3121 = THE last ever Prince album worth buying AND owning.

Sam Jennings, the album artwork designer, just poster this on Facebook:

"

Today, March 21, 2016 is the 10th anniversary of the release of Prince's 3121 Album. Notice the 3/21? In the 9 years I worked for Prince, designing this album package was my favorite project. The part I enjoyed the most was how this epic cover came to be.

In the spring of 2005, I was working on the 3121 album package and Prince performed at the NAACP Awards in Los Angeles wearing a jacket with "3121" embroidered on the back. Prince’s photographer, Afshin Shahidi, was there to shoot his performance, and he captured a few images of him in this jacket backstage. One shot really jumped out at me. Prince had his back to the camera so we could see the prominent 3121 lettering, and the light from behind created a perfect silhouette of his profile. It hit me - THAT'S the album cover!!! It had everything we needed. The jacket worked as a clear album cover title and it was obvious who was wearing it. What’s expected in the music industry is a front facing photo and an artist’s name (or symbol) plastered on front. I was always drawn to the UNexpected. This image was subtle and elegant. I separated the 3121 lettering to make it stand out and chose a solid white overlay on top, adjusting the opacity so the embroidered texture would emerge. The background needed something, so I added texture and popped color with a warm gold/orange hue. I absolutely loved it. Prince didn’t need much convincing. We both agreed it worked.

Yeah, Billboard asked Prince 6 Questions via Email 10 years ago and reviewed the album:

http://www.neosoul.com/ri...1.html …

Was Fury the only song that he performed on SNL that year?

bonatoc said:

Let us not forget that the TV appearances that year were fantastic. From "contrary to rumours, I will take some questions now", to the manic SNL's "Fury", it really was a great year.

SNL's "Fury" stands out as one of his greatest live performances, guitar AND vocals.
The album version just doesn't stand the comparison.

For "Love", I almost wished we had the acoustic version on the album, but it's OK, I don't mind, the ad lib is pure bliss. He could have ditched the useless minute at the end, it's just pattern repeating, it kinda kills it.

There are even days when I find "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" a very good tune.

"The Word" is an interesting development of "7", even if being on the verge of a Rainbow's Children preach. These bouncing acoustic guitar and sax riffs are just pure genius.

"The Dance" is astounding. It may be a little Hollywoodish to your taste, but that's precisely the point. It may be just a tongue-in-cheek "The Beautiful Ones" re-hash, but the flamenco, the guttural piano, the strings and the avalanche of overdubs are almost as crystalline as "And God Created Woman". The coda is brilliant, no big hall reverbs any more, it's just neurotic claps and Prince singing his usual nonsense about how and where they did it.

As usual, there's the lack of post-production that would have helped fix the disparity of moods, and make this collection more cohesive, but that's the problem with every album since "Rave", every album bears a little of "Hey, I'm Prince, I can do that style too".

Still, it was excellent to hear Camille coming back with a vengeance (in japanese robes and sandals), to have SNL's Fury and its out-of-this-world guitar fireworks, to get some euro-dance "Love" and finish with "The Dance". Not immensely great as an album, but sip the cream out of it, and you get one of his best EPs.

NeoSoul said:

Was Fury the only song that he performed on SNL that year?

bonatoc said:

Let us not forget that the TV appearances that year were fantastic. From "contrary to rumours, I will take some questions now", to the manic SNL's "Fury", it really was a great year.

SNL's "Fury" stands out as one of his greatest live performances, guitar AND vocals.
The album version just doesn't stand the comparison.

For "Love", I almost wished we had the acoustic version on the album, but it's OK, I don't mind, the ad lib is pure bliss. He could have ditched the useless minute at the end, it's just pattern repeating, it kinda kills it.

There are even days when I find "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" a very good tune.

"The Word" is an interesting development of "7", even if being on the verge of a Rainbow's Children preach. These bouncing acoustic guitar and sax riffs are just pure genius.

"The Dance" is astounding. It may be a little Hollywoodish to your taste, but that's precisely the point. It may be just a tongue-in-cheek "The Beautiful Ones" re-hash, but the flamenco, the guttural piano, the strings and the avalanche of overdubs are almost as crystalline as "And God Created Woman". The coda is brilliant, no big hall reverbs any more, it's just neurotic claps and Prince singing his usual nonsense about how and where they did it.

As usual, there's the lack of post-production that would have helped fix the disparity of moods, and make this collection more cohesive, but that's the problem with every album since "Rave", every album bears a little of "Hey, I'm Prince, I can do that style too".

Still, it was excellent to hear Camille coming back with a vengeance (in japanese robes and sandals), to have SNL's Fury and its out-of-this-world guitar fireworks, to get some euro-dance "Love" and finish with "The Dance". Not immensely great as an album, but sip the cream out of it, and you get one of his best EPs.

No, did a beautiful duet with Tamar of "Beautiful,Loved & Blessed'..

Brilliant album. My introduction 2 Prince's music.His predecessor 'Musicology' has a very nice flow (really, the song of the same name is the sickest and funkiest thing ever) , but 3121 goes a bit higher in flavours so it got my attention better. Fury sounds so much better at SNL, i prefer that over studio version. The Dance gotta be in my top 5 list of Prince songs, it's amazing. Quality of studio albums after 3121 is still decent, Prince is a man, but 3121 is still one of his best in last decade.

