Every week, we round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. Today’s entry is Prince’s Planet Earth, which hits stores in the U.S. tomorrow:
- “A whack to the right part of the machine, and his next whole album could be as hot as “Mr. Goodnight” and “Black Sweat” and, I don’t know, “Cinnamon Girl”. As it is, though, he’s firmly settled in a stylistic niche that’s delivering diminishing returns– and what made him great in the first place is that he never settled down anywhere for long.” (4.8) [Pitchfork]
- “According to Prince, we still have wars because most of us secretly want them. That’s a rare perspective from this seldom contrary writer. How nice to know that, 30 years into his career, Prince can still keep those little surprises coming.” [NY Daily News]
- “So Planet Earth spins, all right. But so far into his career, and with edgy producer-auteurs such as Timbaland and Pharrell littering the charts, this album isn’t the heavyweight genius knockout blow we were expecting from the artist formerly known as seminal.” [Observer]
Question: why is it that, unlike most other fields, we still expect the same quality of output from rock mucisians as they age? Granted, it’s never wise to read too deeply into Pitchfork, but the dude’s 50. Just because he was mercurial and shape-shifting back when he was in his 20s does not mean he won’t calcify a bit as, y’know, THE NATURAL AGING PROCESS takes over.
His last album(3121) was a solid release. Universal didn’t promote it, despite it debuting as number 1. This album is pretty boring, but he might be aiming for soft R & B airplay, which he’s already getting.