Ok, figured I'd call in the big guns and turn to you lovely folks here on the org to help me sort this out.

I've been trying since I got into Prince (almost 5 years ago) to get into Emancipation.

I just can't.

Its the only album I've never been able to listen through and I always end up getting bored near the end of Disc 1 and therefore slag off the remaining two whole discs.

Basically, what are the essential highpoints of the album that I NEED to hear, lol. I love big albums but listening to Emancipation is like drowning sometimes......

Or, if you were to edit the album, what would your tracklist be? Any edits to existing tracks, etc?

First, Disc One was by far the weakest of the three discs. I personally could have done without it. Disc Two is pretty solid start to finish and could have stood well on its own. Disc Three contains some great material and some misses. Here are my highlights.

ALL OF DISC 2 - It's awesome.

Disc 3 - My Computer, The Love We Make, Face Down, Style

chrisslope9 said:

First, Disc One was by far the weakest of the three discs. I personally could have done without it. Disc Two is pretty solid start to finish and could have stood well on its own. Disc Three contains some great material and some misses. Here are my highlights.

ALL OF DISC 2 - It's awesome.

Disc 3 - My Computer, The Love We Make, Face Down, Style

Wow, ok I will take all that into consideration.

The second disc definitely seems like "The Marriage/Mayte Disc" or something and that kind of kept me away from it for a bit cuz I was sick of ballads, lol. I will definitely give it a much needed reevaluation.

Mix these tracks up in any order.. and i would be good to go

Disc 1

2. "Right Back Here in My Arms" – 4:43
3. "Somebody's Somebody" – 4:43
4. "Get Yo Groove On" – 6:31
5. "White Mansion" – 4:47
7. "I Can't Make U Love Me" – 6:37
9. "In This Bed I Scream" – 5:40

Disc 2

1. "Sex in the Summer" – 5:57
2. "One Kiss at a Time" – 4:41
3. "Soul Sanctuary" – 4:41
4. "Emale" – 3:38
5. "Joint 2 Joint" – 7:52
6. "The Holy River" – 6:55
8. "Saviour" – 5:48
10. "Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife" – 7:37

Disc 3

1. "Slave" – 4:51
2. "Face Down" – 3:17
4. "Style" – 6:40
6. "Da, Da, Da" – 5:15
7. "My Computer" – 4:37
8. "One of Us" – 5:19
9. "The Love We Make" – 4:39
10. "Emancipation" – 4:12

warning2all said:

Disc 1- "Jam of the Year" to "Betcha By Golly Wow"- Eject CD after this. Don't listen to the rest for its too demoish, and amateur. Its just like " The Phantom Menace" after the initial burst of the opening- "hmmm, I don't think this is very good..." Disc 2- "Savoir" has the best musicianship of the entire album, and what you expect from Prince. "Friend/Sister/Lover/Mother/Wife" is good too. Most tracks exist here to fill out a 3 hour album ("The Plan") This album settles into a weird mediocre mundane, but oddly listenable malaise. You will have a hard time believing the guy who wrote "When Doves Cry" is the guy singing "Emale". Disc 3- "Slave" is about a rich, successful multimillionaire complaining about his life. You won't relate. Same with "Face Down". This is a really strange disc. "La La La Means I Love You" on the same disc as "The Human Body" is just nutty! "The Love We Make" is very good. The parka look/The Oprah episode/the hideous artwork.... Prince said, "This is the album I was born to make". ...Really? This is it?? He actually seems to be in love here, but time has made this one weird kooky album. The 10 best tracks make a superior album to "AOA"- the other 26 make it an oddity. Don't ask people to help you get into " Emancipation"-you don't enjoy it. Listen to your own sensibilities!

Lol, thanks for the epic response.

AOA is pretty good, so you're telling me there's a better album than that hidden in the mire of this behemoth? Time to get my Indiana Jones fedora on.....

FragileUndertow said:

Mix these tracks up in any order.. and i would be good to go

Disc 1

1. "Right Back Here in My Arms" – 4:43
2. "Somebody's Somebody" – 4:43
3. "Get Yo Groove On" – 6:31
4. "White Mansion" – 4:47
5. "I Can't Make U Love Me" – 6:37
6. "In This Bed I Scream" – 5:40

Disc 2

1. "Sex in the Summer" – 5:57
2. "One Kiss at a Time" – 4:41
3. "Soul Sanctuary" – 4:41
4. "Emale" – 3:38
5. "Joint 2 Joint" – 7:52
6. "The Holy River" – 6:55
7. "Saviour" – 5:48
8. "Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife" – 7:37

Disc 3

1. "Slave" – 4:51
2. "Face Down" – 3:17
3. "Style" – 6:40
4. "Da, Da, Da" – 5:15
5. "My Computer" – 4:37
6. "One of Us" – 5:19
7. "The Love We Make" – 4:39
8. "Emancipation" – 4:12

Thanks for a good starting point

I don't know that I've ever listened to all three discs straight through. That just seems like a mistake. I always tended toward considering disc two the strongest--kind of heavy on slower songs, but Sex in the Summer breaks it up nicely. The other two seemed more hit and miss; yes, greater range, but the songs didn't seem as completely worked out, and some are barely there. The main thing I'd do is think of it as three separate experiences, and give each one its own separate time to listen to a few times without mixing them up.