I love this album!!!

I use to play Incense and Candles ALL the time.

I also really love The Word, 3121 Black Sweat, Lolita

The video to Black Sweat is HILARIOUS LOL

It does have a lot of filler on the album tho.

Glad this thread is still going, I had to shut down my videos as it only gained 10 views for the last video and it seems the 765 views of HitnRun Tour show 2 were not interested in this. Still I will do a video where I review all the tracks and then move on to a new project.

.

It's a shame as this was a great album and the last time he was actively promoting it. Think how many more copies HitnRun Phase 2 will sell, if he promoted it. It is a good album, but word of mouth is not enough to truly sell it to the people.

[Edited 3/27/16 18:36pm]

My conclusion video is up. I summarise the whole album and review it.

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[Edited 4/19/16 18:50pm]

[Edited 4/19/16 18:50pm]

theartistirl said:

The Dance is the killer on this. I overlooked this track a little until recently when I took out the lyric notes and read while I listened. I don't why but reading and listening got me deeper into the meaning of the song. This all probably sounds daft to a lot of you, but it makes the listening experience more active than passive for me.

The Dance goes in the privileged category of pristine, lush productions, such as "Money Don't Matter 2night" and "And God Created Woman".
The atmosphere is set right from the intro.
It may be the best Prince's experimenting with spanish musical styles.
Tango and Flamenco finally digested.

"The Dance" is "Crucial" for grown-ups.

bonatoc said:

theartistirl said:

The Dance is the killer on this. I overlooked this track a little until recently when I took out the lyric notes and read while I listened. I don't why but reading and listening got me deeper into the meaning of the song. This all probably sounds daft to a lot of you, but it makes the listening experience more active than passive for me.

The Dance goes in the privileged category of pristine, lush productions, such as "Money Don't Matter 2night" and "And God Created Woman".
The atmosphere is set right from the intro.
It may be the best Prince's experimenting with spanish musical styles.
Tango and Flamenco finally digested.

"The Dance" is "Crucial" for grown-ups.

Good point, the song is outstanding and the best track on the album apart from Black Sweat and 3121, the lyrics are great and the scream is the climax.

This is the LAST good PRINCE album... Everything else have either been hit or miss, or albums with just a few good songs...

This was imo the most solid PRINCE album since the 2000's. Yes Rainbow Children is a musical experimental album, but it's not solid.

3121 is the most solid, even amongst the "weaker" songs on this album...

Personally,

FURY

THE WORD

LOVE

THE DANCE

are his most consistant sequence of songs on an album, I can't think of any album after 3121 that cotntains as many good songs as 3121 has.

Planet Earth has 1 good song imo, Somehwere Here On Earth

Lotus has Dreamer and Colonized Mind... 20Ten has Sticky Like Glue & Future Soul Song... 3121 is deff his most solid album in my opinion.

bonatoc said:

theartistirl said:

The Dance is the killer on this. I overlooked this track a little until recently when I took out the lyric notes and read while I listened. I don't why but reading and listening got me deeper into the meaning of the song. This all probably sounds daft to a lot of you, but it makes the listening experience more active than passive for me.

The Dance goes in the privileged category of pristine, lush productions, such as "Money Don't Matter 2night" and "And God Created Woman".
The atmosphere is set right from the intro.
It may be the best Prince's experimenting with spanish musical styles.
Tango and Flamenco finally digested.

"The Dance" is "Crucial" for grown-ups.

I agree it's atmospheric but the screaming part where he says 'its just not fay-re, it's just not fay-re' cracks me up every time. Reminds me of Veruca Salt from Willie Wonka

It has already been repeatedly said but The Dance is just first class brilliance.

I like BLB and Black Sweat and The Word but adorecream do you really think Reflection is a filler?

First off, FBM is not filler, by any stretch.

But back to 3121.

"3121" - a saucy bass rich vamp. Reminds me of stuff like "Hello", "America", and "Mountains", where one cord dominates the whole thing.

"Lolita" - I'd like to hear this with a live band sound on it.

"Te Amo Corazon" - it's a simple little ballad. nothing remarkable, but better than "Insatiable".

"Black Sweat" - it hurts my ears, but I appreciate it for what it is; nothing more.

"Incense and Candles" - well.

"Love" - it needs the band on this one. It's more of a demo sound, but I dig the message.

"Satisfied" - good one

"Fury" - good one; love the live versions better

"The Word" - Meh.

"BLB" - I wouldn't miss it if it were gone. It's only there because of Tamar's now-failed record forthcoming

"The Dance" - a much more interesting version than the previous

"Get On The Boat" - a bit preachy, but nice to hear Sheila on a track

[Edited 4/16/16 15:47pm]

Bohemian67 said:

It has already been repeatedly said but The Dance is just first class brilliance.

Wouldn't you agree that it beats the earlier version?

The ONLY two good things to come from this period were 1) His live performance on "fury" on SNL and 2) his brief reunion with Wendy Lisa and Sheila on the Brit Awards.

That's IT.

The album version of Fury SUCKS, as does the rest of the fucking album.

and that god awful perfume

purplepolitician said:

Also the cover is still 1 o my favorites. Had a clipout framed on my wall 4 a minute .