Sign 'O' The Times Albany OR

Sign 'O' The Times

Prince

Paisley Park, 1987

REVIEW BY: Sean McCarthy

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 12/22/1997

[READ THIS FIRST.]

Hard to believe, but Prince actually had the odds stacked up against him in 1987. U2 and Bruce Springsteen had critics digging through their thesaurus to find words to substitute "brilliant" and "classic". Prince had his own problems when he couldn't release his three-disc set, Crystal Ball that year. And, with the intense focus on the emergence of crack, AIDS and the deterioration of many inner city areas, "Let's Go Crazy" wasn't the choicest of songs to sing.

Throw these three elements together and add a lineup change and you've got a helluva creative canvas to work from. Listening to Sign 'O' The Times ten years later, it's hard to believe the entire album is a compromise. Narrowed down to a "double album", the album was one of the Artist's final works that put him on par with James Brown. (Note to internet fans: Crystal Ball is finally available to buy from the Artist's web site, just have $50 or $60 to spare.)

With each disc lasting about 40 minutes, Sign 'O' The Times is an album that feels far from a double set. The Revolution begins its exit on Sign 'O' The Times, capping a decade of work for Prince, making some of the funkiest music in Prince's career. The New Power Generation may be capable of creating beats as grooving as The Revolution, but they have yet to match the depth that band members Wendy and Lisa added to Prince's legacy. Their work on "Slow Love" and "Strange Relationship" provide for some of the strongest tracks on Sign 'O' The Times.