thedance said:

3121 I never liked this album

Musicology is a lot better imho...

At least this album had some strong single releases.

Ok Black Sweat is strong as well, but ??? Te Amo what a.... crappy song for a lead single, and Fury is also weak and formulaic imho..


No name calling please lets agree to disagree.. Musicology is not a masterpiece, but ok and solid imho: 7/10


3121 gets 4 or 5/ 10, and that is even being too kind, maybe -- 4/10 is too high a score..

"Call my Name" is indeed a masterpiece, but you have a knack for basics and safety nets, that's all.
Musicology is Prince schooling everyone in pop. It's not that interesting. It's cocky, I'd give you that.
But it's also very safe, one of its clever moves. It's all catchy tunes and not so much substance.
Behind it all lurks the Purple Rain 20th anniversary.

3121 goes back to the underground. "Incense and Candles" is one of the best modern R'n'B pieces since modern R'n'B exist.
Timberlake and other posers will never reach such sensuality. They don't play bass, plain and simple.
Prince reinveted himself so much on this album it's mind-boggling. Even "Lolita" is what the french call "mise en abyme".
It's forty something Prince sampling his own eighties sound and tramautizing Bruno Mars, heck, the whole pop stars to be.
You never heard it on 11 on the dance floor amidst a 3am crowd. You need to build an imagery.
In Musicology, everything is pretty explicit, almost photoshopped.
3121 is a seventies album at heart. It owes more to Stevie than any other album.

And if you never experienced the nature of the heartache "The Dance" is about,
well, you'd have to wait for it, I guess. I see you prefer singles.
Myself I prefer la langueur de l'amour.

Corazon will find you, eventually.
It's the solo that will floor you.
You just didn't give it enough time.
It's all there is left, what have you got to lose?

And you also have to bear with fragile and delicate Prince.
It may not be so easy to grasp the concept, I'll give you that.
It's better than to stay in your confort sonic zone on repeat.

Heck, I'm playing it as I type. What a great album.
The order of the tracks is everything.

Some don't get the greatest albums all have rythmic peaks and valleys.
Of course if you put the album on random or drowned in a massive playlist, it loses all meaning.

"Love" is at the center for a reason. 3121 goes much deeper than you may think.
We're in Lovesexy and Art Official Age territories here.

Last but not least, 3121 is Prince coming with a vengeance. Straight to #1,
the year before was all his. After america making him a gimmick for TV funnies,
he sure showed them he never went anywhere.
And he still looked the same.
From 3121 on, his music wouldn't.

"The Word" is proof he was finally humble enough to admit that TRC was not the best way
to express its beliefs. It's "7" part II, hatred and resentment is behind him for ever.
This is no Blue Angel. This is no Hohner.
The Stratocaster is finally conquered. I'm talking about "The Word".

Purple Rain pouring over Miami, he kept the view.
3121 is the best of him, at a point in his life when he's so far ahead all of us
we can only admit we're the ones that don't get it when a song doesn't resonate at first.

This is Prince in the studio having an epiphany after the 2004 triumphs.
Joy and smiles ooze from every song. There's a strong and constant confidence in the delivery and the musical ideas
that astounded most of us at the time: Prince in full control of his abilities, without having to force it.
The SNL performance of "Fury" speaks volumes of what Prince had become as a result of all these years of work.
A miracle happening in real time. Fingers obey the mind. When you're free, you're free indeed.
Some of us are Beautiful, Loved and Blessed, and it's, very suprisingly, comforting.
God ain't a total bitch, after all. He gave us Prince harmonizing ad libitum.

[Edited 11/10/18 15:48pm]

bonatoc said:

jdcxc said:

I love the title track, it's got a brilliant murky dark funk sound. True grit. In fact, it's one of the best produced songs he ever did. I wish the rest of the album was as bold... but it's not.

There's another great song (The Word - people talk about Fury but this and the title track have the best guitar playing on the album). There's a couple of good songs (Black Sweat, The Dance, Get on the Boat).

And then there's trash like 'Incense and Candles' and 'Love' (the acoustic version is far superior).

[Edited 11/10/18 17:22pm]

bonatoc said:

TheFreakerFantastic said:

it was a fine album, it debuted at 1 from the steam leftover from the musicology period. I still remember playing it in a college bistro i worked at, several students would come up and ask who it was, they didn't do that for any of the other old school artists i played. We took him for granted, virgin ears realized that they were hearing something of unique quality.

MIRvmn said:

TheFreakerFantastic said:

Massively overrated IMO, apart from the odd good tracks it was really an example of him following rather than setting trends. It just had more publicity and promotion but content wise it was a let down, I also didn't like the 'airless' plasticy production that dogged some of his late 90s to mid 00's work. For example the live versions of Black Sweat and Fury that he later performed are a million times better sounding than what was on this album. Fury on the album sounds dull and lifeless in comparison.

Love' was ruined by the repeptitive sitar sound, he was just trying to fit in with RnB trends for many songs.

