Extolling the virtues of the funk he grew up with, Prince name checks James Brown, Sly and The Family Stone, and Earth, Wind & Fire as he kicks вЂњold school joints for true funk soldiers.вЂќ Part celebration of the past, part review of the current state of musical play, вЂњMusicologyвЂќ houses a funky bass and guitar hook against a solid groove designed to shift feet and raise spirits. The title track is a tour de funky force with Prince establishing his вЂњreal musicвЂќ ethos. Several months later when the album dropped, those t-shirt lyrics and seemingly obscure inclusions now had a funky context to be laid within. During these shows Prince would drop вЂњLife вЂOвЂ™ The PartyвЂќ and вЂњOn The CouchвЂќ into the set list. My first exposure to Musicology came during PrinceвЂ™s 2003 Greatest Hits tour of Australia where merch was emblazoned with the lyrics to the unheard title track. Backed with his finely tuned New Power Generation in their umpteenth incarnation, Prince was putting the focus back on вЂњreal music played by real musicians.вЂќ Granted, much like Diamonds and Pearls many years before it, Musicology was a little more of a concerted effort by Prince to remind a wider audience just how good he is. This was very much the case in 2004 when Prince released Musicology and toured heavily in support of it. So it would come to be that any time Prince released an album of wider appeal and commercial success it was always deemed as his вЂњcomeback.вЂќ

We loved Prince being applauded for his genius and we enjoyed seeing his hits make an impact on the musical landscape, but we also loved the lesser-known output and almost reveled in its obscurity. People knew the Purple Rain album, they knew the Diamonds and Pearls album, but they were less familiar with albums like The Rainbow Children or N.E.W.S.ДЄnd for the purest of purple heads, that was kind of how we liked it. But with this constant stream of music came a wax and wane of popularity in the general public. Like funky clockwork, a new purple offering would appear almost annually (and sometimes more frequently) for you to devour and immerse yourself in. Happy 15th Anniversary to PrinceвЂ™s twenty-eighth studio album Musicology, originally released April 20, 2004.ДЄs a Prince fan, you were always spoiled with music.

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