IN DEFENSE OF EMANCIPATION - A review (by AsianBomb777)
Time magazine’s Christ Farley dubbed him, “The Artist formerly known as HOT” when Emancipation was released. The 36 song, 3 hour opus covering his new marriage, fatherhood, and supposed freedom was released after years of sagging record sales and diminishing radio play.

Emancipation was touted, much like Diamonds & Pearls, as Prince’s comeback album—the album that he was born to make. However, it was received by both fans and critics with mixed results.

To me, Emancipation represents an amazing artistic achievement, stunted in its momentum by market trends, and listener expectations. Moreover, the album suffers from comparison to ‘s amazing catalogue of previously released material.

In this review (and I understand many people are going to differ with me on this), I am going to state my case for why I’ve come to realize Emancipation is really quite a gem.
I listened to the album this week, and I did so with the understanding that what I was listening to was a pop album—not a SOTT or LoveSexy, but a work that, nonetheless, contained some first rate, top notch, songs, impeccably written , albeit not overly impressive. I guess that's Prince’s biggest problem with we fans who love him—he's not allowed to "just write good songs"—No, they have to be artistic marvels, challenging us to rethink what we know about pop music. Unfortunately, Emancipation makes no attempt to impress in that regard. So, it is with this understanding that I listened to the album for the first time with an open mind, disregarding my past expectations.

CD 1

The epic opens with Jam of the Year , which never really lives up to its ridiculously pretentious sounding title, but effectively sets the tone for the rest of the album. It’s a jazzy, funky, R&B number that has enough juice to get you going, but doesn’t scream for attention amongst the other 35 tracks that follow. By the 3rd song, Somebody’s Sombebody one starts to realize this album is certainly not aiming to be a 3 hour Gold Experience, or Sign of The Times (at least the SOTT Prince may have originally wanted to release), but Emancipation sets a completely different vibe and tone. For R&B fans, the rest of the album ends up being an amazing treat; however, for his more rock oriented fans, the album becomes a very very long labor of love.
This is not to say that Prince’s trademark bi-polar musical leanings are not present—Indeed by the end of CD1 alone, you hear influences of R&B, Jazz, Swing, Latin, and Rock; however, all these influences are tightly framed in by a syrupy sweet, slightly over produced R&B vibe with standard sounding dance beats and drums.
Stand out tracks , to me, are White Mansion, In This Bed I scream, and his (gasp!) remake of Bonnie Rate’s “I can’t Make U love me.”
As an R&B and pop album, if he would have released just the first CD by itself, he would have succeeded in releasing a pretty good album.


CD2
Of all three CDs, nowhere is it more apparent that this man was madly in love, than CD2. Prince makes no attempt here at balancing the middle CD. It essentially is song after song celebrating lust and love, reflection and obsession packaged in almost back-to-back ballads.
For Rock Fans of Prince, about the only tolerable song is The Holy River which sounds like an overproduced Purple Rain circa 1995. Despite it’s glossy production, a close look underneath the hood, reveals that The Holy River is a top notch rock anthem rivaling many of his great songs (PR, The Ladder, Anna Stesia). The rest of CD to is slickly produced and designed to get freaky to.
Not a fan of the slow R&B genre, I had to set aside my normal discriminating taste and listen to the CD for what it is—and what I found was surprising. Emancipation’s second CD has some top notch love songs and mood music in it. Sex in the Summer, which opens the CD, features an entire beat that was built around a sound byte of his (at that time) unborn baby’s heartbeat. Soul Sanctuary oozes endorphins out of your speakers, and Savior takes over where The Most Beautiful Girl in The Word left off, with its message of undying love and importance placed on such. Prince, in love, is a man with an endless supply of lullaby quality melodies, annoying at times, but always filled with ideas and solid song writing. Along the way, songs like Joint-to-Joint, a track that could literally be stuck on an album like 1999, between say “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” and “DMSR” somewhere, and Emale help bring the tempo up ever so slightly on this CD.
I really enjoyed this CD much more than I thought I would; however, of all 3 CDs, CD2 is the only one that would not survive on it’s own as an album—it helps bridge the gap between 1 and 3 beautifully, but simply can’t survive on it’s own—too sappy.

