Happy 10th Anniversary to Prince’s thirty-seventh studio album Art Official Age, originally released September 26, 2014.
Distance is a funny thing. Unburdened by the expectations and euphoric anticipation that immediacy brings, we often change our minds about almost anything. I, for one, regret whole-heartedly the desire and subsequent purchase of a bright yellow Campri ski jacket sometime around 1990.
When Art Official Age dropped in September 2014, I had the pleasure of reviewing it for another music site. That it came alongside an additional album (3rdeyegirl’s Plectrum Electrum) that felt like a Prince album in disguise, merely added to the frisson of excitement that accompanied every new Prince album.
That excitement had been cranked up several notches by the fact that Art Official Age was his first album in four years—an unprecedented wait in the hectic release schedule of the notoriously prolific genius. Yet that excitement had begun to wear thin with each passing release. The last Prince album I’d crawled inside and lived in had been 1995’s The Gold Experience. From that point on, however, subsequent albums had been proudly purchased and given fair airing, but they lacked the staying power that so many others had.
Increasingly there were moments of undoubted genius but they were outnumbered by tired rehashes of age-old tropes or attempts to capture past glories as those inspired by his genius threatened to outstrip him. For every “Dinner With Dolores,” there was a “Right The Wrong” lurking around the corner threatening to rain on its Parade. It seemed then, as it does now, unfair to expect the quality of those halcyon days of the ‘80s to be repeated. After all, who could compare to those heady heights? And yet it was inevitable.
When I reviewed Art Official Age for that other outlet, I will admit, ten years later, to becoming swept up in the excitement and over inflating my “impartial” review to levels it hardly warranted. The question is, how much did I fall for the hype and accede to my fandom?
The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating and so the test of AOA is how often I’ve listened to it in the intervening time. In truth, it has been selected for my listening pleasure fairly infrequently over the last ten years, yet considerably more often than most offerings in the years from 1996 to 2014. 3121 (2006) had more than its fair share of high points and The Rainbow Children (2001)’s Jehovah’s Witness lyrics soiled a dynamic organic sound that had been missing in action for a while but AOA, saw more rotation than both of them.
It also marked the beginning of a new dawn of collaboration as he shared production duties with Joshua Welton (husband of Prince’s 3rdeyegirl bandmate, Hannah Welton). While some fans had cherished his control of production for years, others yearned for a fresh pair of ears to inject some vigor into the proceedings. Of course, they had envisaged someone noted and noteworthy, not some millennial they’d never heard of.
Listen to the Album:
How much Welton was responsible for, is lost in the mists of time, but it would be churlish not to admit to some reinvigoration between previous albums and AOA. It all kicks off with a typically bonkers Prince song in “Art Official Cage.” That its many tonal and stylistic shifts includes a Eurovision style dance-pop is not to be admired but there’s enough charm to it, to succeed on a slightly bewildering level.
That patchwork quilted beast of a song done with, things take a turn for the better. Despite the half-assed, ill-conceived concept of the artist being newly awakened from some kind of cryogenic suspension, much of what follows hits the right spots, despite the feeling that parts of the album follow a template set down over many years.
There’s the funk workout of “Gold Standard,” the distorted Camille-like vocals of ode to morning loving “Breakfast Can Wait,” and the popping bass and searing guitar solo of “Clouds.” Don’t confuse familiarity with contempt though, they are decent examples of their type but hardly push the envelope.
Elsewhere though, there are tunes that elevate Art Official Age beyond those less memorable years, or rather more precisely tunes and lyrics that elevate the pieces. Two lyrics in particular are as revealing as anything Prince had ever written. First up is “Breakdown.” To the accompaniment of a morose, slow-grinding funk groove and synthesized strings, he opens up in ways that he hadn’t always: “I used to throw the party at the New Year's Eve / First one intoxicated, last one to leave / Waking up in places that you would never believe / Give me back the time, you can keep the memories.”
That final line in particular hits like a hammer and gains even more poignancy in the aftermath of his premature passing. But it’s not just the winning combination of music and lyric, there is an extra twinge of regret and heartbreak in his delivery that floors you. It was one of the first songs that I listened to the morning after he had passed away, rather than one from his “golden era.” Safe to say that it produced the unseemly sight of a forty-year-old man shedding tears for a man he’d never met.
The second part of the redoubtable one-two is “Way Back Home.” After a honey-voiced spoken word introduction from Lianne La Havas, he embarks on another open-hearted reflection: “I’ve heard about those happy endings / but it’s still a mystery / Let me tell you about me / I’m happiest / when I can see / my way back home.” With supporting vocals from La Havas and Delilah, he floats over the dreamily wistful track, lacing his criminally underrated falsetto with a brittle fragility that pierces the hardest of hearts.
Elsewhere “U Know” slinks by seductively and “Funknroll” finds Prince doing an impression of Pharell doing an impression of Prince and making it sound as funky as you’d expect it to be.
All of which brings us to decision time. Was I right to laud Art Official Age upon its arrival or should it be consigned to the same faint but damning praise that can be draped across most post ’95 collections? On reflection, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it falls somewhere between the two. While it falls short of classic, must-have status, I believe it to be the best of the albums after he reclaimed his Princely moniker.
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AOA certainly ushered in changes. Changes to both his image and the people he collaborated with. It could also (with great sadness) be said to mark the beginning of his final era—a period that found him searching for challenges to entertain his “been there, done that” mind. Impromptu gigs announced on Twitter, mentoring an array of young musical talent (Lianne La Havas, Janelle Monáe, etc.) and allowing an unknown producer to take a hefty role in shaping material.
Of course, given his vault of legend, it will be many years until his final era truly ends. But when the repository is empty, hopefully Art Official Age will be looked on the same way by others that I do—an interesting, sterling effort that falls short of his best.
LISTEN: