Musicology (2004)
This high-altitude mountain flower is delicate yet hardy, able to withstand the cold, hard frost of repeated exposure. Intricately arranged and improving with age, like the rest of Musicology it takes time to get its hooks in. It’s also one of many songs on the album concerned with marriage, featuring Prince playing the part of a wedded man knocking back the advances of somebody else’s wife. A position he doesn’t exactly stick to on the next two songs where he wants to orchestrate a break-up so he can swoop in amid a flurry of gifts. The lyrics may be noble but the music suggests an imbalance in thought and deed. Gentle and airy guitars grace a tightly coiled Linn beat, creating a tension between calm composure and twisted, distorted agitation. The music Bebel Gilberto would play if she was being slowly dragged down under the Earth’s crust by subterranean brambles, silently watched by a koala bear with fire in its eyes.