''Plectrumelectrum'' is the thirty-sixth studio album by American recording artist
Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...
, and first (and only) to feature his backing band
3rdeyegirl
3rdeyegirl, stylized as 3RDEYEGIRL, is an American funk rock band and was Prince's backing band from his 2014 return to Warner Music until his death in 2016. It was a trio consisting of the American drummer Hannah Welton, Canadian guitarist Do ...
. It was released on September 26, 2014 by
NPG Records NPG Records is a record label that was owned by Prince and run by Trevor Guy. "NPG" is short for New Power Generation. It was founded to release his music after Paisley Park Records was shut down by Warner Bros. Records in 1994.
Though the 1994 c ...
under a renewed license to
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
. ''Plectrumelectrum'' received generally positive reviews from critics.
Prince released the album '' Art Official Age'' simultaneously.
Music and lyrics
According to Randall Roberts of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', ''Plectrumelectrum'' is a
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
album with lyrics and sound effects characteristic of Prince's "noble weirdness" and "sense of humor". Abigail Covington of ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' said that "it takes a no-nonsense approach to funk and for the most part plays near the shallow shores of rock 'n' roll's enormous waters." ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' reviewer Jon Dolan described the record as "a set of exploratory funk-rock jams".
Critical reception
''Plectrumelectrum'' received generally positive reviews from
music critics
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...
. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
score of 61, based on 18 reviews. '' Q'' magazine said that "the sound of rinceworking with a lean combo is so refreshing, and a welcome first in his mammoth catalogue." Kyle Anderson of ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...
'' felt its hooks and band dynamic make it a better album than '' Art Official Age''. Neil McCormick of ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' wrote that "the rock format appears to have concentrated him on songwriting basics."
In a less enthusiastic review for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'',
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles (born October 25, 1953) is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of ''The New York Times''.Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote in his review for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
that the album does not try anything new, but called it "a quiet thrill to hear Prince spar with worthy partners, as he does throughout this record."
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number eight on the ''Billboard'' 200 and sold 26,000 copies in its first week. In its second week of sales, the album dropped down to number 47 on the chart, selling 7,000 copies, bringing total sales to 33,000 copies.
Track listing
Notes
* All track titles are stylized in all uppercase.