But the problems here aren't technical. Prince could never match the shock and awe of hip-hop, and as a result he turned syrupy in the '90s, with tunes like "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World." Planet Earth's "Future Baby Mama" comes in that model, an easy-listening ballad passé by anybody's standards, much less his. More successful is "Somewhere Here on Earth," a slow jam with muted trumpet up front, as Prince rues the BlackBerry era: "In this digital age/You could just page me/I know it's the rage/But it just don't engage me." Until an '80s nostalgic like the Roots' ?uestlove becomes executive producer (assuming Prince will ever relinquish control), we're going to end up with mixed-to-middling records like Planet Earth.