Supercute single (2001) /The Chocolate Invasion (2004)
Underneath the Cream… Cream, get on top… As a soy-milk drinker, Prince seems strangely concerned about your location in relation to dairy products. Unless he means… oh my! Nobody tell Larry. Underneath the Cream takes its title from a line in Hot Wit U and nestles within a trio of XXX songs on The Chocolate Invasion. The smooth, succulent centre of an early-noughties, naughty hat-trick. Also add the raw intimacy of opening track When Eye Lay My Hands On U and unexpectedly you have Prince’s raunchiest album since Come. The lyrics of Underneath the Cream are certainly graphic but the soft-as-silk seduction slinks along like butter wouldn’t melt. The music even veers towards blandness at times, quietly inoffensive like hotel-room art, but at 1:45 the synth strings swell, the song transcends to another plane and suddenly we’re astral wingsuit-flying with Hypnos and Eros. A “wet dream eternal” you’ll never wish to wake from.
