't spend much time playing perfectionist. Sign is thankfully devoid of Prince's '60s-style psychedelicism - perhaps Around the World in a Day and Parade merely constituted a phase he went through. There are no swirling orchestral passages and very few dreamy lyrics. Only the cloying "Starfish and Coffee" falls into that style. Gone also are the bloated songs and outrageous narcissism that reached its pinnacle with the film Under the Cherry Moon. On Sign, Prince is more grounded and sensual - he seems to have substantially returned to his black musical roots. Most of the arrangements employ layered synthesizers, drum machines, guitar and occasionally guest horn players. The record has a genuine sense of playfulness that at times goes overboard (a la George Clinton), but is welcome in light of his recent heavy-handed morosity. ("If I Was Your Girlfriend" has a lead vocal credited to Camille, but it sounds as if Prince just sped up his own singing to give it a higher pitch.) Overall, the album is rather short on strong melodic hooks. A number of tunes are comprised of heavy, drum-machine-driven funk grooves and sketchy R&B riffs. "It" (with a big beat and buried vocal), "Hot Thing," "Housequake," an inane rap tune, and the painfully long "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night" (the only live cut, recorded in Paris with his former band the Revolution) all represent lowest-common-denominator efforts aimed strictly at the dance floor. This material is known by music aficionados as "filler," and very seldom does any double studio album come out that doesn't contain some. Prince is at his best when he creates lively, timeless pop that breaks barriers of genre and race. He's done it many times before - "1999," "Let's Go Crazy," "Sexuality," "Uptown" and "Kiss" stand out as good examples. Sign has several classics as well. The brooding title track showcases Prince's strongest vocal effort in quite some time - full of passion, range and sly phrasing. The simmering song runs down a list of the world's ills, from AIDS to natural disasters to the threat of nuclear holocaust. His lines slide out in rambling streams of consciousness. "In September my cousin tried reefer for the very first time/Now he's doing Horse, it's June," he sings, and on the chorus, "Some say a man ain't really happy unless a man truly dies." As the album's first single, the title track hasn't exactly been burning up the airwaves. Prince finds himself in a rebuilding phase with radio, but there are other potential singles. "U Got the Look," "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" (which has a nice guitar jam at the end) and "Play in the Sunshine" are all charged-up pop-rock numbers with plenty of soul. There are some strong R&B ballads, too. "Slow Love" (with Memphis-style horns), the lush "Adore" (with its Hammond organ) and the lyrically clever "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" - which sounds like a twisted Marvin Gaye song - are all first-rate. Sign also contains Prince's most direct ode to Christ ever. Based on lyrics alone, "The Cross" would be embraced by most traditional religious organizations. So Prince has broken his own mold again. In a nutshell, Sign finds this ambitious musician engaged in a free-wheeling eclecticism, a thematic hodgepodge - he's having fun and he's definitely not looking over his shoulder. Prince has abandoned his pedantic antics, and that alone makes this album fresh. Fans who've been awaiting the return of the old Prince - the ultra-popular Prince of Purple Rain and 1999 - will find some disappointment here. Sign is not a carefully crafted statement. But those who just wanted him to drop the pretense and be an honest artist again will find a lot to like.