‘The Truth’: The most authentic album Prince ever made
The amount of talent contained within Prince should not have been conceivable for just one man. The ‘Purple One’ was musical royalty in every sense of the word, and although Michael Jackson bestowed himself as ‘The King of Pop’, Prince was the pop starlet willing to build different avenues that most didn’t know were possible. But even without the Revolution or even the New Power Generation behind him, The Truth was the best example of Prince staying true to himself at every turn.
Then again, if we’re talking about an authentic Prince record, it usually comes down to him playing most of the instruments himself. Never mind the fact that he made everyone else seem inferior by playing everything on his debut album, For You, but given that he wrote out parts for the rest of his bandmates to play half the time, it made him look like a mad genius of pop slowly chipping away at his craft.
But someone working in that capacity had to be stifled a little bit, and once Warner Bros started treating him like a commodity, ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince’ became the pseudonym everybody ran with. After settling disputes with his record company, he got a licensed check to produce whatever he wanted, and given those years in the dark, Crystal Ball was more Prince than anyone was willing to take.
While it’s hard to consider a selection of B-sides as a fully fleshed-out project, Prince’s cheeky decision to include The Truth in with his latest decision felt like too much all at once. Which is a shame, considering that with all of his traditional soundscapes, having him relying only on his acoustic guitar for most of its runtime is a breath of fresh air.
Despite being the man known for the most lavish arrangements of the 1980s, this is Prince, as nature intended, usually dominated by an acoustic guitar and his voice for the entire runtime. Considering the album only runs just shy of an hour, the vibe is akin to stumbling upon ‘The Artist’ in a coffee shop in the middle of Minneapolis and hearing what he has to offer.
And, as it turns out, he hasn’t lost his touch on his own, either. While the title track and ‘Man in Uniform’ sound like the beginnings of Prince demos that would eventually be turned into songs, releasing them bare gives off the same impression that Bruce Springsteen had when he released Nebraska.
Whereas ‘The Boss’ made everything sound cold and lonely throughout its runtime, Prince is still about having a good time. Even with his lead guitar chops, this makes the listener appreciate him as a well-rounded musician. Despite not having a drummer throughout any song, it’s easy to hear the backbeat just in Prince’s right hand, employing the same slap technique that would be seen by acts like John Mayer a few years later.
Despite The Truth being hidden away like this, Prince hadn’t captured a feeling this intimate until his posthumous release 1983 Piano and a Microphone, which amounts to nothing more than just a jam session of a handful of iconic tracks like ‘Purple Rain’. But that was the proof of concept that this approach worked, and even without some of his world-class musicians by his side and a metric truckload of B-sides, it’s always nice to see an artist strip everything back and give the people his most authentic self.
