Just before the symbol era and after his classic early albums, Prince’s “Diamonds and Pearls” album was a collection of top-notch Prince compositions that doesn’t get the respect of his earlier albums. Maybe it was the ill advised dabbling in rap, maybe it was the focus on overtly sexual tracks. It could be argued that as many quality songs are found on this album as anything he has released since “Purple Rain”.
Back when MTV showed music videos, Prince responsible for some of their most controversial ones. Two came from “Diamonds and Pearls,” as “Gett Off” and “Cream” brought very sexual imagery to the small screen, mirroring the sexy tone of the songs. They were also perfect videos to introduce his latest proteges, Diamond and Pearl. These spokesmodels were good at looking good, they did their job well in those videos.
The film runs 58 minutes long, stitching together seven videos from this album, one god-awful, stereotypical rap video for ‘Call The Law’ from NPG album ‘Gold Nigga’, four live performances, some segue material drawn from media reports, extended video shoot with director Rebecca Blake for ‘Cream’ & ‘Diamonds & Pearls’.
To say it’s a loose construction is putting it mildly concert footage falls well short of showing full songs, videos have no reason to go in presented order why we couldn’t get full stage songs including great ‘Thunder’ & ‘Live 4 Love’ makes no sense unless makers were instructed to keep this under an hour if so ‘Call The Law’, at best an embarrassing footnote in his career, could have easily been jettisoned.
Prince has never really been known for making music videos that leave a lasting visual impact (letting the music do the talking). However there are a few interesting clips on this DVD including appearance by Spike Lee who helms the black and white video for “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night”.
Best of the group, and not for anything done visually, is “Willing & Able,” the jazzy, fun number that is shot in a recording/rehearsal space. What makes it worth checking out is this song is different performance than on album, Prince improvises a slower pace and higher pitch that gives this already great song a new feel. For a Prince fan, it’s a must listen.
Songs are great, videos aren’t which makes this DVD a judgment call for Prince fans. If you truly enjoy the album, getting alternate version of ‘Willing & Able’ is reason enough to pick this one up but casual followers could easily skip it and pick up the album instead, to enjoy full-length songs and to miss ‘Call The Law’.
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