LotusFlow3r

Left to his own devices, Prince will indulge in his peculiar vice of releasing triple-albums. He celebrated his freedom from Warner with Emancipation, following that with another triple-disc in Crystal Ball, which just happened to be the provisional title of the scrapped three-LP iteration of 1987’s Sign o’ the Times, he had a triple-live set in 2002, and now he’s navigating the rough waters of online distribution and exclusive contracts with big box retailers in 2009 with another triple-disc set called LotusFlow3r. Technically, one of the three discs here isn’t a Prince album: Elixer is the debut of Bria Valente, the latest in a long line of sultry soul protégés. Many of Prince’s hand-picked singers have been largely ignored even by his loyalists since about 1987, so Prince pushes Bria by bundling her record with his own LotusFlow3r and MPLSound, even going so far as to list Elixer first among the three on the back of the CD’s slim cardboard sleeve. This attempt at old-fashioned star-making might have worked if Bria Valente had a smidgeon of star charisma, but she’s merely a pleasantly breathy crooner, slipping easily into Prince’s shimmering, quiet storm production. Her slight personality shifts the spotlight to Prince’s versatility, which is part of the point of the whole set. Each album serves a different function: Elixer is his smooth soul exercise, LotusFlow3r his guitar showcase, and MPLSound a revival of his ’80s funk.