26ten said:

Now, as a hypothetical I'd like to know this -

.

if Prince had been like George Lucas what would the remastered version of D&Ps sound like? I notice Tony wasn't around too long and ultimately ended up on bad terms with Prince at the end, with Tony M even suing Prince from what I understand. Well I have no idea what P thought of those songs after all these years but I suspect his perception of his own work had little to do with ours. Since Prince apparently rerecorded his whole WB catalogue in the late 90's, reportedly keeping certain elements from the originals in most songs, it'd be interesting to know if Tony made it to "Diamonds And Pearls: The New Master". I guess one day we'll know since it's in the vault.

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Clearly - even in 2016 this album is capable of making for really divisive discussion - and that is just a beautiful thing. To me that means it's still alive and out there making waves of sorts. I wonder though if this whole Tony M debate isn't something that is only going between fans who were there at the time. I have a hard time to believe people who discovered that album years later, and always took Tony's presence on it for granted, would make such a fuss about it.

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Edit: I just thought to add this - databank I think I fully understand your perspective on this - that people are free to edit as desired for themselves (and themselves only since otherwise risks the possibility of fans thinking the edits are not edits). Thanks for acknowledging this

.

A lot of this is situational and while I can't deny that I've heard these versions and that I really love them - I also love the albums as Prince made them and would gladly listen to either one as my mood allows me. At least you don't start pulling out your hair, screaming in horror and vomiting the minute you hear Tony on the original versions, which makes you a grown-up as opposed to certain other fans who have obvious emotional problems.
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If every single person who bought this album in a legit fashion was made aware of a fan edit they could locate would your opinion be different if there was no possibility of this sort of misunderstanding? Say there was an official product similar for example to the posthumous remix albums Bill Laswell did for Bob Marley or Miles Davis, something that is clearly identified as a rework and endorsed by the estate, with a different title and cover art, or added as a bonus to the album's rerelease, I guess I'd be OK with it on principle because it would also appear on official discographies and therefore be totally identified as something else. Now I'd find it absurdly gross if it was just for the sake of editing Tony M out, because contrarily to a remix album it wouldn't involve any additional creativity from anyone, so in the end I'd still call it slaughtering the originals, but hell some posthumous remixes are also sheer slaughter, so as long as it doesn't jeopardize the original and its legacy, I guess I wouldn't have so much ethical opposition to it... I'd still find it gross, though In the end I think the works of dead people would be better off left alone, and that's from someone who loves the Laswell/Marley thing.

Also - what is your opinion on sampling in hip hop? It's an entirely different matter. Sample me as much as you want: it doesn't ruin my original work by jeopardizing its integrity.

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Last thing - I'm delighted you brought up Brilliant Corners and Such Sweet Thunder. I've wanted SST for some time and haven't been able to buy it on CD since I found out that it was not the original. Furthermore I have a copy of BC on CD and will now inspect it to see if what I have is legit but it sounds like it likely is not. I am willing to track down an LP if needed. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one upset by those jazz reissues problems. Un4tunately I do not have a turntable so I am depending on digital, like more and most people these days. Hopefully those labels will one day "wake-up" and rerelease the originals as such. IDK what the situation is with BC, I don't have it, but original tracklists can usually be found on both Wiki and Discogs, for comparison.

[Snip - luv4u]

Getting back on track (some folks go nuts over the smallest of things), here's my ranking of the songs.

1. Gett Off
2. Live 4 Love
3. Cream
4. Money Don't Matter 2 Nite
5. Diamonds and Pearls
6. Willing and Able
7. Strollin'
8. Thunder
9. Daddy Pop
10. Walk Don't Walk
11. Push
12. Insatiable
13. Jughead

Adorecream said:

People please stick to talking about Diamonds and Pearls and not fighting tooth and nail about Tony M free versions amde by some orger back in the 2000s. Ernest Sewell checked out back in 2010 (Mercifully) and the org has been bliss since that opinionated troll left.

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Discuss the joy of this album and what it meant to each of you and not let some poisonous garbage of recent date cloud your memories. Start a Ernest sewell fan club some where else. This is your God here guys.