I personally think Planet Earth, Loutusflow3r and MPLSound were much, much better in terms of originality, sound quality and content.

[Edited 11/10/18 2:22am]

Yes PE, Lotusflow3r and MPLSound are much better albums than 3121

again, this is where we fans disagree all the time, i never could get into the lotusflower thing and the bria cd was so bad i don't think i even bothered downloading it to my mac.

PeteSilas said:

jdcxc said:

bonatoc said:

"Call my Name" is indeed a masterpiece, but you have a knack for basics and safety nets, that's all.
Musicology is Prince schooling everyone in pop. It's not that interesting. It's cocky, I'd give you that.
But it's also very safe, one of its clever moves. It's all catchy tunes and not so much substance.
Behind it all lurks the Purple Rain 20th anniversary.

3121 goes back to the underground. "Incense and Candles" is one of the best modern R'n'B pieces since modern R'n'B exist.
Timberlake and other posers will never reach such sensuality. They don't play bass, plain and simple.
Prince reinveted himself so much on this album it's mind-boggling. Even "Lolita" is what the french call "mise en abyme".
It's forty something Prince sampling his own eighties sound and tramautizing Bruno Mars, heck, the whole pop stars to be.
You never heard it on 11 on the dance floor amidst a 3am crowd. You need to build an imagery.
In Musicology, everything is pretty explicit, almost photoshopped.
3121 is a seventies album at heart. It owes more to Stevie than any other album.

And if you never experienced the nature of the heartache "The Dance" is about,
well, you'd have to wait for it, I guess. I see you prefer singles.
Myself I prefer la langueur de l'amour.

Corazon will find you, eventually.
It's the solo that will floor you.
You just didn't give it enough time.
It's all there is left, what have you got to lose?

And you also have to bear with fragile and delicate Prince.
It may not be so easy to grasp the concept, I'll give you that.
It's better than to stay in your confort sonic zone on repeat.

Heck, I'm playing it as I type. What a great album.
The order of the tracks is everything.

Some don't get the greatest albums all have rythmic peaks and valleys.
Of course if you put the album on random or drowned in a massive playlist, it loses all meaning.

"Love" is at the center for a reason. 3121 goes much deeper than you may think.
We're in Lovesexy and Art Official Age territories here.

Last but not least, 3121 is Prince coming with a vengeance. Straight to #1,
the year before was all his. After america making him a gimmick for TV funnies,
he sure showed them he never went anywhere.
And he still looked the same.
From 3121 on, his music wouldn't.

"The Word" is proof he was finally humble enough to admit that TRC was not the best way
to express its beliefs. It's "7" part II, hatred and resentment is behind him for ever.
This is no Blue Angel. This is no Hohner.
The Stratocaster is finally conquered. I'm talking about "The Word".

Purple Rain pouring over Miami, he kept the view.
3121 is the best of him, at a point in his life when he's so far ahead all of us
we can only admit we're the ones that don't get it when a song doesn't resonate at first.

This is Prince in the studio having an epiphany after the 2004 triumphs.
Joy and smiles ooze from every song. There's a strong and constant confidence in the delivery and the musical ideas
that astounded most of us at the time: Prince in full control of his abilities, without having to force it.
The SNL performance of "Fury" speaks volumes of what Prince had become as a result of all these years of work.
A miracle happening in real time. Fingers obey the mind. When you're free, you're free indeed.
Some of us are Beautiful, Loved and Blessed, and it's, very suprisingly, comforting.
God ain't a total bitch, after all. He gave us Prince harmonizing ad libitum.

[Edited 11/10/18 15:48pm]

Loving your work as usual. You must work in sales surely.

You even made me listen to Incence And Candles for the first time in a while...his rap does not get better with time " />

To me, Musicology didn't live up to the hype. 3121 did. Much stronger album with better songs and a far much interesting era that reminded me of the 1994/1995 Gold Experience era.

rlittler81 said:

To me, Musicology didn't live up to the hype. 3121 did. Much stronger album with better songs and a far much interesting era that reminded me of the 1994/1995 Gold Experience era.

I agree with ya

bonatoc said:

pandemoniun6 said:

Love this album though some songs suffer from the usual prince overproduction tendency. The acoustic version of love is amazing as well.

Overproduction my ass.
Get yourself a GOOD audio system and give it a full spin, start to finish, no cheating.
It's overdubs galore buried in the mix.

There's more to life than 1986, you demon.

what boggles my mind is how did prince keep the incentive to keep working like he did? not too many fans here said anything good, and he was known to watch this place like a hawk. As a musician myself, I hate to say it but, without a receptive audience, I know it's really hard to come up with the motivation to work. So, I can only conclude that music was just what Prince claimed it was, "a curse" that he couldn't live without. How many musicians in his genre have come up with that much work? Not too many, they say zappa but did zappa have a couple thousand tunes in a vault?

