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Prince performing live in 2009: Space for the mysterious
Photo: Kristian Dowling / Getty Images
A new Prince album will be out next week.
The sentence sounds like a contradiction.
A new album, next week?
About the musician who has been dead for five years?
The sentence fits Prince.
It fits into the many supposed contradictions in the work, life and afterlife of the pop star, who with lines like "I'm not a woman, I'm not a man, I am something that you'll never understand" from his successful album "Purple Rain" became famous.
Who did not shy away from the pompous appearance, but also avoided the public, holed himself up in his studio, settled there, lived in it and forbade journalists to record interviews with him.
Who left no will when he died unexpectedly and apparently accidentally of an opioid overdose at the age of 57.
But there are probably thousands of songs.
Only Prince is said to have known the code to the safe
Prince gave a lot of space to the mysterious.
One voice, many stages.
And a room of its own.
In the
vault
, Prince's vault in the basement of his studio, behind a steel door, the thousands of unreleased songs were supposed to be stored. Rumors grew around the place for decades. There was talk of 8000 songs. From a joint album with Miles Davis. Enough music to be able to bring out a new Prince album every year into the 22nd century. About the fact that some of his best things were in the safe. About the fact that Prince actually wanted to burn everything out of the safe. Only he should have known the code.
After Prince's death in April 2016, the safe was broken into.
A team of archivists took care of his unpublished, perhaps not for the public, content.
Based on the team's suggestions, deluxe versions of large Prince albums, a compilation of demo recordings ("Originals") and a piano concerto that Prince once played for the cassette recorder ("Piano & A Microphone 1983") have been released.
So next week Prince will release a new album, an apparently finished one with songs that have never been heard before.
It's called "Welcome 2 America", was recorded in 2010 and was supposed to be released in 2011, which didn't happen.
"For reasons unknown," says Prince's safe on a kind of Wikipedia.
Or for a good reason.
Would it be better off in the vault than on Spotify?
Yes and no.
"Truth is a new minority."
Prince in "Welcome 2 America"
At the beginning, Prince preaches.
And that doesn't sound antediluvian because it was recorded over ten years ago, but rather, as it is called in a later song, like a »futuristic sound«.
In lines like "truth is a new minority", linked with "2 much in4mation", the debates about fake news seem to be hinted at, in lines like "got an application, 2 fix Ur situation" it seems as if the Prince of 2010 was taking hold and his background singers the smartphone-centric situation of 2021 - »iPhone«, »iPad«, »Google« - quite aptly.
Even “Black Lives Matter” does not seem to be a foreign concept to the album with songs like “Running Game (Son Of A Slave Master)”.
"Land of the free", it says in "Welcome 2 America", "home of the slave".
Robotic because bloodless
So some of the lyrics on the album sound remarkably foresighted and show Prince from his previously poorly illuminated political side.
Only "Welcome 2 America" reveals little new about him musically;
unlike the previous releases from Tresor, "Piano & A Microphone 1983" (Prince as an intimate, minimalist performer) and "Originals" (Prince as a hit typewriter for others).
The supposed contradictions also greet you on “Welcome 2 America”.
Seldom in a beautiful way, for example when Prince's vocals in "Born 2 Die" somehow sound very close and yet intangible, crystal clear and slightly distorted at the same time.
More often in the unsightly way, for example when fine, small dabs of guitars strangely alternate with rough hard rock scraps.
Most of the time "Welcome 2 America" sounds like funk, which wants to be futuristic, but mainly derives its robotic appearance from a certain anemic.
Even if "Welcome 2 America" sparkles in places, it seems as if this is not a jewel out of the safe.
Troy Carter, former manager of Lady Gaga and an executive at Spotify, now one of those advising what comes out of the vault and what stays in, recently said money is not the only reason to posthumously release new Prince albums.
Rather, it is about bringing Prince closer to young people.
In the clubs, however, when they fully open again, “Welcome 2 America” will hardly be able to drive a “Purple Rain” off the dance floor.