Love him or hate him, ES made non Tony M versions that were no butchers job. Thought went into the adaptation of the songs and they were executed very well.

Some songs transformed for the better, or at least, an interesting alternative.

SquirrelMeat said:

Adorecream said:

People please stick to talking about Diamonds and Pearls and not fighting tooth and nail about Tony M free versions amde by some orger back in the 2000s. Ernest Sewell checked out back in 2010 (Mercifully) and the org has been bliss since that opinionated troll left.

.

Discuss the joy of this album and what it meant to each of you and not let some poisonous garbage of recent date cloud your memories. Start a Ernest sewell fan club some where else. This is your God here guys.

Love him or hate him, ES made non Tony M versions that were no butchers job. Thought went into the adaptation of the songs and they were executed very well.

Some songs transformed for the better, or at least, an interesting alternative.

I refuse to listen to non Tony M versions of Prince albums, surely that's worse than listening to artificially extended sample loop versions of "The Dawn" tracks - sheee-it, sample loops went out of fashion in the 80s too!

.

Anyway, Diamonds and Pearls:

1. Live For Love

2. Thunder

3. Daddy Pop

4. Diamonds and Pearls

5. Willing and Able

6. Money Don't Matter Tonight

7. Gett Off (but only because my classmates were going "ewww!" about it at the time)

8. (last week's number one) Jughead

9. Cup of tea and a slice of cake.

Adorecream said:

[Snip - luv4u]

I wish he had done the Lovesexy cover

My rankings

.

1. Cream 10/10

2. Insatiable 10

3. Diamonds and Pearls 9

4. Gett Off 8

5. Money don't matter 2nite

6. Daddy Pop 8

7. Thunder 7

8. Willing and Able 7

9. Strollin 7

10. walk don't walk 6

11. Live 4 love 6

12. Push 5

13. Jughead 2

.

So apart from Jughead all the songs were at leat decent and the top 9 are all good songs, that is high strike rate for a Prince album. The Top 3 are bona fide classics.

[Edited 10/5/16 3:21am]

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TrivialPursuit said:

Getting back on track (some folks go nuts over the smallest of things), here's my ranking of the songs.

1. Gett Off
2. Live 4 Love
3. Cream
4. Money Don't Matter 2 Nite
5. Diamonds and Pearls
6. Willing and Able
7. Strollin'
8. Thunder
9. Daddy Pop
10. Walk Don't Walk
11. Push
12. Insatiable
13. Jughead

How could you possibly put Insatiable as # 12? It's one of his greatest ballads. His falsetto on Insatiable is about as good as it gets!

Adorecream said:

My rankings

.

1. Cream 10/10

2. Insatiable 10

3. Diamonds and Pearls 9

4. Gett Off 8

5. Money don't matter 2nite

6. Daddy Pop 8

7. Thunder 7

8. Willing and Able 7

9. Strollin 7

10. walk don't walk 6

11. Live 4 love 6

12. Push 5

13. Jughead 2

.

So apart from Jughead all the songs were at leat decent and the top 9 are all good songs, that is high strike rate for a Prince album. The Top 3 are bona fide classics.

[Edited 10/5/16 3:21am]

I definitely agree more with your rankings than with Trivial Pursuit's. Jughead is definitely the worst song on the album. I think that Live 4 Love should be somewhere in the top 5 or 6.

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I go back and forth on Cream. As much as I like the song, especially when I'm exercising, I would not put it as the best song on the album. I don't think of Cream as being a masterpeice; it's fairly "bland" and "predictable" by Prince standards. But then I recall the lines, "You're filthy cute and baby U know it" and "Make the rules, then break 'em all cuz U R the best," and those are great examples of Prince's lyrical genius. So I don't know what to do with Cream.

--

Gett Off, in all of its raunchiness, is clever and a quintessential early 90s house music period piece.

