Rare, primarily

There are reasons to write about this album. The man’s music pops up 129 times on my Discogs collection list. It’s the first one he published after getting back to calling himself Prince. And it’s the most valuable album I own.

There are reasons not to write about it too. It may have been considered as an important one by Prince himself, but it’s easy to see why it’s not really mentioned in many people’s list of top ten Prince albums. And it’s so deeply religious that even die-hard fans will admit that it’s a little too much.

As with most valuable vinyl, this album isn’t expensive because it’s so good. It’s just really rare. And any Prince fan that has a copy would probably sell their grandma before putting it up for sale.

By the time this album was released in 2001, the endless battle with Warner had already done its damage. Most of what had been published in the second half of the 90s didn’t have the power to uphold his status as global superstar, and when he switched back from being The Artist Formerly Known As Prince to actually being Prince, not too many people cared much anymore.

I kind of did, though, and I still bought most of what came out. The “Crystal Ball” 5 CD box, “Musicology”, “The Vault”, even the “Interactive” game CD. Truth be told, though – the albums didn’t get all too much air time at home. It’s not that I didn’t like them. Even on a bad day, the man made more enjoyable music than most musicians in their finest hour. It just wasn’t as captivating as his earlier work, and a lot of what he did was primarily relevant in his own world.

But I had to have it, for myself, but also as my little contribution to supporting his fight against Warner and his subsequent independence. I saw him live four times, twice at the height of stardom, twice in the 2010s, and I find it hard to say which live era I enjoyed more. But somehow I tend to lean towards the more stripped-down performances of the later years, with Montreux 2013 being the absolute highlight.

Did I follow what was going on in Prince’s life in the early 2000s? Not really. Just prior to this album he had become a Jehovah’s Witness, something that totally eluded me, even back then, even after listening to this album full of religious messages.

For “The Rainbow Children”, most critics split their verdict between the music and the message. For good reason. It sounds so well. Great musicians, a beautiful spread of musical styles, sometimes even in one and the same track, lots of space to let every member of the ensemble shine – and then there is this slowed-down voice of a narrator that keeps turning what could be a great concert into a religious audio play, sometimes extensively, in the case of “Digital Garden” a good third of the four minutes playing time.

But there are moments when all of that stays in the background and the funk takes over. “The Work Pt. 1” is super funky stuff, like a more Gospel-based clean alternative to “Sexy MF”. Just skip the last forty seconds, and the thickly applied soulfulness of “Everywhere”. A few minutes later the enlightenment course takes a break for one of the more formidable sexual ballads, steamy enough to let the narrator keep his mouth shut.

The strangest moments are when both worlds clash. “1+1=3” sounds like Princed polished a track originally written for The Time, but it’s been repurposed to tell us that “there’s a theocratic order now”. A what? Such a fine party tune, theoretically. Skip the next two short tracks as well. More narrative and theatrical weirdness that really doesn’t help the album.

The second half of the album is dominated by three tracks with playing times of eight minutes and more. The first one, “Family Name” is a nicely funky affair that would be just fine if it weren’t for the dorky computer voices simulating some kind of digital learning session. The topic of the track (race, origin, identity) is important, the message as well – the staging of it feels awkward.

It works slightly better in “The Everlasting Now” – yes, it’s another tune that sounds like pre-1999 Prince that is tweaked to transport the message of God, and yes, there is another section with that weird narrator, but otherwise it’s a great musical excursion featuring almost Santana-like passages and party chants that make you want to go back to “Housequake” and other iconic dance tunes. The last two minutes are the highlight of this album.

“Last December” is partly a sibling of “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World”, partly a powerful and rock-funky instrumental jam, and yes, partly a religious song that can be seen as doing missionary work. I’m sure that every deeply religious person will be convinced by the power of not only the music but of the message as well. His fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses will have been very appreciative.

An album like this, right after the years that gradually took Prince out of the limelight, and at the start of being Prince again… It’s obvious that it wasn’t meant to bring him back to fame. Other things were more important, and the man didn’t just emancipated himself from the corporate music world, he also disconnected with the expectations that come with stardom. Independence was all-important.

In one of the more extensive interviews he gave during those years, he was asked if he wasn’t disappointed that his albums aren’t selling in the dozens of millions anymore, and he just smiled and shrugged. Economically, he said, that’s not necessary at all. He owned it all, including the right to publish whatever he wanted whenever he felt like it.

So what if some folks don’t like this album. So what if it didn’t really convince the critics. We know what happened in the years that followed. He gracefully progressed from superstar to legend. Just look at the Montreux concerts. Claude Nobs, the founder of the festival, had died, and it was Prince who contacted them to offer condolences, and to play that year to support them. Three sold-out nights and a legendary homage to Claude at the end of Purple Rain. That’s what remains.

Release for review:
PRINCE – THE RAINBOW CHILDREN – NPG RECORDS – 70004

The vinyl version on Discogs: Click
Get the CD version: Click