Search - Various Artists :: If I Was Prince: Tribute Album

One of the oddest tribute records ever made, this disc puts 10 of the Symbolic One's oldies into the hands of irreverent young indie-rock types. The album focuses more on early obscurities and album tracks than on Prince's hits, but it says more about the strengths of his ingeniously bizarre songwriting sensibility than a more straightforward tribute might. If I Was Prince kicks off with a bang--Peaches and her sidekick Bitch Lap Lap cartwheeling and chit-chatting through a seriously mutated, R-rated electronic take on "Sexy Dancer"--but gets pretty uneven through the middle. Simian's funereal circus-music "Under the Cherry Moon" and Bronze Age Fox's icy crawl through "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" can't be accused of excessive faithfulness to the originals, but don't add much either. There's one other killer, though: Misty Dixon's interpretation of the Purple Rain ballad "The Beautiful Ones," which works its way up from skeletal chilliness to bitter force. --Douglas Wolk