Prince on Leno, night 1: creepy old man

The purple one made his first of three appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this week to promote his new three-CD set, which will be released on Sunday (only at Target, screw you independent retailers!).

On Wednesday, he performed "Ol' Skool Company" from the second disc, entitled MPLSoUND. The song is reminiscent of his work with The New Power Generation, but not in a good way.

In the early 90s, Prince became obsessed with hip-hop, and while he succeeded at times, I am overall not a fan of those forays. "Ol' Skool Company" is a tired rehash of that sound, which makes me want to hate it. And I do.

On Leno, he started the song by teasing a bit of "Purple Rain." Those 15 seconds were the best of it, and it quickly became dull. Prince is supposed to ooze sex, but on Wednesday, I saw a middle-aged man trying too hard to sound like he still had the mojo (making references to Obama and AIG didn't help, especially since Ol' Man Purple has never stood up for the common man. Remember when I said he was only selling the album at Target?).

With "Ol' Skool Company," he did not have said mojo, and in any other circumstance, a 50-year-old man with makeup on would get arrested for doing what Prince did (while the guitar solo and backup vocalists singing the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey was entertaining and helped, it didn't redeem the blandness of the song). A track needs to be good to pull off that act, and it was not

Note: The recorded version of this song clocks in at 7:30. Steer clear, since the hip-hop is played up even more on MPLSoUND.