Always feel like this song escapulates the best and worst of Prince in 1 song. The instrumentation, the passion in the singing, the guitar playing are all representative of him at his peak power. On the other hand, the corny lyrics, the cheesy musical theater midsection, and the weird sudden ending stink up the joint. What other songs are like this?

There are times when the "The Holy River" coda sounds like he's trying to ruin a perfect song.
It may be interesting musically, but it has nothing to do with the subject, and can come across as utterly awkward.

"NPG 2 da maximom" was not the best idea either.

While he was ignoring the most of it, it's probable that his reputation as the most prolific, innovative, what have you,
was cause of musical verbosity and pompousness. Then again, Macca and Sting, also great pop songwriters,
are also guilty of classical music flavoured self-righteousness.

With Prince, it's still a little different. To me the worst moments are when he tries to go mainstream,
which I can understand, but is senseless when you consider Prince is somebody who is firmly anchored
in a DIY ethos, who blends styles in the hope to make new ones, and is consistently trying to reshape who he is.

When he says "so many hits", it's really "so many Prince's hits". No Prince song will ever be as universal
as "Dancing Queen", "We Are The Champions" and other aggregating innocuous pop anthems.
Even "Purple Rain" will always unsettle a good portion of the crowd.

But there, there lie the best qualities of Prince.

First, he goes for it, all the way. He goes for over-the-top stadium mass spirit, almost crossing fingers it's going to work.
And by "work", I mean the crowd will follow. Prince believes in his own gift economy, he doesn't really wait for your approval.

Second, he's not going to restrain to express stuff that's crucial to him. And you won't find those levels of sincerity very often in pop.
It's easy to write and sing about broken hearts, but Missile crisis, masturbation, gender roles, the Second Coming, sexual obsessions?

Third, Prince will never be as popular as others because he's all "take it or leave it", where others will bend or alter their work.
He has this belief in himself, and its egocentricity levels are up above.

It's blatant when he tried to incorporate Rap. Such high was his balloon, that to Prince, Rap was only a new ingredient
to add to its musical mixtures of styles. No more, no less.
To him, social agenda was not the point, he had covered the subject in his own songs before.
And competition? What a laugh.
Most people think he went to rap because that's where the charts were at.
Not exactly: Rap went to Prince.
By the time Prince plays with it, it's barely rap anymore : it is almost always used as a solo instrument.

All of these traits would be repelling if they weren't the basis for a self-confidence that drove him to try as much stuff as he tried,
starting with true multi-instrumentist abilities.
It's not that hard for a musician to get to know several instruments.
But to come up with a strong sense of style and distinct, personal idioms for each one of the pop/rock quartet instruments
is something that is usually reserved for past centuries orchestra composers, next to which even Prince's arrangements skills pale.

Clare and Prince had a state grace for a short while. Prince could never reached Clare's levels,
it takes a lifetime of musical study.
So when it comes to do orchestral parts, yes, you can argue Prince is limited by his abilities.
His attempts at classical riffs almost always end up as medieval comedy (the coda of "The Holy River",
the instrumental part before the chorus ad lib in "A Million Days"...).

Still, there are very little moments in Prince's repertoire that are completely gratuitous. Simply because he believes in them.
Maybe we don't get them, but when you play "open-mind" day, some stuff will come to you in ways unexpected,
and you go "oh well, this is not as bad as I first thought".

Some days, "the Holy River" is perfect from start to finish.

[Edited 2/19/18 2:01am]

I always felt like that break seemed out of place. I once took that mid-section, and put it at the end. I blended the rest of the song in a regular verse-chorus-verse-chorus setup, then added the jazzy jam bit at the end, and it worked. It sounds more like a coda ending that he would have done on Emancipation instead of the disjointed album version.

I mean, can you imagine all the soloing on "Purple Rain" or "When Doves Cry" just after the first or second verse, then it comes back for a third verse? Of course not, but "Planet Earth" seemed to do that.

bonatoc said:

There are times when the "The Holy River" coda sounds like he's trying to ruin a perfect song.
It may be interesting musically, but it has nothing to do with the subject, and can come across as utterly awkward.

"NPG 2 da maximom" was not the best idea either.

