recently married 2 Mayte his back up dancer, Jam of the Year tour
release from Warner Brothers

Prince:Emancipation is a 1996 triple-CD album by Prince (then known by the love symbol he created). The title refers to Prince's freedom from his contract with Warner Bros. Records, with whom he had a contentious relationship. The album was Prince's third to be released that year (along with Chaos and Disorder and Girl 6), making 1996 one of the most prolific years for material released by Prince.



rel November 19, 1996 Emancipation

Disc.1
1.Jam Of The Year
2.Right Back Here In My Arms
3.Somebody's Somebody
4.Get Yo Groove On
5.Courtin Time
6.Betcha By Golly Wow!
7.We Gets Up
8.White Mansion
9.Damned If I Do
10.I Can't Make U Love Me
11. Mr,Happy
12.In This Bed Scream

Disc.2
1.Sex In The Summer
2.One Kiss At A Time
3.Soul Sanctuary
4.Email
5.Curious Child
6.Dreamin' About U
7.Joint 2 Joint
8.The Holy River
9.Let's Have A Baby
10.Saviour
11.The Plan
12.Friend, Lover. Sister,Mother/Wife

Disc.3
1.Slave
2.New World
3.The Human Body
4.Face Down
5.La,La.La Means I Love U
6.Style
7.Sleep Around
8.Da,Da,Da
9.My Computer
10.One Of Us
11.The Love We Make
12.Emancipation

I love this cd. Disc II is my fave.

An underappreciated album in my opinion.

The horrible, plastic production took away from the fact, that there were a lot of superbly written songs on this record. As well as it's sheer length. But, I've always loved the mad scientist approach anyway. For me, a lot of it stands up to me as a great Prince record.

Off the top of my head- These are great.

From Each Disc..

Right Back Here in My Arms

Somebody's Somebody

Courtin' Time

White Mansion

Get Ya Groove On

In This Bed I Scream (Uniquely brilliant in the Prince Canon) Disco Soul is it?

2nd One. The Slow stuff...

I've never been a fan of most of Prince's slow side, but thats just me. Apart from some early classics which I like, and probably love now ( Do Me Baby, Adore, How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore, Pink Cashmere), he realesed a few great ones on this.

One Kiss at a Time

Soul Sanctuary (brilliant)

Curious Child ( Astonishingly brilliant!)

Dreamin About You (see above)

and the Holy River, which isn't really a slowy of course, but for me is a transcendental Prince song. I'd love if the production was more guttsier if you know what i mean, but it's gonna be a classic in 40 years! Put some fuckin base in it Prince for fucks sakes! I would murder a couple of baby seals on consecutive day's to hear this live ( not really! )

3rd One.... The experimental stuff.. These are good.

Slave ( Stunning)

The Human Body

Face Down ( Fuckin Incredible)

La La La Means ( What's that doing there!!)

Sleep Around ( love this)

My Computer( Uniquely Prince. Like In this Bed I Scream, it's a song only one artist could conjure. His most underrated piece of brilliance on any album, bar Strange Relantionship, and my favourite on the record)

Emancipation has 1 and a half albums of incredible music. The rest is good to Ok. But apart from We Gets Up which is shit, it's my 4th favourite Prince Album. The breadth of songwriting on this is astonishing at times.

At the point he was at in his life, he released an incredibly brilliant, flawed masterpiece in my opinion, and maybe his last one. The production let's it down at some points, i'll admit - but there is not one solo artist today, or in the last 20 years who could envisage something like Emancipation.

Thanks to Oldfriends4rsale for his great album threads and his appreciation of this classic.

Thank you!!!!

MY FAVORITE ALBUM EVER IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD!!

So many beautiful romantic songs on this album. It's so obvious he was truly in love with Mayte and he just sounds so...genuinely happy in those songs...Always thought he should've released The Love We Make and Sleep Around as a single...

I should be receiving Emancipation from Amazon sometime this week.

Are there are more pics from that era? I imagine there's lots w/ Mayte around this time too. Interviews, articles? I think it was an interesting time, so I'd like to know more.

Emancipation is somewhat of a concept album, celebrating his release from Warner Bros. as well as his marriage to Mayte Garcia, who became his wife on Valentine's Day earlier that year. With his newfound creative freedom, Prince experimented more openly with varying genres, including house, adult contemporary and blues. Prince also freely commented on his fame and dealings with Warner Bros. ("White Mansion"; "Slave"; "Face Down") while also returning slightly to the "computer" theme he explored a decade earlier ("Emale"; "My Computer".)

Prince wrote several songs and ballads dedicated to his child, most of which appear on the second disc of the album. Unfortunately, the child, born after the album's release, suffered with Pfeiffer syndrome type 2, a rare skull disease, and died shortly after birth. A recording of the child's heartbeat is featured as part of the percussion of "Sex in the Summer".

Emancipation marked the first album in Prince's career to include cover versions of songs written by other songwriters; Prince claimed that he had wanted to cover songs in the past, but was advised against it by Warner Bros. Four such covers appeared on the album: "Betcha by Golly Wow!" (previously a hit for The Stylistics), "I Can't Make You Love Me" (previously a hit for Bonnie Raitt), "La-La (Means I Love You)" (previously a hit for The Delfonics), and "One of Us" (previously a hit for Joan Osborne). Notably, Prince changed the chorus of "One of Us" from "What if God was one of us / Just a slob like one of us" to "...Just a slave like one of us".[1]

The album is notable for its format: it consists of three discs, each containing 12 songs with exacly 60 minutes per disc. Prince insinuated to the press at the time that the number of songs, discs and length of the album had a connection with the Egyptian pyramids.

