Prince’s 1990 album, Music from Graffiti Bridge, typically gets mixed reviews. Even otherwise positive reviews will dismiss it as “one of his weaker albums,” “not Prince’s strongest work…”, “uneven”, “a mixed bag”, and so on. (All quoted phrases from reviews on Amazon’s page for the album.)

I suspect that much of this tepid response to the album is due to the Graffiti Bridge movie being a huge flop. More than Purple Rain, it came across as more of a long-form music video than a bona-fide movie. I think it also did not help that the album’s most prominent single, “Thieves in the Temple”, sounded considerably different from Prince’s previous singles, and was really not the album’s strongest track.

Yet I find that Music from Graffiti Bridge is the Prince album I go back to the most, and which I still enjoy listening to. As much as I like, say, Purple Rain, Lovesexy, or the Batman soundtrack, I find Music from Graffiti Bridge to be a much more satisfying album.

For starters, it is probably one of the best sounding albums in Prince’s catalog. The arrangements seem fuller, there’s a warmth that his earlier albums lacked, particularly on CD, and the disc was released a few years before the digital-era Loudness Wars got under way.

The musical variety is hard to beat. There are guest appearances by The Time, George Clinton, and Mavis Staples, while Prince gets at turns playful, funky, and thoughtful. He also plays a lot more guitar, with some especially beautiful soloing on “The Question of U” and “Joy in Repetition” (which is one of the best storytelling songs I’ve ever heard). All the elements on the album blend into a sound that straddles genres, and manages to incorporate then-current trends (New Jack Swing, sampling, rap) without sounding forced (though T.C. Ellis’ rap could have been better).

And I really enjoy Music from Graffiti Bridge as a summer album. It’s a record that is just perfect for listening to on a sunny day while driving with all the windows down.

Finally, a lot of the songs really resonated with me at the time the album came out. Some vividly remind me of where I was and what I was doing when the album came out, while others still make sense to me today.

If I were making one of those “Desert Island Discs” lists today, Music from Graffiti Bridge would probably be on it. I like it that much.