MPLSound (2009)
1. (There'll Never B) Another Like Me
2. Chocolate Box
3. Dance 4 Me
4. U're Gonna C Me
5. Here
6. Valentina
7. Better With Time
8. Ol' Skool Company
9. No More Candy 4 U
Released concurrently with LotusFlow3r as part of a bundled package available exclusively through Target (a distribution model itself unconventional even by Prince’s standards), MPLSound functioned less as a companion piece and more as a counterbalance. Where LotusFlow3r indulged the artist’s fascination with fuzzed-out guitar heroics and psychedelic abstraction, MPLSound was a return to the synthetic funk roots that defined his early ascendancy.
It is a curious distinction that the two albums were issued together, yet not under a unified title. Artists have long released double albums or simultaneous projects—Prince himself had done so with Emancipation and Crystal Ball—but this particular strategy felt more deliberate. Each disc bore its own identity, and MPLSound makes it abundantly clear which half was meant to anchor the set with accessibility.
Musically, this is classic Prince in the broader sense. The arrangements lean heavily into programmed beats, keyboard stabs, and electro-funk grooves—echoes of the 1999 and Controversy era abound. There are dance tracks, mid-tempo grooves, and ballads that avoid overt sensuality in favor of more restrained—and at times, surprisingly wholesome—lyricism. It is Prince in populist mode, if not quite at full strength.
Tracks like Chocolate Box and Dance 4 Me are rhythmically tight and rhythmically inviting, if not quite revelatory. One senses that Prince, ever the perfectionist, was following a formula here—executed with polish, but lacking the layered innovation that once defined his most iconic work. There is a recurring sense that much of the album was recorded with efficiency in mind rather than inspiration. That said, even a lesser-inspired Prince effort often eclipses the best efforts of his contemporaries.
There are missteps, or more precisely, moments where the record flatlines. Some tracks lack the melodic strength to match their production, and others feel like rought drafts rather than fully realized compositions. Still, nothing here is poor. Even at his most perfunctory, Prince maintained a baseline of musicality that kept his output leagues above the average.
More troubling, perhaps, is the limited reach the album had upon release. The Target-exclusive strategy, while clever in theory, limited its exposure and created a sense of novelty rather than legitimacy. It became less an event and more a curio—something that collectors remembered, but the general public missed.
Nevertheless, MPLSound is a solid record—minor in his catalogue, certainly, but not without charm. It showcases a veteran artist applying old formulas with new restraint. No longer interested in shocking or subverting, Prince here seems content to satisfy. The grooves are intact, the production is clean, and the mood is affable. If it doesn’t linger long in memory, it at least leaves no regrets.
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