The Prince Podcast – Around The World in A Day

The Prince Podcast crew take a look at Prince’s 7th album Around The World In A Day. Coming off the super success of Purple Rain, Prince flipped the script and dropped a transformational album that set the stage for a new direction in his musical career.

Listen: http://podcastjuice.net/t...-in-a-day/

Do the songs still hold up? What are the best live performances of each one? What are the must-play and skippable tracks from the album? Lets us know in the comments section below.

[Edited 4/18/15 10:46am]

[Edited 4/18/15 23:11pm]

I still love this cd and could probably listen to the whole thing without skipping anything. I just finished listening to the title cut, Condition of the Heart and part of Raspberry Beret and still loved all of them even with the long opening on Condition of the Heart. I still love that too!

I do agree this is the first test of who would be the hardcore Prince fans and the casuals as I believe a lot of people probably jumped ship when this album came out. They probably went to the wrecka stow and got it and put it one and when

the first notes of the title track came on went WTF!!! and that was it!!

GODDAMMIT people ragging on Tambourine and saying The Ladder is one of the best. Guys come on

edit: ah, it was someone else's favourite song. Carry on so

[Edited 4/20/15 6:16am]

Tamborine is fun but not exactly stellar funk. It is good, not great.

The Ladder is pretty damned good.

Temptation is really over the top. Kinda silly, even though there is neat music in it. The screaming is a bit much. It's not as natural as the howls on other tunes.

The other songs are pretty damned great. Even America.

Condition Of The Heart is almost Godly.

Temptation and The Ladder alwasy leave a bad taste in my head that i need to wash away after listening. Those two I always skip.

Not neccesarily because they are completly bad, ( but they are bad) It's they just don't belong on such a fun album. Around the World is playful, it's quirky, it's fun...then those two just bring the fun to an abrupt stop. Over the top and cheesy, those two tracks were an early peek at the bad production to come on future Prince albums. Total buzzkill.

Other than that, it's always been among the top Prince albums for me.

[Edited 4/21/15 12:18pm]

2freaky4church1 said:

Tamborine is fun but not exactly stellar funk. It is good, not great.

The Ladder is pretty damned good.

Temptation is really over the top. Kinda silly, even though there is neat music in it. The screaming is a bit much. It's not as natural as the howls on other tunes.

The other songs are pretty damned great. Even America.

Condition Of The Heart is almost Godly.

It's great. Funk or not, it's great.

Temptation is a total clunker. The Ladder is just a poor attempt to make another Purple Rain, leaving a pretty damn excellent change of pace EP follow up to Purple Rain and perhaps should have been marketed as such.

The Ladder is a nice song. Gold is a take at Purple Rain and look how great that one is?

Temptation is like Big Tall Wall, an attempt at weird that fails.

This album had some amazing singles!

jaawwnn said:

GODDAMMIT people ragging on Tambourine and saying The Ladder is one of the best. Guys come on

edit: ah, it was someone else's favourite song. Carry on so

[Edited 4/20/15 6:16am]

I love Tambourine, ATWIAD would not be without it

This remains the 80's Prince album I get into the least.

It's not bad per se, but it feels a lot more routine than the innovative work he created on more groundbreaking 80's albums. For me at least, there isn't anything particularly dazzling about songs like Pop Life, America or Paisley Park - they're competent and pleasant enough but not terribly affecting or catchy.

The title track is forgettable, and Temptation turns into a joke at the end with the "dialogue" and Prince's screaming.

The Ladder, Condition of the Heart, and Raspberry Beret are musical excellence though.

[Edited 5/1/15 7:03am]

I wrote a pretty lengthy review and sort of "looking back" story from when I was a kid up on my Wall of Music blog: https://rcgoodmanblog.wor...-turns-30/

This album holds a special place in my heart. I was just turning 8 when it came out and had just got Purple Rain. Got all the singles as they came out, then the cassette at Christmas 1985. Sure some of it was weird... but the weird part made it fun. I always thought - what if they had made "Temptation" a single, just fading before "God" makes him die a slow agonizing death, then doesn't. That riff and that groove always grabbed me right from the start.

And I remember thinking "why does he keep saying "Trampoline?" - did he forget it's a Tamborine?" Ahh to be 8 years old again.