PRINCE
RAVE UN2 THE JOY FANTASTIC
SONY
★★
KATE BUSH
THE OTHER SIDES
RHINO★★
REISSUESCredited with piloting the
success of Bruce Springsteen
and Whitney Houston,
legendary US label head
Clive Davis also reignited the
career of Santana in 1999
when he persuaded the fading
guitar virtuoso to record the
star-packed, pop-focused
Supernatural album. It was to
sell 30 million copies.
Flushed with this success,
in the same year Davis
tried to repeat the trick with
Prince. Deep into his Symbol
phase, the star was also in
the commercial doldrums: his
previous two albums, Crystal
Ball / The Truth and The Vault:
Old Friends 4 Sale had charted
in the US at No.62 and
No.85 respectively.
Davis persuaded his
increasingly reclusive, self-
indulgent charge to aim at the
pop market and fl ing open
the doors of Paisley Park to a
stream of guest star names.
The result was one of the most
unfairly maligned albums in
Prince’s canon.
Even by his tumescent
standards, it was sex-obsessed.
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic
was a lush paean to carnal
delights. The Greatest Romance
Ever Sold was a sultry boudoir
smooch; Hot Wit U found him
telling rapper Eve, “I wanna get
you underneath the cream and
do the marshmallow.”
Naturally, the guest slots
caught the eye. Public Enemy’s
Chuck D added a rugged rap
to Undisputed, while Gwen
Stefani harmonised sweetly
on the engaging So Far,
So Pleased.
The critics sniffed, it didn’t
sell 30 million copies, and
Prince’s big comeback
stayed on hold until
Musicology fi ve
years later. Yet
Rave Un2 The
Joy Fantastic
remains a
baffl ingly
underrated
gem, a true
pop genius
hard at work
and play. IGAfter the fanfare of the
reissue of two CD and
four vinyl Kate Bush
Remastered boxsets
last November, as well
as separate remastered
versions of every album,
Kate Bush now releases
The Other Sides B-sides
and rarities compilation as
a 4CD set.
This material was already
available within the Kate
Bush Remastered CD Box
2 , which may trigger a few
grumbles from completists
who bought that pricey set
purely to obtain it. Yet more
casual Bush fans will fi nd
plenty here to treasure.
The fi rst CD offers 12"
remixes of Bush hymns such
as Running Up That Hill, The
Big Sky and Hounds Of Love,
but it’s the two CDs of non-
chronological B-sides that
inevitably intrigue. She has
always been about quality
control, but it’s hard to believe
that these gems were mere
fl ip-sides.
You Want Alchemy, the
B-side to 1994’s The Red
Shoes, is a breathy reverie,
a delirious exhalation of joy.
Under The Ivy, which backed
Running Up That Hill, is a
fragile piano-led meditation.Cloudbusting B-side Burning
Bridge is a fever dream lifted
by choral voices.
Verging on the twee, 1993’s
Home For Christmas is a shoo-
in for an anaemic cover on
the next Yuletide John Lewis
advert, should their evil
marketing bods catch wind
of it. It’s a rare Bush misstep:
far more typical is Passing
Through Air, a crystalline
meditation that was the fl ip to
Army Dreamers.
The fi nal CD gathers covers:
a husky sigh through Elton
John’s Rocket Man, a charged
murmur of Marvin Gaye’s
Sexual Healing, plus folky
ruminations (always her fi rst
love) and Irish airs and rebel
songs. Bush can even make
Elton’s much-mocked Candle
In The Wind sound poetic
and profound rather than the
sentimental hogwash it truly is:
she simply inhabits the song,
as she inhabits all that she
sings. Tremendous. IGTHE OTHER SIDES