Thatbwoy
Very helpful Review
7
Album: 'Cameosis'; Side A track two
Ok I’m about to go for some long eulogy about my one my favourite artist of all time a man I consider a genius and the musical genre he was munificently and imperially ensconced.
Prince.
Currently I am listening to his underappreciated album ‘1999’ - when I say underappreciated, I mean by Prince fans I have encountered in my 40-odd years of mooching about on this rock. You get the usual chatter about how great ‘SignO’ the Times’ is and everyone loves ‘Purple Rain’. You can get some love for ‘Around in a day’ and ‘Parade’..oh and everyone at some claimed to have had a copy of the ‘Black Album’ (yeeeeaaah riiiiight mate) like the girlfriend that went to another school that “You wouldn’t know”.
But this album is one my favourite Prince albums because until others (I’ll single out Around the world in a day) it didn’t aim for a crossover, this was pure Funk. Now according to Spotify Funk is my most listened to genre of music; along with George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Sly Stone, Rick James and James Brown; Prince is their equal.
But there’s a reason why I chose this album over the others he has released; this album was prime ‘Sex(y)’ Prince this was in the era when Prince sang about sex on tracks with an almost dangerous regularity and with imperforate performance. I love this album because it is relentless funk from the get go, I may be wrong but there was story (and it might not be related to this album) that when the record label executives invited Prince in to talk about his upcoming album, Prince was ready to deliver, but they played him a Bootsy Collins album, Prince stood up and left and did this album.
I will always maintain that Prince was a Funk artist, people may say that he was a crossover pop artist, but that is because they nothing about how wide ranging and brilliant the genre is. I promise this is related to the fragrance I’ll figure out how to get to it within the meandering.
Anyway. Prince and the album 1999. The whole album is not about sex, but sure there are some songs where sex crops up, but even the title track is about Nuclear Arms proliferation. But the fact that this album crossed over and did so well for an album that is primarily a funk album is no small feat. This was a world that was just coming out of the ‘Disco Sucks!’ era, and Funk is like the older slinky sassy sister of Disco – where in this analogy Disco is the bratty little coked up kid sister wasted and smeared across the lap of some corny Perma-tanned couple who flew in from buttscratch in the middle of Nowheresville. Disco is the wiggly hips, the razzle dazzle the happy hands the four to the floor; Disco is Baccarat Rouge 540.
Hey nothing wrong with Baccarat Rouge 540. I like it, Like Disco I can vibe with it for a while and its fun. But its not Funk.
No, Funk, is that itchy-hard-booger expression you get when you hear it, Funk is on the One, Funk oozes sex, Funk is elastic, Funk originates from in the stank, Soul might make you move your body, and Disco might make you wiggle your hips. Funk MAKES YOUR ASS MOVE. In fact your whole naughty bits grind, wind and gyrate to funk. Go one try it, go to Spotify, search for Cameo’s ‘Shake Your Pants’; your groin will be doing figure 8’s in no time.
Funk is Musc Ravageur (see I did it)
Musc Ravageur is Funk.
Musc Ravageur has that same raw stank – I mean that this in a good way, not in any way bad. There’s a meme with a kid pull that stank face with the words ‘As a musician this the highest compliment you can receive from another musician’ - google it. That face right there that’s the funk, Musc Ravageur makes you contort your features into that face but with that silent adoration and pleasure that purveyors of Funk know all too well. I know people have described this as ‘animalic’ and people have complained that it is not ‘animalic’ enough or at all. I have to oddly agree with the latter, it lacks that late 70s animalic thrust; even though this element is lacking I still get a sort of lurking aspect of a beast albeit hidden inside a suit. Imagine Rick James wound in a Gieves & Hawkes suit; that’s what this fragrance reminds me of, yes, its Funk but there’s an element of refinement, though you you’d want some rawness to it. That’s the lack of pure animalics, I don’t know if there was a raw castoreum or civet it would add that element of dirtiness that I believe people are whinging about. I think it's great as it is and it is balanced. An ‘Animalic element would tip it toward that rubber splanking funk of Parliament/ Bootsy Collins and not Prince. And to wrap it all up.
This is a fragrance that perfectly accompanies that album ‘1999’ though it has all the elements of dirty funk it just misses that target by a half a gnat’s ass hair. But it's definitely in the Funk sphere. The thing is one of the highest accolades I can lay on fragrance is to liken it to my favourite musical genre, so you need to understand how much I appreciate this scent.