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The importance of "The Gold Experience" Just imagine for a second if Prince had not released TGE in 1995. Wow, what a controversial decade
I mean:
GB: awful movie, the soundtrack still divides fans ("the original version of some songs sound better, too many non-Prince tracks", bla bla etc.)
D&P: too poppy for many fans, too much filler...
Come: too dark and patchy for many people, out of print...
Chaos & Disorder: lame Lenny Kravitz-wannabe album, a throwaway...out of print now...
Emancipation: too much, 3 cd's is too much, some good ones, but too many beyawful songs, and bland production. Isn't that the consensus? out of print?
after that, wow, NPS, Kamasutra, Truth, Vault, Rave...
so, what's left? TGE. Easily the best album he did in the 90's, and the biggest proof that the decade was not a complete waste (I actually like 91-95 a lot, anyway)
seriously, what's not like here? TGE is a flawless album. Still fresh, still strong, still kick-ass. Perhaps the saddest thing is that this album is not only underrated and out of print: it's FORGOTTEN. At least the future generations will be able to rediscover this album...
discuss...
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: I personally think is a masterpiece, but for many fans this album is a mess
All of them out of print 
The album is great.
I think come has some outstanding moments, and rivals, for me, with TGE, as my favorite of the 90's. Matter 'o fact, a lot of songs from these two albums are up there with my favorite Prince tunes, from the 80's or from today.
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Great songs, but I'm not too crazy about the production. | |
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I've never connected C & D in away, way, shape or form to Lenny. How you drew that comparison baffles me. | |
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yeah, C&D definitely sounds like a Frank Sinatra album | |
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oh, I get it, you were joking. funny. | |
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I love TGE and is easily is best of the 90's, although do have soft spots for everything from D&P throught to C&D, although i do tend to listen to the Tony M less edits of the albums Earnest did. This band is probably my favourite of his too, i never saw Revolution live, but i saw this band loads in the 90's, so yeah She Believed in Fairytales and Princes, He Believed the voices coming from his stereo
If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me? | |
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You mention "out of print" as if it's a reflection on the quality of the album - The Gold Experience has been out of print for years now as well.
TGE is probably still my favourite album. I love a lot of the stuff from that decade though. So look into the mirror, do u recognise some1? Is it who u always hoped u would become, when u were young? | |
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Yeah - "Come" & "The Gold Experience" are fantastic,
I really like those 2 mid 90's albums...
what came after was a bit messy, unfortunately. Prince 4Ever.  | |
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yo don´t get it ? .. everything is relative... for many people d&P is best album of the 90´s for others is TGE or EMANCIPATION. | |
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I can't discuss The Gold Experience without wondering what might have been. Surely had it been released in 1994 in time to capitalise on the success of "The Most Beautiful Girl In the World" it would have sold better, probably enough to go platinum. It also would have made a big difference if the album had been available while Prince was promoting it. Those appearances where he played a track from the album and then said it was never going to be released did not do the album any favours. Maybe Prince is happy with the way things turned out but for me that was the point where Prince put a gun to the head of his career and pulled the trigger.
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Absolutely | |
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To me this is the most overrated album in the Prince canon by far. Cheesy songs and production. The public passed this album over rightfully so. There was so much more going on in this time in music that this album seemed quaint and silly. It sounded worse than dated when it was released. It felt and sounded completely forced and desperate, like by an out-of-touch artist of a long past era clinging to what he believed the "kids" would like. But the same can be basically said about everything he released in the 90's, when all his music seemed written with dorks in mind as his target audience.
[Edited 7/16/11 6:02am] | |
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yeah, he's doing so awful! | |
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^ very well said Rialb:
feb 1994: "The Most Beautiful Girl", the single had premiere and was a huge world wide hit. august 1994: "Come", the album was released. october/ the fall of 1994: "Dolphin", the music video had premiere on MTV Europe. march 1995: The Prince tour in UK/ Europe for The Gold Experience september 1995: " and september 1995: finally release of "The Gold Experience".
The Gold Exp. album would had been a huge hit if all that mess, those mistakes weren't made (by Warner?)....
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[Edited 7/16/11 5:57am] Prince 4Ever. | |
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Hate U", the "first" single, (actually single #2, after TMBGITW) was released half a year AFTER the tourEven if TGE wouldn't exist and TRC didn't exist, the 90s would be hands down better for me than the pathetic 2000s. | |
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the gold experience was officially when prince lost his mojo completely ... he went from 2-3 brilliant songs per record down to 1 or 2 songs per record that don't make you cringe all the way thru .. nothing brilliant tho .. i loved what he was doing with the political record label war and his internet experiments but musically something really flew out the window from this point forward .. had the gold experience never been released, i would hope all the records that came after would not have been released either and his legacy would have grown intact .. this record was proof that prince was only as good as his collaborators and his overall team .. once that influence was gone and he had total freedom, his ego made the music, not his heart, and it hit a p diddy level of superficial inflated crap music .. prince should have released a proper crystal ball outtakes set instead of gold and ended his career right there like he claimed he was doing at the time .. we can only hope for a proper remaster of the wb years with tony m edited out and the right outtakes added to each disk .. with any luck we and prince will forget everything on gold and everything that came after ... its a blessing to prince legacy that those records are all out of print .. lets hope that the "new" prince schlock goes out of print too | |
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If I remember right,
Prince presented WB with Come & Gold, wanted them to release them one right after the other, Come by Prince & Gold by They were probably right to think the masses and the market couldn't handle that...
