Lovesexy (1988)


  
1. Eye No 2. Alphabet Street 3. Glam Slam 4. Anna Steisia 5. Dance On 6. Love Sexy 7. When 2 R in Love 8. I Wish You Heaven 9. Positivity

 

This is one of those albums that suffers from the “spoiled teenager” syndrome. Let me explain: If you have a teenager that’s exposed to an incredible amount of wealth and privilege his entire life, he probably won’t be that grateful if he receives a brand new car on his 16th birthday. He’d probably yawn, mutter a grunt of “thanks”, and go back to being bored. The reason I’m using this analogy is that, if you’re a fan of the musician Prince, you probably felt just like this when this album came out in 1988. It seems as though every time one turned around in the 1980s, there would be another sensational Prince album that was released. So when the eighth or ninth one comes out so quickly after the last one, one tends to yawn, mutter a grunt of “thanks”, and go back to being bored.

In other words, had this album came out when it did, but Prince had not released anything else since, say 1984, I’m willing to bet it would have received a lot more accolades than it did. To be fair, it’s not quite up to the standards as his best, but it’s still a very powerful record. It probably didn’t help that, like many other times in Prince’s history, this one had a bit of a background. Apparently, he was all set to release a completely different album called The Black Album, yet at the last minute (after promotional copies had been pressed and sent out), Prince had some sort of epiphany that the record was “evil” and quickly replaced it with this group of tunes that was apparently much more happy, joyful and upbeat.

This record definitely does have an overall blissful feel about it, yet I’ve always been one of those that always struggled with telling that much of a difference between the “Saint” Prince and the “Sinner” Prince. It further confused those in the know when the most innocent, sweetest thing on here, the ballad When 2 R in Love was the only thing that survived the supposedly evil The Black Album.

Still, though, a very positive album. At times the instrumentation seems rather cluttered, but cluttered in a good way – all sorts of effects, instruments, noises and background singers accompany the tracks. Highlights include the hit single Alphabet Street, Glam Slam (my favorite cut here), the far too short I Wish You Heaven and the straightforward Anna Stesia.

The rest of the album falls between “ok”, and “very good” with only a couple of spots where a song might feel a bit tired and/or monotonous. It’s really a shame that this record didn’t quite get the attention that it deserved, though. It’s almost as people viewed this album as it what it was not (i.e. The Black Album), as opposed to what it was, which was a very high caliber album filled with some great music.

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