Prince made the statement of a future of death and despair 17 years before. “2000 zero-zero, party it’s out of time.” Things had changed from 1982 to the “year of the party” of 1999.
Prince himself had to go through changes in his music as well, from the masterpieces he made to commercial missteps he had to live down. Changes in style, changes in life course, change in names, a true commitment to a new level of spirituality. Rave unto the joy fantastic.
Prince came through his emancipation from Warner Bros. to freely create his music without parameters. But to build on his name and create another gateway into pop music, the then-Artist released the Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic album. While only a one-album release for mass distribution with Arista and NPG, Rave attempted to (yet again) make Prince a major figure in the world of popular music.
The album starts with “Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic” a simple-enough-yet-funky intro track that sets the tone for the entire album, but it more appropriately introduces the second track “Undisputed.” Undisputed is the first of much collaboration on Rave, as Chuck D lends his rap vocals to the track, yelling out throughout the song “undisputed!” This is basically, a promotion of his undisputable purple reign on the industry. Then “The Greatest Romance Ever Sold”, Prince’s commercial single for the album. It is probably one of the weakest songs on the album, but still had a good radio vibe for the time.
The segue goes into the funky club track “Hot Wit U” which features the then-Ruff Ryders “pit-bull in a skirt” Eve. The thumping bass, the melodic keyboard notes, and Prince’s flirtatious requests for ambitious sex make for a great listen on the album. Updated Prince sound with a classic Prince theme. Then comes the masterful “Tangerine”, a sweet falsetto song about feeling blue in light of the absence of a former lover. He sings:
Some days I feel tangerine
Some days I feel blue
Some days I just wanna black out everything I felt 4 U
Even though I take your picture everywhere I go
I use it 4 a coaster and drink the overflow…
Some days I feel tangerine
Some days I miss U, 2
The candidness of the song and the beautiful sound of Prince’s voice makes one recant the sounds of the Prince from For You and the self-titled album. Easily one of the best little love ditties that Prince has written, which then was followed by another great track in “The Sun, The Moon & Stars”. Sun has Prince comparing his and his partner’s love to the beauty and distance of the aforesaid celestial sights. It’s funky, it’s powerful, it’s elegant, it’s crafty, it’s Prince. As a signature song goes, he moves from his natural baritone to his head voice with ease. The sexy, hyperbolic Prince makes a lasting and final impression on the song, using climatic seasons to tell of his partner’s orgasmic pleasure:
Bouncing on the summer spring and when U start 2 fall
U’ll come like the cold winter do in Montreal
“So Far, So Pleased” is a rocked-out jam with No Doubt, with Prince sharing lead vocals with the beautiful and talented Gwen Stefani. Electric guitars moan and yell throughout and more an instrumentation of electric intercourse than anything, which is great because hearing Prince on guitar is always a great treat. Moving on to “Everyday Is A Winding Road”, another collaboration that has Prince shares the limelight with Ms. Lance Armstrong herself, Sheryl Crow. It is, again, a pop-rock song that with a female vocalist, but with history, as Crow herself made the song a hit years before the re-recording with Mr. Nelson. While nice to listen to, maybe dance along to, Crow actually did a better job with her prior rendition, sans Prince, but it’s still a decent listen.
(To be honest, of all the Prince albums that have been recorded and released, with the exception of any three-track sequence on the Purple Rain album, Tangerine-So Far So Pleased-The Sun, The Moon & Stars has to rival as one of the best three songs in sequential order that Prince has compiled together.)
Prince then screams and pleads with his lover in a one-man shout fest in “Man O’ War”, descriptively emoting his displeasure with non-peaceful disputes. “Why you screamin’? U know I’m not a man of war”, Prince recants. “Baby Knows” follows with Prince lusting after the “long dark legs”, “the butt that go ’round” and “white girls, black girls, Latinas-oh so pretty”! The Purple One then takes to the keys of a piano, giving his audience arguably the best song of the album and probably an instant classic ballad in “I Love U, But I Don’t Trust U Anymore”. His beautiful voice conveys the sadness and melancholy of being in an incomplete emotional relationship, filled with lies and hurt feelings, love and lack of trust, and trust and lack of love. What makes this song so touching and so moving isn’t just his lyrics (which alone can bring a person to feelings of blue), but the way makes the piano seemingly talk. Gentle, yet strong chord arrangements and the soft, grand style with which Prince plays are another set of strong points on I Love U.
From there, our dear Prince proceeds to the flute-immersed “Silly Game”, singing of the all-too-familiar disbelief in finding his lover having played childish games with his love. “Strange But True” is Prince’s honest admission of finding himself immersed in negativity, and then later, his finding of truth from The Creator, chanting “strange but true, let’s see what you can do”. The final track is actually tri-fold, masquerading as the single track “Wherever U Go, Whatever U Do”, an NPG promotion of his merchandise and music, and then a sax selection by Maceo Parker in the hidden track “Pretty Man”.
All in all, Rave is a good album. Of course, some songs are stronger than others, but there are classic Prince songs on this disc. The sound of the album is bit more pop than maybe the die-hard Prince “friend” would prefer (especially with the collaborations), but then again, one of his specialties is to appeal to the masses as a pop artist among other things (though, Arista did an inadequate job of promoting the Rave album, seemingly setting the emphasis on The Greatest Romance…, which was an inferior song compared to others on the album). The then-Artist proved that he could still make good, funky, pop music that was still relevant to the times of 1999. By comparison, the album is up on the top half of his 33 released album, so if it’s not had, go get it. A revitalized Prince with a refreshing funk-rock sound joined by incantations of sensitivity? Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic is a sign that not all that much had changed from 1982 to 1999, except that instead of chanting the death of the future, Prince chose to celebrate his life and his music instead. Rave unto the joy fantastic.
