The Gold Experience - Prince (CD 1995)

Over the course of Prince s 25 year, 3,000 (or at least it seems) album career, there have been many unheralded or underrated works. The 1995 Gold Experience is one of those works. Recorded and released while Prince was in the throes of a protracted legal dispute with Warner Brothers records, this album finds Prince presiding over his usual meld of rock, pop, soul and hip-hop, along with a clearly stated social conscience. On this album, he touches on everything from female liberation to civil rights to the politics of love and hate.

Prince s love affair with hip-hop can be traced as far back to 1982 s Irresistible Beeyotch , and the Purple One mixes rap into the Gold Experience with mixed results. P Control (the "P" stands for...well...you know) is the track that opens the album, and while Prince is definitely not an MC on par with rakim (he may not even be as good as Eric B. LOL), the lyrics make this song a keeper. While this track is one of the most raunchy things he s ever done (and that s saying a lot) at the song s core, is one of Prince s most decidedly pro-female sentiments ever. We March was co-written with Marvin Gaye s daughter Nona and is one of the most biting social commentaries he s ever written. Prince was obviously a child of the 60 s-70 s Civil Rights movement, and this song would ve fit right in at the height of that movement. Not to mention that it's great to finally see the man who lied to everyone at the beginning of his career by claiming to be mulatto acknowledge his blackness.

The Most Beautiful Girl in The World was a huge hit a year before this album came out, and it caused some controversy when Prince went outside of Warner and released this as a single on an independent label. Beautiful went on to become his biggest hit in three years, and further damaged the relationship between the artist and his label. Drama aside, this is one of the most straightforward love songs Prince has ever written, and is presented in a slightly remixed version here. Another song that gets a sort of re-release here is Shhh . This steamy ballad was written for teen star Tevin Campbell and appeared on his 1993 album I m Ready . Despite never being commercially released as a single (probably due to the fact that teenage Tevin should never have gotten away with singing lyrics like I d rather do you after school like some homework ), Tevin s version was a radio hit, and so was a live cover of it performed by Prince. Prince then rerecorded the sensuous slow jam and added it onto The Gold Experience . Let s just say that by virtue of Prince obviously being able to throw a little more emotional oomph (and believability) into the lyrics, his is the better version.

Other tracks on this album prove Prince s amazing versatility. Shy is a semi-acoustic narrative about a guy meeting a girl with some uh serious issues. Billy Jack Beeyotch rides a Fishbone sample and music that recalls the work Prince did with The Time. The track is a blistering indictment of an unnamed rival. Some say the song was directed towards Warner Brothers executives, others say it was a verbal volley in the direction of Michael Jackson, a longtime rival of Prince s who had been dissed on record by the Purple One before (the B-side Whom it May Concern ).

Dolphin is a tense rocker with one of the best guitar solos Prince has ever committed to tape, while the ballad I Hate U is a cinematic tale of a relationship in which the lines have been permanently blurred between love and hate. The track features a vaguely funny courtroom monologue by Prince tinged with his trademark naughty references (he alludes tohaving to use the rod and threatens to tie his love/hate to a bedpost).

The album concludes with the track Gold which warns against sacrificing your individuality for commercial gain. Obviously Prince was singing from personal experience here, and this arena-rock ballad is one of his best.

This album was easily Prince s best since 1987 s Sign O the Times , and he hasn t come close to topping it artistically since, although he would ve, had he pulled some of the filler from the 3-disc Emancipation set. The album does have a couple of drawbacks: a silly computer-based between-track narrative, and one too many throwaway sex songs, like the bluesy . For the most part, however, The Gold Experience is one worth embarking on.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Key tracks: "Shy", "Shhh...", "Dolphin"