Anyways, I think if it weren't for the contract issues things would have gone more smoothly, and both albums would have done much better. Not dead, not in prison, still funkin'... |
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In terms of hit singles and album sales, yes, he is doing awful. He hasn't had a top ten pop hit since 1994. It's true that 3121 was a number one album but like all of his post WB albums it had a very short chart life. As far as being a commercial force in pop music Prince essentially committed career suicide circa 1993/1994. Since about 2004 Prince has given up on his new music reaching a wider audience and has become a nostalgia act. | |
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Let's put TGE in perspective.
Let's take a quick look at how ridiculously childish and dated Prince and TGE comes off in the field of it's 1995 contemporaries.
Radiohead-The Bends
Oasis- What's the Story Morning Glory
Tricky- Maxinquaye
The Smashing Pumpkins- Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness
Pulp- Different Class
Alanis Morissette- Jagged Little Pill
Bjork- Post
No Doubt- Tragic Kingdom
The Foofighters- The Foofighters
The Chemical Brothers- Exit Planet Dust
2Pac- Me Against the World
Garbage- Garbage
Red Hot Chilli Peppers- One Hot Minute
D'Angelo- Brown Sugar
... ... ...
Needless to say TGE did not make any critics or fan top lists in 1995 and rightfully so. Nor did it sell well either. .....and this just a small sampling of the music of 1995. So let's not blame Warner Brothers for the record's failure. It's just a cheesy record, and 1995 had a lot better offerings than goofy pop-pop rock by an established artist pandering to what he believed kids would like. In the 80's Prince's music was the embodiment of cool, in the 90's it was just tired and dorky.
[Edited 7/16/11 10:46am] | |
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Fair enough, you do not like the album but one persons opinion doesn't matter. I think that Diamonds and Pearls is a steaming pile of crap but a lot of people love it. The point is that The Gold Experience was a very commercial album that, with the proper promotion, should have been a much bigger hit. The consensus among hardcore fans is that The Gold Experience is his best album of the '90s. It is indisputable that the promotion of the album was severely flawed and almost certainly had a negative impact on its sales. Had the album been released in 1994 fresh off the success of "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" and with a tour to promote it I strongly believe that the album would have achieved platinum sales and subsequent singles would have charted higher. "I Hate U" almost made the pop top ten and that was over a year after the massive success of "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" and with virtually no promotion.
The Gold Experience was probably Prince's last, and best, chance to have a big hit album and he completely screwed it up. [Edited 7/16/11 8:25am] | |
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I will have to disagree. No amount of promotion other than payola would have had an impact on sales.In 1995 Prince was by far was the most recognizable act of the top 20 albums that year. That he was outsold by obscure, indie, and new artists that year tells the entire story. | |
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Everybody has their favorite albums. I've always thought The Gold Experience is quite good, but overrated. Especially the production isn't my cup of tea. In my opinion, Diamonds And Pearls is much better, even as good as his 80's material. Where can you find a series of songs like Thunder-Gett Off (actually the first record of the double album) in his other 90's records? | |
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Meh. | |
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Complete and utter nonsense. Most of his songs are written by him, they are not "colloborations", no matter how many times you repeat that lie. The Gold experience did not destroy, it got good reviews, please actually read the reviews it got before making absurd claims. If his carrear was over, he wouldn't be selling out everywhere he goes. How did Gold end his carrear? | |
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There's only a couple good records on that list and even they aren't as good as TGE.
The masses do things like make American Idol the arbiter of talent. Talk about dorky... Diamonds And Pearls was a huge hit and it's no where near as good as TGE, and that says what? Not dead, not in prison, still funkin'... |
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this record was doomed when the opening track was called pussy control .. he lost everyone who love "beautiful girl in the world" right then and there .. it didn't help that he was raping the defendant in "i hate you" or that he sounded whiter than vanilla ice trying to fit in with some of the best rappers at their peak .. prince used to compete on that level where his music was so good it was respected among other greats in their genre .. and it being a hard rock record while rapping i guess he was going for the limp bizkit sound???? i still get a hankering for billy jack and i thought the npg did a great version of vicki waiting .. but this record was built to fail on many levels and i wouldn't be surprised if prince had the same approach as chaos by that time ... he just gave the toilet a gold glitter this time ... the sex symbol record was his last masterpiece .. he flubbed a little with tony m but its still a pretty great record .. | |
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I think Prince's albums from the 90s are very good. However, music listeners in general and the critics don't seem to think so (some albums being exceptions). That's why I think The Gold Experience is an importnant album because I think it's well liked also among people outside of the Prince fanbase and it had hits. So it's a testament to Prince's ability to make good music also in the 90s which strengthens his standing in music history.
Also, if casual listeners dug a little deeper into Prince's music from the 90s I think more than a few would discover that there's more they would like than they thought. | |
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so he should have done nothing to draw anttention to the fact that he had a great album but his record company wouldnt release it? should he have just sat quetly at home waiting for the call from warner bros to say it was ok for him to get to work? | |
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Warner Brothers wanted him to get to work. He had a brand new album out (Come) that he did absolutely nothing to promote. Instead he poured all of his energy into playing songs from an album that was not available. It was Prince who decided that he wanted to release both Come and The Gold Experience. I'm sure that Warner Brothers would have been delighted to scrap Come altogether and release The Gold Experience in its place. | |
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