While he was ignoring the most of it, it's probable that his reputation as the most prolific, innovative, what have you,
was cause of musical verbosity and pompousness. Then again, Macca and Sting, also great pop songwriters,
are also guilty of classical music flavoured self-righteousness.

With Prince, it's still a little different. To me the worst moments are when he tries to go mainstream,
which I can understand, but is senseless when you consider Prince is somebody who is firmly anchored
in a DIY ethos, who blends styles in the hope to make new ones, and is consistently trying to reshape who he is.

When he says "so many hits", it's really "so many Prince's hits". No Prince song will ever be as universal
as "Dancing Queen", "We Are The Champions" and other aggregating innocuous pop anthems.
Even "Purple Rain" will always unsettle a good portion of the crowd.

But there, there lie the best qualities of Prince.

First, he goes for it, all the way. He goes for over-the-top stadium mass spirit, almost crossing fingers it's going to work.
And by "work", I mean the crowd will follow. Prince believes in his own gift economy, he doesn't really wait for your approval.

Second, he's not going to restrain to express stuff that's crucial to him. And you won't find those levels of sincerity very often in pop.
It's easy to write and sing about broken hearts, but Missile crisis, masturbation, gender roles, the Second Coming, sexual obsessions?

Third, Prince will never be as popular as others because he's all "take it or leave it", where others will bend or alter their work.
He has this belief in himself, and its egocentricity levels are up above.

It's blatant when he tried to incorporate Rap. Such high was his balloon, that to Prince, Rap was only a new ingredient
to add to its musical mixtures of styles. No more, no less.
To him, social agenda was not the point, he had covered the subject in his own songs before.
And competition? What a laugh.
Most people think he went to rap because that's where the charts were at.
Not exactly: Rap went to Prince.
By the time Prince plays with it, it's barely rap anymore : it is almost always used a solo instrument.

All of these traits would be repelling if they weren't the basis for a self-confidence that drove him to try as much stuff as he tried,
starting with true multi-instrumentist abilities.
It's not that hard for a musician to get to know several instruments.
But to come up with a strong sense of style and distinct, personal idioms for each one of the pop/rock quartet instruments
is something that is usually reserved for past centuries orchestra composers, next to which even Prince's arrangements skills pale.

Clare and Prince had a state grace for a short while. Prince could never reached Clare's levels,
it takes a lifetime of musical study.
So when it comes to do orchestral parts, yes, you can argue Prince is limited by his abilities.
His attempts at classical riffs almost always end up as medieval comedy (the coda of "The Holy River",
the instrumental part before the chorus ad lib in "A Million Days"...).

Still, there are very little moments in Prince's repertoire that are completely gratuitous. Simply because he believes in them.
Maybe we don't get them, but when you play "open-mind" day, some stuff will come to you in ways unexpected,
and you go "oh well, this is not as bad as I first thought".

Some days, "the Holy River" is perfect from start to finish.

[Edited 2/18/18 13:16pm]

Clare who?

Prince really over-did some songs.Most of them would be PERFECT if they were trimmed and edited."U Make My Sunshine" is a good example.It shouldve ended a little after 4 minutes but keeps going for maybe 4 more minutes and it's hard to listen to.

dance4me3121 said:

Clare who?

Fischer.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

totally what I typed the first time

[Edited 2/18/18 19:37pm]

TrivialPursuit said:

dance4me3121 said:

Clare who?

Fisher.

Fis(c)her

Clare Fisther

I agree, Planet Earth is bombastic and overblown, yet there is enough going on musically. Three more songs I can think of, same era.

.

The Sun Moon and Stars off Rave, great start and rhythms, great falsetto by Prince and almost etehreal, but ruined by this horrible ragga rap thing Prince does in the middle just kills it.

.

Saviour off Emancipation - great start with an overdown ballad and pleading singing, normally that degenerate into screaming (Do you want me baby!!!!) are epic, but this thing just gets stupid with all sorts of weird howling and overdone strings and plastic everything else.

.

Get yo groove on - same thing good singing at the start and quite funky too, but from the time they start looking for Motalbo and Big Juicey (I think) it just goes wrong, although the part about "I could buy evry oneayou is hilarious"

.

Most of these overbaked and silly songs come off his 1990s and later music, good starts with great singing and playing, but songs rambling on past their natural length and being larded down with Byzantine arrangements and over produced to death. Symbol and Emancipation would be much better albums if they were not so self indulgent. Fortunately the Gold Experience is a breath of frsh air, Prince seemed focussed there and just wanted straight ahead music.

