Happy 15th Anniversary to Prince’s thirty-second studio album Planet Earth, originally released July 15, 2007.
When you love an artist such as Prince, his expansive catalogue can sometimes be overwhelming when it comes time to picking your favorite album—or favorite era—to listen to. Of course, there are the keystone moments of his career with the breakthrough of 1999 (1982), the domination of Purple Rain (1984), the opus delivery in Sign O’ The Times (1987), through to his re-emergence in popular consciousness with Musicology (2004).
And then there are those albums that, for whatever reason, just don’t quite hit in the way they should. To be fair, Prince’s hits far outweigh his misses, and even his misses are albums other artists would clamor for. But Prince wasn’t any other artist. From his debut, he set the bar high and for the majority of his career he delivered albums that would hook a listener in while also pushing them into new experiences with little purple experiments in sound or direction.
Which is what makes those missteps in 7-inch heels even more glaring. Rightly or wrongly, with each new Prince release, expectations were high. Following Prince’s return to mainstream success with the hit friendly Musicology and lush follow up 3121 (2006), it was as though Prince was back into the swing of consistently releasing inspired albums that were keenly focused and more accessible to the masses. Both of these albums served as reminders of why you fell in love with Prince the first time.
Sadly, Planet Earth didn’t reinforce that connection. Released in 2007 and given away in the UK as a covermount for The Mail on Sunday, the album served as a cornerstone for his upcoming 21 Nights residency at London’s O2 arena, but not much else.
With its 3121 callbacks both lyrically and on the album artwork, Planet Earth ends up feeling like a hurried collection of songs from the vault than a truly worthy follow-up.
Again, it’s not to say that Planet Earth doesn’t have its worthy moments. Tracks like the riff-heavy rock of “Guitar,” or the rock-bop of “The One U Wanna C” with all its “When You Were Mine” heritage help keep the album vibrant, and the funk groove party jam of “Chelsea Rodgers” pulls you back into the purple realm. Packed with energy, “Chelsea Rodgers” struts like the model on the runway it references, with horn blasts going off like photographers’ flashes. Add in the smooth tones of the seductive “Future Baby Mama” and these are the moments when the album shines.
But these glimmers are few and far between, with the album weighed down by an artist stretching himself too thin. Album opener “Planet Earth” is Prince in rock-opera mode, but it just doesn’t quite land the way he hoped, as if he is trying a little too hard to show his musical prowess as both a composer and performer. The slower ballad “Somewhere Here on Earth” stays this side of saccharine (just) but doesn’t connect, and “Mr. Goodnight” is just too cringe to be taken seriously—as ardently as Prince tries.
Elsewhere “All the Midnights in the World” feels undercooked and more suited to a ‘70s MOR release, and album closers “Lion of Judah” and “Resolution” pass without making any long-lasting impact. And as the album winds up you feel a little deflated—perhaps for the first time in a long time—by the whole album experience.
As a follow up to Musicology and 3121, Planet Earth just pales in comparison. It’s always hard to listen to a Prince album without his back catalogue playing in your mind, but sadly I think people discovering Prince for the first time on this album wouldn’t be that interested in seeing what he came up with next. Harsher critics argued the reason he gave it away for free was because it wasn’t worth much, but from a strategic point of view it probably served its purpose and that was to get people to be aware he was still making music and head on out to the shows. Sadly, it probably left them wanting to hear more from Prince’s canon and less from the then-current offering.
Coming back to revisit Planet Earth, it has its moments, but they are too sporadic. And it becomes a somewhat forgettable album in his vast catalogue that has you wondering if his prolific drive for a new release every year or so could have done with some quality control that cared less about the marking of time and more about the excellence of the output.
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Controversy (1981) | Parade (1986) | Diamonds and Pearls (1991)
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