One-Time Prince no Rave-ing Success

Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic is the love-child of the Artist Formerly known as Prince and his new record label, Arista. This album attempts to answer the call Prince set forth a decade ago, to "party like it's 1999." But the impression that the album leaves behind is not of the Artist's music but rather of the pageantry behind it all. The body-hugging velvet costumes. The name that isn't a name. The bizarre album covers. The man himself, whose name has been debated more than the gender of Pat on Saturday Night Live. The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and Now Generally Referred to As Freak, has put forth a valiant effort in his latest major label album, but to no avail. He plays his own instruments, he writes his own songs (with the lone exception of a cover of the Sheryl Crow song "Every Day is a Winding Road"). but his extreme image appears to be all that remains of this former member of pop's royal family.

The pretension of the royal pain's latest album begins with a bizarre insert ranting about sheep's rights and urging everyone to "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic." The album's self-important title track is a sorry answer to the promise held out by the artist who previously claimed the year of 1999 as his own. In fact, there is little Joy Fantastic in this album. and the Artist certainly makes no effort to party like it's...oh, you know. The Artist's songwriting talent shines in the track "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold," but his megalomaniac performance as a sort of hybrid producer/composer/musician seems to have depleted the Prince's talents.

Surprisingly enough, the album's strongest track is the only song on the album not written by the veteran singer/songwriter performing it. The Artist's cover of "Every Day is a Winding Road" is scarcely recognizable as the same song that Sheryl Crow sang. Instead, he has infused the pop song with a distinctly bluesy feel that indelibly claims it as the musical property of the Artist once known as Prince. The way he makes Crow's song his own reminds his listener of the immense musical talent that he possesses, a fact that will only make fans bemoan the status of the other songs all the more. Songs such as "Undisputed" and "Tangerine" sound more like parodies of "Prince" songs than melodies in their own right. These tracks serve as poignant reminders to former and current Artist fans that talent has become overtaken by image in Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic. C-