Music Review / Prince - HitnRun (Phase One)
Let’s be honest straight off
the bat: this album was rather a surprise for many people. Even for us uber
Prince followers at SRCZ it took a visit to our local record store to discover
it had been released. Small wonder when it was released exclusively by Jay Z’s
new music streaming service Tidal early in September. Industry obsessive aside,
you probably weren’t in on this exclusive from the outset. And that's a pity in some ways.
But in said vagaries of
release there is joy. (Joy in repetition, one might say.) Seemingly throwing
aside his reunion with Warner Bros that saw the superlative Plectrum Electrum
and Art Official Age through to release in 2014, this is an NPG Records release
at heart. From the gloriously eclectic production from RnB producer Joshua
Welton to the glut of previously released on digital format and/or re-versioned
tracks it’s a joy to listen to even if it is the equivalent of one of the side projects of the Eighties done for the beautiful hell of it.
That said, there is nothing
on HitnRun to be ashamed of and it is far from a filler despite not being an
obvious replacement for any of the classic albums so many rightfully rave about
to this day. Rather, this record says ‘I’m an artist and I can do shit. Go
listen’ Released via an artist lead project such as Tidal it can only be so and
that’s a fine thing. But is it any good, you might ask. The simple answer is
funk, yeah! The unrelenting electro party funk vibe is a key element here and
it keeps the flow admirably. Throw in a few guests such as Judith Hill, Rita
Ora and more to the groove and you can seriously see one of those famously full
stages in your mind’s eye.
Key tracks include the
wonderful archive song 1000 X’s & O’s (originally a Rosie Gaines track),
RnB stomper Ain’t About To Stop featuring Rita Ora and the noodling about
groove that is Mr Nelson. There’s even an amped up rework of This Could Be Us, improving
it only slightly but making it work more intrinsically in the mix to great
effect. As a whole though the album works perfectly as an extended groove of
the like that Prince can seemingly throw out with a perfectly natural ease. The
Purple Rain might not fall absolutely but HitnRun is nothing for anyone,
including the Purple Yoda himself, to be ashamed of.
(C.Agent.)