Ranking Prince’s “official” ’90s albums

While it’s true he lost commercial propulsion after 1994, Prince/The Glyph’s nineties proved solid and often outstanding. Don’t regard this list as definitive. The Truth missed me, and I didn’t bother buying Rave Un2 the Fantastic when I had to look up how to spell it. 

1. The Gold Experience (1995)

The flouncy keyboard sound of the title track, and despite its surefire chorus and guitar histrionics it strains to reach the anthemic; yet it should’ve been a hit anyway. So should “Endorphinmachine.” Then again, polysyllabic and polymorphous Prince tracks like “Anotherloverholenyohead” have had trouble crossing over pop. Only “I Hate U” took, and its top fifteen position would’ve caused a scowl in the pre-Soundscan days. Yet The Gold Experience stands as The Glyph’s most rewarding Clinton-era album: for once when he encouraged hip-hop rhythms and performers he brought them to heel instead of allowing concessions (exception: “Billy Jack Bitch,” which I suppose he would’ve given to Tony M in 1991). “319,” “P Control,” the moronic-from-anyone-else “Dolphin” are at least good second-tier Glyph.

2. Emancipation (1996)

Used copies of this triple thing were once as ubiquitous as R.E.M.’s Monster or Liz Phair’s Whipsmart — misunderstood albums on the shoals of the decade’s boom-bust ethos. His most realized R&B album of the ’90s, Emancipation was a digital example of the most famous McLuhanism: it’s impossible to play Emancipation without programming it with a CD changer; it doesn’t work as a Spotify playlist despite my best efforts. And I don’t want a single-disc distillation — Emancipation demands excess. From the hidden corners come signs of life (the title track, “Joint 2 Joint,” “In This Bed I Scream”); the empathy of his cover song choices (“One of Us,” “Betcha by Golly, Wow”) point to a path he could’ve followed when his songwriting bored him, which was never, not when unknown masterpieces like “Soul Sanctuary” still poured out of him, a ballad as supple as “Adore.” I prefer it.

3. Graffiti Bridge (1990)

Because versions of these tracks floated around on bootleg during Dream Factory and Crystal Ball sessions, Graffiti Bridge sounds like a continuation — an attentuation, perhaps. No one mentions Graffiti Bridge much; even at the time Entertainment Weekly‘s ludicrous review struck absurd hyperbolic notes. But if like me you were just discovering Prince the “traditional” pleasures of songs like “Can’t Stop This Feelin’ I Got” did a lot to dispel the notion that “Batdance” was just a sonically adventurous variant on late eighties electro-R&B; no “real” drums, sure, but a traditional time signature with guitars and a voice that revealed little but its own exuberance at flexing its mastery of form. Something rote about the flexing, for sure: the title track and “Still Would Stand All Time” whimpered like other windbag manifestos I poo-pooed at the time like “Let It Be” or “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (maybe I owe Prince for my latent suspicion). The collaborations didn’t do much for me — except for “Release It,” The Time songs don’t pulverize like that summer’s pop comeback “Jerk Out” did; they sounded tentative, repressed, like George Harrison walking into a studio expecting to play with Paul McCartney. The most replayable dollops of fun are the electro-funk numbers in which he articulated an indefensible metaphor or choreographed in aural terms a scenario as abstruse as Graffiti Bridge the film itself: “Elephants and Flowers,” complete with no-nonsense chorus (“Strip down!”) and Adrian Belew-esque guitar squeals; “Tick, Tick, Bang,” replete with more weird multi-tracked vocals; and the languid, slightly frightening “Joy in Repetition,” which can’t decide whether to explode into “Purple Rain”-style power ballad catharsis or mumble minor-key gnomic truths like what I’d later hear in “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker.”

4.Come (1994)

I look at my copy and, “Letitgo” “”Pheromone” excepted, I can’t connect titles and hooks. Doesn’t matter — when it’s blasting, especially in a car, it’s a thumper. Excellent example of obtrusive background music.

5. Chaos & Disorder (1996

In which he plays the hell out of his guitar (“Zannalee”), especially good when playing against a horn section (“Right the Wrong”). “I Rock, Therefore I Am” is as sullen and defensive as 1992’s “My Name is Prince.” And “Space,” as cognizant of its use of, uh, space as any track from the mid ’80s, begat no heirs, alas.

6. Love Symbol (1992)

The mostly embarrassing Diamonds and Pearls got him his R&B audience again, plus more than one requisite top ten pop hit. Love Symbol consolidated the gains and in some cases exacerbated the weaknesses: the rapping in the well-named “Arrogance” huffs and puffs without blowing the house down (The Glyph had learned nothing from the previous album’s “Jughead”); first single “Sexy MF” is the least sexy motherfucking single of the nineties. Yet the Kirstie Alley narration and rock opera concept don’t annoy me like they should; The Glyph was trying again, unafraid to step on a rake. On “And God Created Woman,” the light reggae (and far from humiliating) of “Blue Light,” and “7,” he steps on clouds of pink cashmere. My keeper: “The Morning Papers,” its conversational cadences as earned as the employment of the brass section (lovely lyric: “If he poured his heart into a glass/And offered it like wine”).