.

The bulk of his music of the 1990s had the drive, chops and talent of the 80s, but was overlarded with overdubs, extra instruments, voices, samples and 2 or 3 minutes of aimless playing or chorusses that turned a classic song into a just kind of okay one. Still there are many highlights like Damn U, Shh!, The love we make, Beautiful strange etc.. but the consistentcy of his pre 1989 output is gone and in some ways I blame Lovesexy, as good as it is, he was really elarning about overdoing songs and throwing everything including the kitchen sink into the mix.

.

Can't agree with the remarks about the Holy River though, there is just too much that is great about that song - incredible vocals, guitar and harmonies. I can listen to it all day long.

[Edited 2/19/18 2:45am]

MendesCity said:

Always feel like this song escapulates the best and worst of Prince in 1 song. The instrumentation, the passion in the singing, the guitar playing are all representative of him at his peak power. On the other hand, the corny lyrics, the cheesy musical theater midsection, and the weird sudden ending stink up the joint. What other songs are like this?

That part sounds just like Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic.

Adorecream said:

I agree, Planet Earth is bombastic and overblown, yet there is enough going on musically. Three more songs I can think of, same era.

.

The Sun Moon and Stars off Rave, great start and rhythms, great falsetto by Prince and almost etehreal, but ruined by this horrible ragga rap thing Prince does in the middle just kills it.

.

Saviour off Emancipation - great start with an overdown ballad and pleading singing, normally that degenerate into screaming (Do you want me baby!!!!) are epic, but this thing just gets stupid with all sorts of weird howling and overdone strings and plastic everything else.

.

Get yo groove on - same thing good singing at the start and quite funky too, but from the time they start looking for Motalbo and Big Juicey (I think) it just goes wrong, although the part about "I could buy evry oneayou is hilarious"

.

Most of these overbaked and silly songs come off his 1990s and later music, good starts with great singing and playing, but songs rambling on past their natural length and being larded down with Byzantine arrangements and over produced to death. Symbol and Emancipation would be much better albums if they were not so self indulgent. Fortunately the Gold Experience is a breath of frsh air, Prince seemed focussed there and just wanted straight ahead music.

.

The bulk of his music of the 1990s had the drive, chops and talent of the 80s, but was overlarded with overdubs, extra instruments, voices, samples and 2 or 3 minutes of aimless playing or chorusses that turned a classic song into a just kind of okay one. Still there are many highlights like Damn U, Shh!, The love we make, Beautiful strange etc.. but the consistentcy of his pre 1989 output is gone and in some ways I blame Lovesexy, as good as it is, he was really elarning about overdoing songs and throwing everything including the kitchen sink into the mix.

.

Can't agree with the remarks about the Holy River though, there is just too much that is great about that song - incredible vocals, guitar and harmonies. I can listen to it all day long.

[Edited 2/19/18 2:45am]

There are as many silly, lyrically poor songs from the 80s too thou - Jack U Off, Ronnie Talk 2 Russia etc

The main cuplrits of taking perfect songs and messing with them would be endorphinmance, zannalee, come, race etc

The gold experience is over-produced as released, thinking We March, Gold, TMBGITW (album version), 319, ...

Adorecream said:

Can't agree with the remarks about the Holy River though, there is just too much that is great about that song - incredible vocals, guitar and harmonies. I can listen to it all day long.

It's a fantastic song.
I'm specifically talking about the last 30 seconds, which sounds unnecessary to me.

I think a lot of Emancipation tracks fell into this because of his insistence that each disc run exactly 60 minutes. When you have a perfectly solid 54 minute album and decide you have to go back and add an extra 6 minutes here and there some of the tracks are going to suffer.

renfield said:

I think a lot of Emancipation tracks fell into this because of his insistence that each disc run exactly 60 minutes. When you have a perfectly solid 54 minute album and decide you have to go back and add an extra 6 minutes here and there some of the tracks are going to suffer.