Response
In the U.S., the album debuted at #11. Though not a major seller, it did sell over 500,000 copies, and being three discs, it was qualified to being certified double platinum (the RIAA certifies based on amount shipped rather than sold). The resulting Jam of the Year Tour was a major success (though ironically very few songs from Emancipation were included in the concerts), resulting in a significant comeback for Prince, after the commercial and critical disappointment of Chaos and Disorder from earlier that year.

Emancipation is the fourth best-selling triple album ever in the United States.

[img:$uid]http://www.thefunkstore.com/Images/Peman-Cover3.jpg[/img:$uid]

February 8. 1997
Pasadena Civic Auditorium
28th NAACP Image Awards
1.Emancipation
2.We March

Absolutely adore this album. The good songs are some of the best songs of his career. Sadly the fact that it's 3 discs leaves a ton of filler.

Bests:

Jam Of The Year

Somebody's Somebody (Brilliant)

In This Bed Eye Scream

Sex In The Summer

Soul Sanctuary

The Holy River (Brilliant)

Slave

Sleep Around (Brilliant)

Emancipation

OldFriends4Sale said:

February 8. 1997
Pasadena Civic Auditorium
28th NAACP Image Awards
1.Emancipation
2.We March

Nice Disguise, but loved the performance and the album

luv4u said:

I love this cd. Disc II is my fave.

Mine too!!!

maplesyrupnjam said:

My Computer( Uniquely Prince. Like In this Bed I Scream, it's a song only one artist could conjure. His most underrated piece of brilliance on any album, bar Strange Relantionship, and my favourite on the record)

I can count my friends with a peace sign/One, two

Marlesyrupnjam, Thanks for you summary analysis of Emancipation. Do you mean you want to hear it live in front of you, or you want to hear footage of it performed live on TV or something, because he performed it on Rosie O'Donnell and I think other places when promoting Emancipation. On Rosie, he edited it down so that the lyrics are less personal. Musically also, was not "gutsier." It's a shame, because it's really a "gutsy" song, lyrically, so I see what you mean about the production maybe should back that up..

maplesyrupnjam said:

and the Holy River, which isn't really a slowy of course, but for me is a transcendental Prince song. I'd love if the production was more guttsier if you know what i mean, but it's gonna be a classic in 40 years! Put some fuckin base in it Prince for fucks sakes! I would murder a couple of baby seals on consecutive day's to hear this live ( not really! )

mzsadii said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

February 8. 1997
Pasadena Civic Auditorium
28th NAACP Image Awards
1.Emancipation
2.We March

Nice Disguise, but loved the performance and the album

It was my one of the favourites performance of all time. I think Emancipation sounds better live than on album. At this performance, and BET Awards 1996 also, he made a big show singin' high notes at

"Johnny please, huh, when I was on my knees
My back was broken and my spirit ill at ease
And now it seems just like the autumn leaves
Your money's turned from green 2 brown and now U best believe"

I just love this. I've got this live version on my iPod. When I listening to this song, I try to sing high, but I only sing sharp and my cat hates me.

I Love "Emancipation."

"One Kiss at a Time." is really sweet.

"When I'm alone in my room.. I can't stop dreamin' about U.. dreamin about U..." Great album!! I also love Joint 2 Joint, Somebody's somebody, Right Back Here In my arms, My computer, Slave, FLSMW...

OldFriends4Sale said:

Never seen this pic before, lovely!

I finally got to see him live in concert summer 1997, but it was an all around shitty era after TGE and all that bickering with WB.

OldFriends4Sale said:

Does anybody know the real reason to why she divorced him, other than the fact that Prince can be an ass sometimes?

I like this era a lot. The album is amazing, I love how each disk shows a different attitude of Prince. My favorite is II, It definitely shows his genius songwriting skills. You can tell this album comes from his heart. I like all of the songs, except for Sex in the Summer (I can't listen to it knowing that the heartbeat of his late child is on it, it is too sad to listen). My favorite song on the album is Soul Sanctuary.

OldFriends4Sale said:

Did he have brain surgery back then? Whats the deal with that haircut.

aardvark15 said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Does anybody know the real reason to why she divorced him, other than the fact that Prince can be an ass sometimes?

I read an interview with her. I forget if it was online or in a magazine.

She talked about how difficult it became being with him. How she would have to

schedule 'time/appointments' to talk to him or be with him. How much time he spent getting ready/putting on his face. The lack of time spent after a while. And a few other things.

One of my favorite's. I was really feeling Prince during these years.

OldFriends4Sale said:

aardvark15 said:

Does anybody know the real reason to why she divorced him, other than the fact that Prince can be an ass sometimes?

I read an interview with her. I forget if it was online or in a magazine.

She talked about how difficult it became being with him. How she would have to

schedule 'time/appointments' to talk to him or be with him. How much time he spent getting ready/putting on his face. The lack of time spent after a while. And a few other things.

didn't they get divorce because of Mayte cheated on him?

InternationalLover82 said:

"When I'm alone in my room.. I can't stop dreamin' about U.. dreamin about U..." Great album!! I also love Joint 2 Joint, Somebody's somebody, Right Back Here In my arms, My computer, Slave, FLSMW...

I love that song! Specially this.,..

"Oh great, now U think U`re my soulmate
U don`t even know what kind of cereal I like
Wrong! Cap`n Crunch with soy milk"

I just got this CD set today. There's a picture of, I guess, Prince as a little boy and Mayte as a toddler. It seems like a very personal piece - I wonder if he ever plays any songs off of Emancipation anymore/recently? I don't think I've heard of him playing any.