Prince Around The World In A Day CD

Prince & The Revolution: Prince (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion); Wendy Melvoin (vocals, guitar); Lisa Coleman, Dr. Fink (vocals, keyboards); Brown Mark (vocals, bass); Bobby Z (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Novi Novog, Vaj (violin); David Coleman (cello, oud, percussion, background vocals); Suzie Katayama (cello); Sid Page, Marcy Dictorow (strings); Eddie M. (saxophone); Jonathan Melvoin (tambourine, background vocals); Brad Marsh (tambourine); Tim Barr, Annette Atkinson (bass); Sheila E. (drums); Susannah, Taj (backing vocals).
Engineers include: David Leonard, Peggy Mac, David Tickle.
Purple Rain made Prince sound like he could do anything, but it still didn't prepare even his most fervent fans for the insular psychedelia of Around the World in a Day. Prince had made his interior world sound fascinating and utopian on Purple Rain, but Around the World in a Day is filled with cryptic religious imagery, bizarre mysticism, and confounding metaphors which were drenched in heavily processed guitars, shimmering keyboards, grandiose strings, and layers of vocals. As an album, it's a bit impenetrable, requiring great demands of the listener, but individual songs do shine through -- "Raspberry Beret" is a brilliant piece of neo-psychedelia with an indelible chorus, "Pop Life" is a snide swipe at stardom that emphasizes Prince's outsider status, "Condition of the Heart" is a fine ballad, "America" is a good funk jam, "Paisley Park" is heavy and slightly frightening guitar psychedelia, while the title track is a sunny, kaleidoscopic pastiche of Magical Mystery Tour. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Purple Rain made Prince sound like he could do anything, but it still didn't prepare even his most fervent fans for the insular psychedelia of Around the World in a Day. Prince had made his interior world sound fascinating and utopian on Purple Rain, but Around the World in a Day is filled with cryptic religious imagery, bizarre mysticism, and confounding metaphors which were drenched in heavily processed guitars, shimmering keyboards, grandiose strings, and layers of vocals. As an album, the record is a bit impenetrable, requiring great demands of the listener, but individual songs do shine through: "Raspberry Beret" is a brilliant piece of neo-psychedelia with an indelible chorus, "Pop Life" is a snide swipe at stardom that emphasizes Prince's outsider status, "Condition of the Heart" is a fine ballad, "America" is a good funk jam, "Paisley Park" is heavy and slightly frightening guitar psychedelia, while the title track is a sunny, kaleidoscopic pastiche of Magical Mystery Tour. The problem is, only a handful of the songs have much substance outside of their detailed production and intoxicating performances, and the album has a creepy sense of paranoia that is eventually its undoing. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
On AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY, the follow-up to their megahit PURPLE RAIN, Prince and the Revolution add a generous helping of psychedelia to their style, enlisting Prince's father along the way to co-write several songs, including the title track. Many critics at the time dismissed AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY as a turkey follow-up to the outstanding PURPLE RAIN. However, the achingly beautiful ballad "Condition of the Heart," and the stunning "The Ladder," as well as the pop classic "Raspberry Beret," could easily sit beside the band's best material. Ballads and pop gems aside, Prince is as cocky and as sexually self-assured as ever on AROUND THE WORLD. When he vamps and winks his way through "Temptation," the epic album-closer, he moans "everybody on this earth has got a vice and mine, little darlin', is the opposite of ice."Q - 3 Stars - Good