We don't know anything about how the process went, though. Knowing Prince, it's very likely he edited many more songs to a shorter length than he extended: we know that many released tracks exist in longer form in the vault.

dodger said:

MendesCity said:

Always feel like this song escapulates the best and worst of Prince in 1 song. The instrumentation, the passion in the singing, the guitar playing are all representative of him at his peak power. On the other hand, the corny lyrics, the cheesy musical theater midsection, and the weird sudden ending stink up the joint. What other songs are like this?

That part sounds just like Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic.

Listen to this from 2:40 onwards

For whatever reason I love the song "Planet Earth" and it is really is soaked with a late 70's mood, and.... I need to reserach this out.. but... something takes me to the slasher film relseased on 1980 "Prom Night" specifically the reveal part where some kid has fallen out a window in a flashback. I havenb't seen that since 1982... so it's a stange association.

bonatoc said:

It's blatant when he tried to incorporate Rap. Such high was his balloon, that to Prince, Rap was only a new ingredient
to add to its musical mixtures of styles. No more, no less.
To him, social agenda was not the point, he had covered the subject in his own songs before.
And competition? What a laugh.
Most people think he went to rap because that's where the charts were at.
Not exactly: Rap went to Prince.
By the time Prince plays with it, it's barely rap anymore : it is almost always used as a solo instrument.

I very much agree with this, and had actually made myself the same remark: Prince was trolled for 25 years for incorporating hip-hop into his music in 1991 but few things are to be noted. First, as you say, rap is little more than a new ingredient in P's music, but it didn't really alter it: while the easy move would have been to go fully hip-hop and put hip-hop beats everywhere, Prince actually came back at that same time to a very organic, almost traditional sound with live drums, on which some rap was floating here and there. Even Gold Nigga went the exact opposite direction every other jazz/funk/rap fusion project went at the time: while Guru, Miles Davis, US3, Ronny Jordan, Brooklyn Funk Essential and Buckshot Le Fonque (among others) would add jazz and funk elements over hip-hop beats and rap lyrics, Prince actually put rap lyrics and hip-hop elements such as samples over tracks that were structurally jazz-funk. Carmen Electra allowed for more hip-hop beats but Prince was clearly whoring with that project, and we know how it went, but when it came to his own albums and Gold Nigga he knew better than to go down that road. Besides, those who were quick to call Prince an opportunist when he released Diamonds And Pearls were quick to forget that none of the actual singles featured any solo rap by Tony M.: it would have been easy to do like everyone did and feature rap strongly in the singles, but Prince managed to score 3 major hits without any rap in them. Gett Off was more rap, I'll admit, but very untypical and with nearly no Tony M. presence in it. Later, My Name Is Prince and Sexy MF did feature Tony, but both were again total atypical "rap" songs, with the first being classic funk and the second some sort of an oddity.

--

His attempts at classical riffs almost always end up as medieval comedy

Kamasutra is the best example. Prince apparently had a very superficial knowledge of classical music, little if any at all knowledge of 20th century contemporary music and didn't do the effort of learning the musical theory that could have helped him reach higher levels in that domain. He could have done more work, though: Coati Mundi once learned how to compose an orchestral score in a few weeks so he could get a gig arranging the orchestra for a Kid Creole side project (granted, Mundi already knew how to read and write music at that time, but still...). It's likely Prince wouldn't have had the patience required to study musical theory, and knew it.

--

Still, there are very little moments in Prince's repertoire that are completely gratuitous. Simply because he believes in them.
Maybe we don't get them, but when you play "open-mind" day, some stuff will come to you in ways unexpected,
and you go "oh well, this is not as bad as I first thought".

Some days, "the Holy River" is perfect from start to finish.

Most Prince music will grow on you if you listen to it long enough, because as you say little is gratuitous and there are interesting ideas in almost everything he did (even in Kamasutra, by the way). Often I read statements from Prince fans such as "I only listened to ALBUM X once, X years ago, and never cared to listen to it again because I didn't like it", or "I always skip those tracks I dislike on albums". I realize that people have jobs and families and that their time listening to music is limited, but they probably would get into a lot more Prince stuff if they'd have the time to really dive deep into each and every record.

ufoclub said:

dodger said:

That part sounds just like Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic.

Listen to this from 2:40 onwards

For whatever reason I love the song "Planet Earth" and it is really is soaked with a late 70's mood, and.... I need to reserach this out.. but... something takes me to the slasher film relseased on 1980 "Prom Night" specifically the reveal part where some kid has fallen out a window in a flashback. I havenb't seen that since 1982... so it's a stange association.

