How Much Prince Is 2 Much?

No one could ever accuse Prince of being lazy. The ultra-talented funkateer recently told the Los Angeles Times that he plans on releasing three albums in 2009, all of which will explore different musical ideas and all without any major label help. Two of the discs will be Prince affairs (the pop-oriented MPLSOUND and the guitar-heavy Lotus Flower), while the third, Elixir, is a Svengali job for some singer named Bria Valente.

Now I'm the kind of person who has seen Under A Cherry Moon multiple times and paid big money for both Crystal Ball and One Nite Alone...Live! (never heard of 'em? Exactly)--yet I find myself worried rather than excited about Prince's upcoming output.

His purple majesty has always been prolific. During the height of his popularity in the '80s, he was putting out an album a year when sales rivals like Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen were taking three and four years between studio releases. But that fecundity came with a cost. While Prince's music is never less than interesting, it isn't always great. The guy, it turns out, is human. By the mid-'90s, his flood of new material had drowned out casual listeners. Slowly but surely, the artist once known as TAFKAP became an underground phenomenon, his descent fuelled by rote R&B, hectoring lyrics, and jazz fusion excursions.

Then he was quiet--no new studio material arrived in the three years between 2001's The Rainbow Children and 2004's Musicology. But the latter, straightforwardly funky album was exactly what the mainstream wanted. Unsurprisingly, the ensuing tour and his induction into the Rock Hall of Fame helped transform Prince from gifted weirdo in the basement to beloved icon. Two more well-regarded albums (3121 and Planet Earth) followed in 2006 and 2007. And last year, Prince basked in the adoration of the indie crowd, blowing minds with an epic set at Coachella.

What all this means is that Prince has some goodwill capital to spend. I'd hate to see him blow it on genre exercises. Even if the music on the new albums is great, its impact will be blunted by its quantity. Unfortunately, when Prince competes against himself, there's a good chance no one will win.

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