I love about 1/2 of Emancipation. So that is all i listen to. Just edit out the tracks you don't like. I think it's one of his best abums of the 90s if you do that.

warewolf95 said:

FragileUndertow said:

Mix these tracks up in any order.. and i would be good to go

Disc 1

1. "Right Back Here in My Arms" – 4:43
2. "Somebody's Somebody" – 4:43
3. "Get Yo Groove On" – 6:31
4. "White Mansion" – 4:47
5. "I Can't Make U Love Me" – 6:37
6. "In This Bed I Scream" – 5:40

Disc 2

1. "Sex in the Summer" – 5:57
2. "One Kiss at a Time" – 4:41
3. "Soul Sanctuary" – 4:41
4. "Emale" – 3:38
5. "Joint 2 Joint" – 7:52
6. "The Holy River" – 6:55
7. "Saviour" – 5:48
8. "Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife" – 7:37

Disc 3

1. "Slave" – 4:51
2. "Face Down" – 3:17
3. "Style" – 6:40
4. "Da, Da, Da" – 5:15
5. "My Computer" – 4:37
6. "One of Us" – 5:19
7. "The Love We Make" – 4:39
8. "Emancipation" – 4:12

Thanks for a good starting point

That is a great play list.

lotus4u said:

warewolf95 said:

Thanks for a good starting point

That is a great play list.

I know some of the songs i passed over other may like or vise versa
But i practice what i preached, I put that play list on shuffle tonight
I have yet felt any need to skip tracks

It's fairly easy:

1. Jam Of The Year

2. Right Back Here In My Arms

3. Somebody's Somebody (Derek Hughes vocal)

4. Get Yo Groove On/Six (live, Emancipation concert)

5. White Mansion

6. Mr. Happy

7. Sex In The Summer

8. The Plan

9. Dreamin' About U

10. Face Down

11. Sleep Around

12. One Of Us (live, Emancipation concert)

13. Emancipation

bonus:

Emale

My Computer

any of the Face Down loooong live versions

and of course the two great tracks on Crystal Ball: She Gave Her Angels & Goodbye

I always add 2morrow to The Gold Experience

Emancipation is a fantastic 14 songs / 75 min mid '90s modern-R&B-funk-adult/cont ballads album

just pick your favorites

Consider the 3 discs as separate entities. Listen to and absorb each disc individually as if the others didn't exist. When you've got a sense of what you like/don't like about a disc, move on to the next.

Just put the CDs in the CD player one after another and listen to them.

I'm not trying to be a smartass. It's the only way you're going to get into it. The material on those discs isn't that different from what's on an album like 3121, because it's mostly pop with a few curveballs. Listening to that stuff for three hours really shouldn't be a comparable task to listening to something like really dissonant free jazz.

Any opinions on the track "Sarah"? Isn't that Emancipation era?

I love that track

FragileUndertow said:

lotus4u said:

That is a great play list.

I know some of the songs i passed over other may like or vise versa
But i practice what i preached, I put that play list on shuffle tonight
I have yet felt any need to skip tracks

Yea, apparently I'm the only person that enjoys Jam Of The Year, lol, so I get what you're saying.

Prince's biggest issue sometimes is quality control. He's like an author that doesn't read his book before releasing it sometimes. He needs an editor or something, lol

I spent a year trying to get out of it.

The Love We Make, is probably the stand-out track on the album, but I like the cover versions, too.

[Edited 12/21/14 8:58am]

There's a million and one "make a 1 disc version of Emancipation" threads, and all they've ever told us is that there's really no general consensus as to what the best third of the album is.

NouveauDance said:

There's a million and one "make a 1 disc version of Emancipation" threads, and all they've ever told us is that there's really no general consensus as to what the best third of the album is.

warewolf95 said:

NouveauDance said:

There's a million and one "make a 1 disc version of Emancipation" threads, and all they've ever told us is that there's really no general consensus as to what the best third of the album is.

that would be MY version, of course

Here are the best songs off of each disc, in my opinion...

Disc 1

Somebody's Somebody(awesome song...one of my favorite Prince songs)

White Mansion

I Can't Make You Love Me

In This Bed I Scream(classic Prince, yet a different type of song, musically, at the same time)

Disc 2

Sex In the Summer(awesome song...)

Emale(love the way he sings this one...different)

Joint 2 Joint(funky...hold onto your wigs)

The Holy River(fave voicing..."There you are, you think you're high...)

Disc 3

Slave

Face Down(funky!)

Style(awesome)

My Computer(wait til you hear the last minute and a half of pure funk insanity on the keyboards)

The Love We Make("All who believe...will be cleansed and purified"--keyboard...awesome)

If you're looking for anything else...maybe 'Sleep Around', and maybe 'One Kiss at a Time'...but only if you're desperate for more.