"Rock, Funk, Sex, Weird Stuff"

Publication: Newsweek [US]
Date: May 4, 1987
Section: The Arts; Music
Page Number(S): 72
Length: 425 Words
Title: "Rock, Funk, Sex, Weird Stuff"
Written By: B.B.

Sign 'O' The Times" defies classification, which is surely how Prince wants it. Is it a rock-and-roll record? Yes: the exhilarating "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" has drive enough to power a speedboat. Is it a funk record? Sure: "Housequake" is a rock-bottom challenge to dance, or else, RIGHT NOW. Are there hit singles on it? You bet. The title track is No. 5 this week. Is there weird stuff on the record? But yes: listen to the beat poem "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker," which sounds like a midnight meeting between Sly Stone and Joni Mitchell. And are there paeans to the overwhelming joy of sex? Of course. Don't be silly. Track to track, Prince leads us through a musical hedge maze.

What ties all this together is the thrilling sound of a prodigious talent working at the top of his form. Prince has always been a supremely gifted eclectic. But there's something else at work this time: discipline. Except for "It," a dull funk vamp that goes on about five minutes too long, "Sign 'O' The Times lacks the extravagant egocentricity that has occasionally marred Prince's albums. (The counterargument to this charge, it should be noted, is that it's easy to be egocentric when you can play almost any instrument, write, arrange and produce your own records. Not a bad argument.) The lyrics are newly acute -- Prince seems to have learned that the best way to make big points is to keep the focus small and sharp: "In September my cousin tried reefer 4 the very first time/Now he's doing horse, it's June," * he sings in the title track, sketching the sad disintegration of a young life with haikulike compactness and clarity.

Settling down? Most intriguing of all for a musician who made his name as a libertine, there's a note of emotional maturity, a sense that love is deeper and tougher but ultimately more worthwhile than sex. "Strange Relationship" details a romance in which emotional, not sexual, perversity is the keynote. And "Forever in My Life" actually talks about settling down. Of course, the album's next track is "U Got the Look": "U walked in, I woke up/I've never seen a pretty girl/Look so tough, baby . . ./I think I wantcha . . ." * Then it gets a bit more explicit.

So which one of these guys is really Prince? They all are, and they dearly love to shake us up and keep us guessing. What might he do next? No way to tell. With some musicians that's a threat. With Prince it's a glorious promise.