CD3
This is the CD that sounds a little more like the Prince most of us, at that time, knew and loved. The first song, slave sounds almost like a Black Album B-side, and “New World” (shoot me for saying this) could’ve been placed on Dirty Mind somewhere between the Title Track and “When U where Mine”. After that the album starts to fall apart with a funky and upbeat “The Human Body” which is forgettably generic despite, and yet another semi-embarrassing attempt at rapping, “Face Down” (more recent presses of Emancipation feature a cleaned up version of the song although it isn’t announced). Despite being funkier and more experimental than the other two CDs combined, CD3 also contains what I would call “album killers” if it weren’t for the fact that it would take A LOT of songs to drown Emancipation as it is 3 hours long. Songs like the horrid “da, da, da” and the interesting but seemingly unending “Style” stink up the CD something fierce. Prince manages to finish the album off well with his remake of the Joanne Osborn song, “One of Us” where he flexes his talent for making other people’s songs sound like they where meant for him , and the funk and ubeat title track “Emancipation” (basically and updated Sacrafice of Victor with a funkier bass line).

By the end of the 3 hour CD, provided you would invest 3 hours into listening to a single work by any given artist, you’ll be exhausted.

Emancipation is neither Prince at his best, but it is far from Prince at his worst. I find it to be a very impressive collection of superbly written, if not always executed, songs. It is to me, quite and artistic achievement, when an artist can compile a 3 hour, 3CD, 36 song epic, where he plays most of the instruments, produced and wrote most of the songs, and made the entire thing sound like one cohesive work. So I say, so what if it wasn’t the album I wanted him to make? He’s made those already. Emancipation is Prince being all those things I love about him : genius, self-indulgent, quirky, and unpredictable (in the sense that I really had no clue what it was going to sound like before I bought it).
Which of his peers can even come close to this achievement?

Thanks for your time!
--AsianBomb777


P.S.
Do you guys think Prince might be gay?


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[Edited 1/28/05 21:33pm]

you like prince too much.

I think this may be my favourite album. I can't understand why some people don't like it.

Great review.

Adore7 said:

Thanks you, thank you, thank you!!!

Emancipation is one of my all time favorite cd's, I keep it close at hand always. I must say though, I do skip a few tracks- style and betcha by golly wow.. make my stomache turn.

PaisleyPark5083 said:

ohh! I left out da da da, as another stomache turner, for me anyways.

Adore7 said:

Agree totally

Anxiety said:

U know, Dook's not the only one with a digital camera.

I can have one uploaded in 15 minutes if U don't watch yourself.

aerdna25 said:

Thinking about it, each of the Emancipation disks would have made a single album equivalent to Musicology, especially disk 1. Musicology has a very similar laid-back r'n'b vibe to it, that occasionally threatens to break out but never quite does. Slightly crisper production on Musicology perhaps, better drumming.

One of the things with Emancipation, the only truly experimental thing about it was the sheer size. Almost all the tracks float along with the same vibe - it would have been far more creative and imaginative to put out 3 disks with each one being completely different from the next. Instead we get 3 hours of very similar sounding songs. Not terrible songs, but just too middle-of-the-road.

i sang my computer to my girl all the time when i got this last year,,"love that one"

Emancipation as

1 Album= Classic

2 Album= Good

3 Album= Aight....


if your going to look at the entire piece then you have to discredit the entire effort due to the huge amount of crap....This could have been a triumph of a return but instead prince's ego got in the way his better judgement...

sosgemini said:

ok, thanks.

He began with the wrong premise. I'll give them 3 hours of music. That was his starting point and it sounds like alot of filler on that album. What I loved about Princes albums were that there was very little filler, Emancipation has got probably more than all his 80s albums combined.

emancipation is in my top 3 favourite P. albums..disc 2 alone is so strong..the best true love cd u can get...too bad P. didn't edit it down to a 2 cd thang...it probably would then beat lovesexy and dirty mind....in my top 3 list..

sosgemini said:

I've gotta go with that really, the poor songs spoil the project as a whole with, as always. individual gems here and there but not enough.

mynameisnotsusan said:

I agree that is a bad starting point [I've seen the interview he said it].

