Ms Scary has been a fan of Prince since the day His Royal Highness pranced onstage wearing elevated heels that would intimidate even Sayuri and wrote a song all about yours truly: namely 1987's "U Got The Look" on which he dueted with the vertically challenged Scottish siren Sheena Easton.

Since his debut in 1979, the artiste formerly known as a glyph has produced a jaw-dropping total of 24 albums which cemented his reputation as one of the most prolific song-writing talents in the world of pop - albeit one with the most meticulously plucked eyebrows.

In his follow-up to the Grammy-grabbing Musicology, the pop pipsqueak roped in his new prot�g� Tamar (and her indistinctive vocals), saxophonist legend Maceo Parker and Sheila "Where-is-she-now?" E. who shows that she can still play some mean percussion in the rousing finale "Get On The Boat."

However, the man who once wrote "SLAVE" on his face at the 1995 Brits appeared to be cruising on auto-pilot and most of the twelve tracks suffer from a lack of freshness and inventiveness. The bedroom ballads in 3121 fare the worst with "Te Amo Corazon" sounding like something Julio Iglesias would sing during a guest spot on The Love Boat.

Gone too are the filthy lyrics (where's the self-referential "sexymotherfucker"?) that once required Ms Scary to produce her identity card when purchasing a Prince album - but fortunately, the pygmy pied piper of pop-funk is still capable of generating some of the most saucy sounds around and hitting them balls-squeezing falsetto notes.

Overall, 3121 is an improvement over his past indulgent releases such as Chaos and Disorder and Rainbow Children (What? You've never heard of them either?). While no songs approach the greatness of "When Doves Cry" and "Kiss," a number of tracks do come close: "The Word" will have listeners writhing along as Prince proselytizes while "Love" has a delicious groove perfect for pole-grinding.

(Note: Ms Scary would like the Purple One to know that her prayers are with him as he faces a lawsuit from his landlord for painting the exterior of his rented Hollywood mansion with "purple striping," "Prince" symbols and the numbers "3121." Like much of his music, Ms Scary believes that Prince's home-improvement skills are simply ahead of his time.)

Scary's Selected Spins: "Love," "The Word," "Black Sweat" and "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" (minus Tamar's dire attempt at rapping).