That mid-section does have a certain yacht rock appeal to it. For You certainly does.

TrivialPursuit said:

ufoclub said:

Listen to this from 2:40 onwards

For whatever reason I love the song "Planet Earth" and it is really is soaked with a late 70's mood, and.... I need to reserach this out.. but... something takes me to the slasher film relseased on 1980 "Prom Night" specifically the reveal part where some kid has fallen out a window in a flashback. I havenb't seen that since 1982... so it's a stange association.

That mid-section does have a certain yacht rock appeal to it. For You certainly does.

Did you hear it from 2:40, the piano solo?

gandorb said:

ufoclub said:

On a related note I feel Thunder fits the title best/worst.

Always thought this song was over the top, hate the cheesy keyboard lead line...

dance4me3121 said:

Prince really over-did some songs.Most of them would be PERFECT if they were trimmed and edited."U Make My Sunshine" is a good example.It shouldve ended a little after 4 minutes but keeps going for maybe 4 more minutes and it's hard to listen to.

Ah, hell no, the extended version of "U make my sun shine" is the ultimate one...

The guitar solo toward the end of Planet Earth is one of my fav's

ufoclub said:

TrivialPursuit said:

That mid-section does have a certain yacht rock appeal to it. For You certainly does.

Did you hear it from 2:40, the piano solo?

Sorry, I meant to say "Planet Earth" does. I'm quite familiar with "Sailing". It's one of my all-time favorite songs - the melody and harmonies are just beautiful. On the daily, I listen to Sirius XM channel 311 - Yacht Rock Radio. I have an Ambrosia station on Pandora that pretty much has the same programming.

ufoclub said:

dodger said:

That part sounds just like Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic.

Listen to this from 2:40 onwards

For whatever reason I love the song "Planet Earth" and it is really is soaked with a late 70's mood, and.... I need to reserach this out.. but... something takes me to the slasher film relseased on 1980 "Prom Night" specifically the reveal part where some kid has fallen out a window in a flashback. I havenb't seen that since 1982... so it's a stange association.

That song, just reminds me of women with big perms and green bead necklaces and the 1970s. Yacht Rock the term has always made me laugh - but what in God's name is Yacht rock. I was born in 76 so are not fully familiar with music before 1982/83 like you guys are.

.

This is Kath Day Knight and Yootha Joyce set to music though.

Farfunknugin said:

Adorecream said:

That song, just reminds me of women with big perms and green bead necklaces and the 1970s. Yacht Rock the term has always made me laugh - but what in God's name is Yacht rock. I was born in 76 so are not fully familiar with music before 1982/83 like you guys are.

.

This is Kath Day Knight and Yootha Joyce set to music though.

Yacht rock is that adult contemporary soft rock you heard in the 70s. It used to be called West Coast Sound, or simply adult-oriented rock (AOR). The term "yacht rock" didn't come around until 2005 or so. The term sort of lends to a yuppy owning a yacht, and what they'd play on their boat. "Sailing" was influential in that becoming a term because so many songs references sailing and listening to music back then. It was originally a negative thing, but soon turned around into this whole genre of music that people had always loved.

Ambrosia, Ace, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, Hall and Oates, Rupert Holmes, Jimmy Buffet, Captain & Tennille, Robbie Dupree, Eagles, Donald Fagen, Player, Boz Scaggs, etc etc etc.

I love that music. When you hear those records, it's a band sitting down and playing the music, note for note, with no sequences, computers, or machines. When Prince talked about real music by real musicians, those artists were definitely part of that. Whether it was AOR or funk or soul, almost anything that came out in the 70s was people who knew what they were doing - they played their shit, and they owned it. And the harmonies they came up with were amazing.

For You fits perfectly in that AOR field. Mix in "My Love Is Forever" after "Black Cow" from Steely Dan, or "So Blue" after "How Much I Feel" from Ambrosia, or Ace's "Rock n' Roll Runaway" before "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore"... it's clear where Prince got a lot of his influence from on that first record.

But if you have Sirius XM, tune to 311. Or start an Ambrosia station on Pandora and listen. It's amazing real music (as much as any soul or R&B band in the 70s as well - it's no surprise Chicago & Earth Wind Fire went on tour together over the years).