Here is how it works for this music critic: Album reviews are written in real time. Give the record three or four spins over two or three days and then publish your opinion, often the day the album comes out or shortly thereafter. Then move on.
At a daily newspaper, there are many tasks. New albums arrive every day. There are concerts to cover, artists to interview, editors to answer to. Unlike a devoted fan, I don't necessarily listen to an album over and over again — even if it is by one of my favorite artists. I try to move forward.
As the Star Tribune's music critic since 1975, I had the rare privilege and responsibility of covering Prince during his entire professional career (1978-2016). That continues even five years after his death. Thanks to his overstuffed vault, there are previously unreleased recordings and deluxe reissues to cover and never-ending estate issues to sort out.
As fans new or old discover (or rediscover) Prince albums of long ago, they sometimes track down my old reviews. And I hear about it: "Do you want to take back that critique?" "What do you think of that album now?" "Bream, you suck."
First of all, no opinion is right or wrong, and everyone is entitled to their own. That's what I tell readers who gripe about my real-time reviews, Prince or otherwise.
Secondly, I hear all of the Purple One's albums differently now. And not because I've listened to them again and again. My ears have changed.
Bold, experimental sounds may not sound so unusual years later. Take Prince's "Dirty Mind," his third album. With songs about fellatio and incest, the record sounded scandalously Rabelaisian in 1980, albeit sonically seductive. A half-dozen years later, the floodgates burst open for explicitly sexual rap and R&B, and Prince sounded almost tame by comparison, or simply ahead of his time.
Over the years, my perspective has changed. I may have been too self-serious and humorless at times, especially in my early years. (I was the stuffed shirt who dismissed the 1978 movie "Animal House" as a "sexist, racist, gross, puerile comedy.") Moreover, hearing more music enlightens you and informs your tastes.