--

That said, the top spot belongs to D&P or Insatiable. I'm partial to D&P because it has sentimental value to me. (It was my first choice for the first dance song at my wedding, but my husband vetoed it, even though he loves the song. He's convinved that D&P is about Prince loving 2 women, and my husband is very much a one-woman type of man, so that's why he vetoed D&P as the first dance song.) Even as much as I love D&P, I might have to endorse Insatiable for the top spot because of Prince's incredible falsetto on that track. But then tomorrow, I might be convinced that D&P is the superior track. So it's a toss-up for me between D&P and Insatiable for the best song on the album.

databank said:

The first Prince album I waited for and purchased on the day of release. God that sounds like a lifetime ago, but I can still see myself, 14 years-old, purchasing it at the store, opening the cassette back home, playing it for the first time while reading the lyrics in my bedroom. I was a little disappointed at first (comparing it to earlier records) but it grew on me and became the soundtrack of my late 91-early 92. Prince was a major star at the time, D&P was right behind Dangerous in terms of intense advertisement and airplay, and the videos were all over MTV Europe.

Diamonds and Pearls is a much better album than Dangerous. There are several gems on Dangerous, but there are too many songs that are ho-hum/filler.

--

And on top of D&P being better than Dangerous, Prince looked a hell of a lot better than MJ in 1991/1992!!!

[Edited 10/9/16 22:01pm]

206Michelle said:

databank said:

The first Prince album I waited for and purchased on the day of release. God that sounds like a lifetime ago, but I can still see myself, 14 years-old, purchasing it at the store, opening the cassette back home, playing it for the first time while reading the lyrics in my bedroom. I was a little disappointed at first (comparing it to earlier records) but it grew on me and became the soundtrack of my late 91-early 92. Prince was a major star at the time, D&P was right behind Dangerous in terms of intense advertisement and airplay, and the videos were all over MTV Europe.

Diamonds and Pearls is a much better album than Dangerous. There are several gems on Dangerous, but there are too many songs that are ho-hum/filler.

--

And on top of D&P being better than Dangerous, Prince looked a hell of a lot better than MJ in 1991/1992!!!

[Edited 10/9/16 22:01pm]

Sorry but it's not better in any way .

I play it as follows and pretend it's just his next 9 track album:

1. Gett Off
2. Cream
3. Diamonds & Pearls
4. Strollin'
5. Walk Don't Walk
6. Willing & Able
7. Money Don't Matter 2 Night
8. Insatiable
9. Horny Pony


The actual album is fine in itself but I rarely play it these days. It came out a week after Nevermind, which is kind of unfortunate.

jaawwnn said:

I play it as follows and pretend it's just his next 9 track album:

1. Gett Off
2. Cream
3. Diamonds & Pearls
4. Strollin'
5. Walk Don't Walk
6. Willing & Able
7. Money Don't Matter 2 Night
8. Insatiable
9. Horny Pony


The actual album is fine in itself but I rarely play it these days. It came out a week after Nevermind, which is kind of unfortunate.

You dropped Thunder!?

SquirrelMeat said:

jaawwnn said:

I play it as follows and pretend it's just his next 9 track album:

1. Gett Off
2. Cream
3. Diamonds & Pearls
4. Strollin'
5. Walk Don't Walk
6. Willing & Able
7. Money Don't Matter 2 Night
8. Insatiable
9. Horny Pony


The actual album is fine in itself but I rarely play it these days. It came out a week after Nevermind, which is kind of unfortunate.

You dropped Thunder!?

Oh god yeah, that song is a mess! An enjoyable mess but no thanks.

Its arguably responsibile for the entire of Max Martin's late 90's oeuvre though so it has that going for it.

never understood the hate for Thunder. it feels like the last 80s song before he
really kicked off the 90's.

i remember the evening i bought this, on the way back home, sitting in the back
of my father's car, trying to read the back cover by the glimpses of light from the
streetlights we drove past. i was so excited. the carnival was in town and cause
of that our parents gave me and my brother some money to spend on the fair,
but i chose to spend it on this album

IstenSzek said:

never understood the hate for Thunder. it feels like the last 80s song before he
really kicked off the 90's.

I don't hate it! And clearly neither does Squirrelmeat. It sounds pure 90's to me though I have to say, people were still releasing stuff like this in the late 90's (e.g. Backstreet's Back).

[Edited 10/14/16 21:39pm]

Great album

Elvie said:

I feel very old all of a sudden. [Edited 10/3/16 15:34pm]

I feel very old with al these messages: Album X turns 20, 25, 30. etc