novabrkr said:

errant said:

Do U Lie & The Ladder

When Wendy & Lisa brainwashed him to think that European influence was the way to go it was all over.

What is European about either of those songs?

novabrkr said:

Most of Parade is influenced by European music though. That's what he was listening to at the time.

What OldFriends4Sale said.

jonylawson said:

pray4rain said:

Without any hesitation ... først listening session of NPS ...

I remember standing in the record store looking at the cover and thinking WTF ...

this can't be true, this must be some kind of joke.

Realizing that it wasn't gave me one of the worst feelings ever experienced in relation to Prince ...

I think I never really recovered from that blow : )

totally co sign

Fucking hell, talking about a bad and embarrassing cover! Yeah, NPS takes the Grand Prize probably, although picking decent covers has never really been Prince's strength...

Zannaloaf said:

novabrkr said:

Most of Parade is influenced by European music though. That's what he was listening to at the time.

What OldFriends4Sale said.

I never thought he lost it. If I wasn't into what he had out currently I would listen to something else until he returns. It usually takes me a minute to adjust to his different directions. Most of his CDs I love. I still don't care for NPS except for Until Ur'e In My Again, Mad Sex & The One. I didn't care for his CDs in 2002 & 2003, outside of that he's my musical hero. Very impressive career. Can't please everybody all the time.

jonylawson said:

well the inspiration of this thread was stumbling across

THE UNITED STATES OF DIVISION

other tunes in the past that have made me think he has lost it (which have always been unfounded) is HIGH

Hot Wit u and then remixing that shit to boot

Chocolate Box Lousy!

Da Da Da is fucking Dumb Dumb Dumb

Wedding Feast Good Lord this was the bottom

I rock therefore I am

Basically whenever he tries to rap, or involve rappers whether known or not its always a Major FAIL!

novabrkr said:

errant said:

Do U Lie & The Ladder

When Wendy & Lisa brainwashed him to think that European influence was the way to go it was all over.

that's not my problem with either of those songs.

Loose!

White Mansion

New World

Freaks On This Side

Hot With U

Guitar

The 1 U Wanna C

Purple & Gold

Valentina

Hot Summer

Rich Friends

novabrkr said:

Would have to be something from the NPS album. I suppose by the time I got to "Until U'R In My Arms Again" I realized something was really wrong. He had put out some songs that were far from great ("Right The Wrong", "Mr. Happy" etc.), but listening to the NPS album for the first time was a huge disappointment.

Agreed (except substitute Right the Wrong, which I like, for I Rock, Therefore I Am and Dig U Better Dead ).

While Prince retains his overall talents, imo he really lost his consistency of quality somewhere around 1993-96. A few of the tracks on Chaos and Disorder and the weaker, less inspired tracks on Emancipation (ie formulaic R n' B like Right Back Here in my Arms, Somebody's Somebody, Joint 2 Joint, Mr Happy and the title track and the album's famed plasticy production) for me showed his quality control was slipping, followed by around half the tracks on New Power Soul being imo uninspired funk/ r n' b (I play a really cool little EP out of the best of NPS).

Things imo picked up a little with some of the Rave and NPG Music Club era stuff, then got a LOT better with The Rainbow Children/ One Nite Alone era, then went straight to mediocrity hell more or less from Musicology onwards. I can still remember the palpable sense of disappointment upon finishing listening to the Musicology album for the first time and thinking, 'Where's the invention, the quirkyness, the memorable songs, the cool sounds, superfunky guitar lines? It's all so ... bland.'

Lotusflower and parts of 3121 show he still has studio greatness in him, but the above history for me showed me that our Prince is very much a fallible human .

Still, he had an amazing run of awesome form from like 1980-93-ish, which is a longer 'classic run' than most artists have been able to pull off before and certainly since.

how can one song make anyone think he lost it? Pretty much every famous person who I've heard asked about it has said a variation of "to be successful, you have to be willing to fail". Who really cares if a song here are there are considered "failures". In the case of Prince, there are very few cases where there is universal consensus on which songs are actually failures. Purple and Gold is one example. There are also other scattered examples.

It is impossible to release the volume of music Prince has without some failures along the way. And with Prince, what I've found is that songs that don't hit me as great on first listen end up being some of my very favorites. One example - Pink Cashmere, I had the song ever since the Hits were released, but never really even noticed it until Girl 6. Now it's one of my all time favorites. I thought Come and Chaos and Disorder were dissapointments when released, now I love both albums.