The 80s albums did contain a lot of filler , e.g. Ronnie talk to Russia, jack U off, Glam Slam, Posivity, Dance On, It, Hot thing, International lover, and so on.

Emancipation probably has 20+ filler songs though.

Emancipation is what happens when a self-admitted studio addict is finally free to fill three whole cds. Maybe Prince could have pulled it off when he had worthy bandmates to bounce ideas around, but here even the good songs come off as coldly recorded -- there's little warmth to the sound.

Nice job Asianbomb

I love Emanicaption still listening 2 that 1.

Every song can take a bow.

AsianBoi, nice review. I love Emanicpation and can't understand why some many criticize it.

Smooches;)

Most of the songs are love songs for Mayte. The best songs on Emancipation are WE GETS UP, DAMNED IF I DO, SEX IN THE SUMMER, CURIOUS CHILD, DREAMIN' ABOUT U, JOINT 2 JOINT, THE HOLY RIVER, SLAVE, FACE DOWN, STYLE, DA, DA, DA, MY COMPUTER, ONE OF US, THE LOVE WE MAKE AND EMANCIPATION.

*gasp!*

how can you not like style?! i love that song!

cool review man, i agree with people it was too much, but at the same time i kinda think he wanted to make a statement and as such i don't mind "massively", but it is also one of th eonly times i'd ever really agree with the notion that it should be perhaps two cds, or maybe even one. i'd personally think there is enough material for two cds. take off some of the crap from disc 2 and 3, replace them with the better tracks from cd one. and you've got a really really good double album.

i really should get round to making that album, or my fave up tempo songs from it and funky stuff. 90% of it is on disc 3 anyway though.

AsianBomb777 said:

???? Hold up. Stop the presses. Is this true? Who out there bought Emancipation later on and got this curse-free version of Face Down?

[johnnycarsonvoice]"I did not know that."[/johnnycarsonvoice]

squirrelgrease said:

No, not "more recent presses", in 1996 there was a parental advisory explicit lyrics version of Emancipation and a clean version of Emancipation. The same with the Love Symbol album in 1992.

rudeboynpg said:

That's kinda what I thought. I have both versions of Symbol('cause I'm a dork who had to have that "Sexy mutha-ooowwwaaahhh" version), but I don't have the non-PMRC version of Emancipation. Does the clean Face Down have re-sung lyrics like the Money Mix, or are the bad words reversed or deleted?

KAB said:

One person's filler is another person's favourite track - Glam Slam, Positivity, Dance On, It, Hot Thing are some of my all-time favourites.

Take away what you regard as 'filler' from Emancipation and you could be taking away someone's all-time favourite track.

Why would you want to do that to them? Why? Why?

Thanks for the interview! It was quite interesting, but let me say, out of all prince's records, I would rather have Emancipation if I only had to pick one. There were better hits songs on some of the others but none can compete with the total package of Emancipation. I can remember buying it in December (or maybe late november) 96, The CD came out the same day that My brand new BMW arrived, I picked up my car, drove straight to Tower Records and picked up Emancipation, I put it in my disc, drove to the basketball courts and sat in my car for 3 hours listening to it, I was so happy about it that I actually forgot about my new Car. I called my best friend and he was asking about the car and I kept talking about Emancipation, Listen to this, and now listen to this and etc.

I dont know how you all can analize something so much, Disc 1 vs Disc 2 vs Disc 3. Good lord, somebody need a job being a critic, I guess I am not that deep, I just enjoy what I'm hearing and I still listen to this CD a lot 9 years later.
And I bought both versions, although I bought the clean version later when the price dropped to 6 dollars or so. I just can't understand how anyone in the world could not like it. I will fight you for my copy. Peace

Aerogram said:

Yup. That's my beef with the project. The lonely guy at the computer in My Computer was a perfect image for this album. Yeah, I know Mayte was around, but we all know how that turned out. Although, I have "Slave" on right now and that is a damn fine song. I remember when that song kicked off the TV special, I did think we were on the verge of something extraordinary. And then he played "Get Your Groove On"
[Edited 1/30/05 8:14am]