The third eye of Prince

“I saw the future, and it is coming,” Rogers Nelson sang in the very beginning of the nineties. And it was more than bravado. In the 1980s, the prince was not only a fragmented pop-ease that performed in golden camisales: he was a pop chief who recorded futuristic music, whose echoes are heard in the hit parades. Classic albums of Prince - “1999”, “Sign O ' The Times ” and “ LovesExy ” - they will never be outdated, which can not be said about the records of other MTV heroes of the same time.

In the nineties, reformatting the musical industry to the ground, the prince got the role of the visionary-revolutionary-a kind of neo who unleashed the war with the matrix. The musician, before, who was fighting for freedom, then only for the sexual, joined the Warner Brothers , which seemed to be a unequal battle with the label-giant label, with which he was associated with perennial contract obligations. The prince rebelled against the restriction of his creative freedom and fought for copyright-he refused his own behalf, releasing albums under the famous “love symbol”, or even without identification marks, tore the promotional campaigns initiated by the label, went with the inscription “slave” on his face. By 1996, the “artist, previously known as Prince” got rid of a hated contract with Warner , noted this case by releasing the three-disc album “Emancipation” from the competitors, on which he shook the shackles from his hands, and began to experiment with alternative methods for delivering his music to fans. Thus, he anticipated the offensive of the zero, in which these practices had to engage in everyone without exception - from superstars to independent and little -known musicians.

In 1997, 10 years before Radiohead , Prince tried to independently sell his album via the Internet-and failed, because then the World Wide Web was still a curiosity for the masses. In 2001, he launched an online project NPG Music Club , in which subscribers received access to exclusive audio and video content for a monthly fee: popular streaming services are currently working from Spotify to Yandex. Musics according to a similar model. When the prince finally lost faith in the fact that new music can be effectively sold, he began to distribute it in packs. The Album " Musicology " (2004) went to the ticket for the concert of the grandiose tour-revolution (and became the most successful plate since the time of " Diamonds & Pearls " (1991)). Planet CD Earth " (2007) attached to the most popular British tabloid Mail on Sunday , and the 20Ten album (2010) was complete with four international publications. At the same time, the prince remained one of the most large -scale and successfully concert artists of the United States and thereby led a strong foundation for the thesis that became a common place that in the 21st century, musicians should earn a living not by albums, but in tour.

If, according to the actions of the prince, as on the barometer, to predict the changing weather in the record-industry, then they became frighteningly contradictory-the arrow was vile, only a storm is approaching.

In the 2010s, when the musicians believed that it was possible to live without labels, directly contacting their fans through the Internet, Prince, which had been the icebreaker at the head of the column for decades, suddenly turned back. At first, he shocked the public with statements that the Internet was spent and that iTunes would no longer see his songs until he begins to pay. And then, almost twenty years after the inscription “Slave” on the cheek, he returned to the Warner record-giant record, signing a contract for the release of new albums and reprinting the old material. If, according to the actions of the prince, as on the barometer, to predict the changing weather in the record-industry, then they became frighteningly contradictory-the arrow was vile, only a storm is approaching.

On the cover of the new plate " Art Official Age ” , recorded for Warner , you can’t also look without nervous thoughts of the future-the prince appears on it with a hairstyle from the 70s and in dark glasses with three glasses, one of which covers the area of ​​the third eye. Honestly, slightly alarming; However, the design of the covers has traditionally been the weakest place of the records of the Patriot Minneapolis. The album begins with the phrase “Welcome home, class” and then tries to tell the story of Mr. Prince Rogers Nelson, who woke up after 40 years of cryogenic sleep in a world where there are no words such as “me” and “mine”. At the same time, the plot is " Art Official Age ” follows the logic of a dream - he is not too binding and slightly insane, which is absolutely in the style of an eccentric musician who continues the high tradition of African American frirism, laid down San Ra and James Brown.

From the point of view of sound, the future in which the prince looks at " Art Official Age ” , mirrored his own past-over the past decade, he has not yet released records, so accurately reproducing his nominal gold standard of the 1980s: testosterone electrophanes and voluptuous Souls, repeatedly multiplied by virtuoso execution and slightly adapted to the current mods of master's sound dodes. It seems that Prince got a python suitcase somewhere with his drafts from the 1980s and decided to give the old sketches a new life, thereby preparing the fans for the series of anniversary reprints of their archives, which are about to begin with Purple Rain " . On " Art Official Age " even has its own " Purple Rain ” - recorded with the same intensity and frenzy of the Breakdown ballad , one of the best songs that Prince performed in the 21st century. The impression is slightly spoiled only the first track " Art Official Cage ” , sounding as if the record-bers forced“ his purple highness ”to copy Farrell Williams, forgetting that this actually Williams copies Prince.

But this is unlikely - you can’t force Prince. He returned to Warner office The winner, having imposed on the record-managers their own conditions. As evidence that the winners are not judged, along with “ Art Official Age ” came out another plate marked with his name, - old -fashioned by the guitars “ plectrumelectrum ” . It is recorded by Prince along with his next protege-the female Rock-Trio 3rdeyegirl , which has recently accompanied him on tour. At the Plectrumelectrum, a 56-year-old artist who has retained youthful flexibility shows that he is a demigod not only behind the remote control in the studio, but also during a furious jam-and that in the play on the electric guitar he was not equal, well, perhaps Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santan and Sly Stone. Technically impeccable “plectrumelectrum” would make an honor to any novice group, but in some places it sounds like a collection of automatic writing. Periodically you catch yourself on the feeling that in front of you is not a self -prime album, but a record of a brilliant, but gaitar game session Hero . However, this is also explainable: if “ art Official Age ” is a triumphal arch, a gift of prince on the occasion of Victory to devoted fans, then “ PLECTRUMELECTRUM ” is a trophy on the arch, a gift to himself and girls from 3rdeyegirl , and let the loser pay the account - Warner .

However, no matter how the prince plays the soothsayer, after " art Official Age ” and “ PLECTRUMELECTRUM ” should be admitted that he had once seen the future, but now he was already tired of the prophecies, revolutions and the shocks they caused. He returned home - to his favorite music, he is ready to forget in her arms a cryogenic dream.

Sleep, eye, sleep, another.