JoeTyler said:

Loose!

White Mansion

New World

Freaks On This Side

Hot With U

Guitar

The 1 U Wanna C

Purple & Gold

Valentina

Hot Summer

Rich Friends

I Love New World > I would kill to have a entire techno album from Prince with that and Human Body included. I heard he was working on one back then called New World > I'm still wanting it...

for you

^^ I Loose!

and what a great music video from TBE too!

You know what. All artists have duds.

Mozart had 'duds'.

So one song doesn't really tell me anything about Prince's state of output.

I mean, there are songs on his great albums of the 80s that I don't like.

For example, I don't like "International Lover", "Slow Love", or "Alphabet Street (becuase of the rap)", but those songs are on albums I consider to be some of his best ones.

What causes me to pause is the overall trend of material he releases. MPLSound, Planet Earth, and 20Ten are just not his best stuff. They sound like paint-by-numbers Prince, which is utterly bizarre coming from a genius of his calabre. I'm not sure what the strategy is either--One could say that he's lost his muse, but his reworkings of certain songs live says otherwise. But then again, his live performances mainly focus on material from his 80s catalogue mixed with a few modern tunes, and with classic r&b material thrown in the mix. Perhaps this is a money making strategy since he is an independent artist now, the music scene has changed so much, and he has to factor in concert sales to his strategy; however, it makes for a less interesting musician than when he was in his 20's and 30's widely, almost schizophrentically, going in a million different directions.

So, I won't say that he's lost it just yet--but he has become more boring. Same book, different bore is a track he would have locked up safely in the vaults back in his 20s. Now, it's been used to tease us with new material, and that's just a shame.

imago said:

So, I won't say that he's lost it just yet--but he has become more boring. Same book, different bore is a track he would have locked up safely in the vaults back in his 20s. Now, it's been used to tease us with new material, and that's just a shame.

you still have it for safekeeping, i'm assuming?

[Edited 1/21/13 7:05am]

purplepolitician said:

imago said:

So, I won't say that he's lost it just yet--but he has become more boring. Same book, different bore is a track he would have locked up safely in the vaults back in his 20s. Now, it's been used to tease us with new material, and that's just a shame.

you still have it for safekeeping, i'm assuming?

[Edited 1/21/13 7:05am]

I'm not sure why, but your word phrases coupled with choice of emoticon got me horny.

Again, I'm not sure why.

imago said:

purplepolitician said:

you still have it for safekeeping, i'm assuming?

[Edited 1/21/13 7:05am]

I'm not sure why, but your word phrases coupled with choice of emoticon got me horny.

Again, I'm not sure why.

cuz i'm horny, damnit. wanna wrestle?

Miles said:

novabrkr said:

Would have to be something from the NPS album. I suppose by the time I got to "Until U'R In My Arms Again" I realized something was really wrong. He had put out some songs that were far from great ("Right The Wrong", "Mr. Happy" etc.), but listening to the NPS album for the first time was a huge disappointment.

Agreed (except substitute Right the Wrong, which I like, for I Rock, Therefore I Am and Dig U Better Dead ).

While Prince retains his overall talents, imo he really lost his consistency of quality somewhere around 1993-96. A few of the tracks on Chaos and Disorder and the weaker, less inspired tracks on Emancipation (ie formulaic R n' B like Right Back Here in my Arms, Somebody's Somebody, Joint 2 Joint, Mr Happy and the title track and the album's famed plasticy production) for me showed his quality control was slipping, followed by around half the tracks on New Power Soul being imo uninspired funk/ r n' b (I play a really cool little EP out of the best of NPS).

Things imo picked up a little with some of the Rave and NPG Music Club era stuff, then got a LOT better with The Rainbow Children/ One Nite Alone era, then went straight to mediocrity hell more or less from Musicology onwards. I can still remember the palpable sense of disappointment upon finishing listening to the Musicology album for the first time and thinking, 'Where's the invention, the quirkyness, the memorable songs, the cool sounds, superfunky guitar lines? It's all so ... bland.'

Lotusflower and parts of 3121 show he still has studio greatness in him, but the above history for me showed me that our Prince is very much a fallible human .

Still, he had an amazing run of awesome form from like 1980-93-ish, which is a longer 'classic run' than most artists have been able to pull off before and certainly since.

I sure don't agree with you that "Joint 2 Joint" is "formulaic R n' B".