Princefams.com - Prince News and Pictures

Natalie Finn Natalie Finn – Wed Dec 31, 10:36 pm ET
Los Angeles (E! Online) – With plans like these, who has time to party like it's 1999?

Prince says he is releasing three albums—likely through an exclusive deal with a major retailer—in 2009, including an electro-pop effort tentatively titled MPLSOUND and Lotus Flower, tracks from which were featured on L.A. indie station 103.1 FM this year.

He has been experimenting with "new ways of recording," the quirky Purple One told the Los Angeles Times in a recent interview at his Hollywood Hills home, during which he also talked up new tunes by his protégé, Bria Valente, and mentioned that he didn't vote in November because of his religion.

Meaning, Prince said, he didn't cast a ballot for Barack Obama, nor officially come out on either side of Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban that controversially passed last month.

"I have friends that are gay and we study the Bible together," Prince, who's been a Jehovah's Witness for most of the last decade, said in reference to some remarks he made about gay marriage in a November New Yorker interview.

Remarks that made some people wonder whether the dapper rock star wasn't quite so liberal as his eyeliner and frock coats would have us believe.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/2009010 … b_eo/77166

Los Angeles’ rock radio station Indie 103 was “summoned” to go up to Prince’s home this past week to preview his new album. According to the station’s “Mr. Shovel,” Prince doesn’t have a record label and “wants nothing to do with record labels, so he’s meeting with people to figure out how to operate at his level without a record label.” Following a long conversation with the Purple Rain star, the radio reps were played the new album in Prince’s home entertainment theatre. “It’s heavy, rockin’, and our enthusiasm was immediate,” Mr. Shovel said. Prince then said the station could preview a few of the new songs on Indie 103, so that’s where were we today at 3 p.m.

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The album kicks off with an explosive, four-minute instrumental before launching into the first song that was played on the radio… Prince covering Tommy James & the Shondells’ “Crimson & Clover,” with the Purple One altering the lyrics as he’s been known to do during his cover performances. Keeping with the original, the vocals sound like Prince is submerged under water. Things deviate at the chorus, however, as Prince belts out the “ooh baby, I think I love you” part of Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady.”

“Colonized Mind” was the second song played. Another laid-back guitar joint, it seems like Prince’s intention on this album is to make people stop dancing and just chill. More aquatic layering on Prince’s voice as he sings politicized lyrics with lyrics along the lines of “Did you know your record deal was another way for ‘The Man’ to steal.” Yeah, we don’t think Prince wants anything to do with record labels. The guitar solo is killer, out-guitaring the entirety of Planet Earth’s “Guitar,” before the chorus returns.

“Wall of Berlin” was the third song played. Again, more guitar virtuosity by Prince. If he’s aiming to make an album similar to Side C of Electric Ladyland, he’s off to a good start. The songs also sound more intimate, like the Artist recorded these songs without any Revolution and New Power Generation behind him. “4ever” is the ballad, with Prince busting out the piano before being joined by backup singers. It’s not “Free,” “Ballad of Dorothy Parker” or “Sometimes It Snows In April,” but it’s still a solid, latter-day Prince slow dance as he ruminates about marriage and being with someone, well, 4ever.

And that’s all we get. For now, at least. Again, according to the DJs, Prince’s new album is finished and he’s just looking for a non-record label vessel in which to release it. We’ll keep you posted in what promises to be a busy year for Prince.

Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/i … n-the-way/