PRINCE - S.S.T.

Prince jumped on the Hurricane Katrina bandwagon with this little ditty. He donated the profits from sale of this one off single to disaster victims. Both songs are only available on this release. The first track, 'S.S.T.' is a rather uneventful number with plenty of religious references owing to Prince's conversion to the Jehovah's Witness faith. It uses lots of imagery and tries to invoke feelings of guilt in the listener. This song's message is so similar to another track he wrote on the album 'Rainbow Children' called 'Last December'. It basically says, when you look back on your life will you have done the charitable and right thing or will you regret your actions and behavior. He also brings up Sade's 'Sweetest Taboo' song. Hence the title. 'S.S.T.' = Sade's 'Sweetest Taboo'. About the most interesting thing about this track is the instrumental coda the song fades out on.

The second track, 'Brand New Orleans (Instrumental Jam)' is essentially a musical jam based on the coda from 'S.S.T.'. It's over 6 mins long and does get somewhat boring up until the last two minutes when the band really starts to improvise and make some changes to the progression. Still, of the two tracks, it's the more interesting of the two.

It's an perplexing thing to try to review Prince material. I've found there's a difference between critically looking at his music versus that of other artists. When you look at another band, you compare their work to pop culture, their influences, contemporaries and their own compositions. Because Prince's body of work is so extensive, I find myself comparing whatever I'm listening to with his previous efforts. I compare Prince to Prince. Unless he's done something blatant like rip off a current sound or trend. If I compared these two tracks with other artists out making music, I'd have to say they are still quite excellent. I'd still give the nod more to the second track than the first, but he is in a league of his own. My final words: A GUILT FREE SLICE OF MUSIC.

PRINCE - S.S.T.
01. S.S.T.
02. Brand New Orleans (Instrumental Jam)