PeteSilas said:

what boggles my mind is how did prince keep the incentive to keep working like he did? not too many fans here said anything good, and he was known to watch this place like a hawk. As a musician myself, I hate to say it but, without a receptive audience, I know it's really hard to come up with the motivation to work. So, I can only conclude that music was just what Prince claimed it was, "a curse" that he couldn't live without. How many musicians in his genre have come up with that much work? Not too many, they say zappa but did zappa have a couple thousand tunes in a vault?

A lot of people liked 3121 - and prince.org was hardly the last word, at the time. (NPGMC.ORG was still a thing.)

According to your profile, you only joined in 2016. Who were you in 2006?

Not underrated in a musical sense. Culturally, it got the same attention as any other album Prince made in the last 10 years of his life. Which is to say...not much.

It's a shame about Hit and Run 2, though. For me, that was perhaps his strongest material in well over a decade and, of course, it was the last album...

PeteSilas said:

what boggles my mind is how did prince keep the incentive to keep working like he did? not too many fans here said anything good, and he was known to watch this place like a hawk. As a musician myself, I hate to say it but, without a receptive audience, I know it's really hard to come up with the motivation to work. So, I can only conclude that music was just what Prince claimed it was, "a curse" that he couldn't live without. How many musicians in his genre have come up with that much work? Not too many, they say zappa but did zappa have a couple thousand tunes in a vault?

The vast majority of Prince fans do not come to the org and I think Prince knew that so he was able to keep the org in perspective as the bubble/echo chamber that it really is.

Genesia said:

PeteSilas said:

what boggles my mind is how did prince keep the incentive to keep working like he did? not too many fans here said anything good, and he was known to watch this place like a hawk. As a musician myself, I hate to say it but, without a receptive audience, I know it's really hard to come up with the motivation to work. So, I can only conclude that music was just what Prince claimed it was, "a curse" that he couldn't live without. How many musicians in his genre have come up with that much work? Not too many, they say zappa but did zappa have a couple thousand tunes in a vault?

A lot of people liked 3121 - and prince.org was hardly the last word, at the time. (NPGMC.ORG was still a thing.)

According to your profile, you only joined in 2016. Who were you in 2006?

why do you ask? are you trying to pull rank? I think it's silly to rank a fan according to their tenure here. but since you askd, my username was mozfonky, i had a second one, petes2 because I got banned getting into silly arguements when i took acception to people dogging out icons for what i thought were silly reasons. I'll probably get banned again someday but I'll always be a fan, this isn't the criteria for that.

babynoz said:

PeteSilas said:

what boggles my mind is how did prince keep the incentive to keep working like he did? not too many fans here said anything good, and he was known to watch this place like a hawk. As a musician myself, I hate to say it but, without a receptive audience, I know it's really hard to come up with the motivation to work. So, I can only conclude that music was just what Prince claimed it was, "a curse" that he couldn't live without. How many musicians in his genre have come up with that much work? Not too many, they say zappa but did zappa have a couple thousand tunes in a vault?

The vast majority of Prince fans do not come to the org and I think Prince knew that so he was able to keep the org in perspective as the bubble/echo chamber that it really is.

I guess and the org has also went through different phases, when i first joined it wasn't as toxic as it became, it actually was worse around 2014 when all i could do was lurk. it obviously affected the lil' guy some, he did try to block pictures on the site sometime around 2006 and wrote Phunk in response to all the dissing. "haters on the internet" etc., he was bothered aat times.

PeteSilas said:

babynoz said:

The vast majority of Prince fans do not come to the org and I think Prince knew that so he was able to keep the org in perspective as the bubble/echo chamber that it really is.

I guess and the org has also went through different phases, when i first joined it wasn't as toxic as it became, it actually was worse around 2014 when all i could do was lurk. it obviously affected the lil' guy some, he did try to block pictures on the site sometime around 2006 and wrote Phunk in response to all the dissing. "haters on the internet" etc., he was bothered aat times.

What seemed to bother him most about fansites was not being able to control content such as photos but moreso he really believed that fansites were havens for bootlegging his music, hence the whole PFU dust up, housequake shutting down, etc. He really only wanted NPGMC online.

He knew that he wasn't regularly filling entire arenas with orgers, lol. Only a few members here believe that this site had more than an occasional influence on Prince.

bonatoc said:

pandemoniun6 said:

Love this album though some songs suffer from the usual prince overproduction tendency. The acoustic version of love is amazing as well.

Overproduction my ass.
Get yourself a GOOD audio system and give it a full spin, start to finish, no cheating.
It's overdubs galore buried in the mix.

There's more to life than 1986, you demon.

This is the best laugh I've had all week. LMAO

babynoz said:

PeteSilas said:

I guess and the org has also went through different phases, when i first joined it wasn't as toxic as it became, it actually was worse around 2014 when all i could do was lurk. it obviously affected the lil' guy some, he did try to block pictures on the site sometime around 2006 and wrote Phunk in response to all the dissing. "haters on the internet" etc., he was bothered aat times.

What seemed to bother him most about fansites was not being able to control content such as photos but moreso he really believed that fansites were havens for bootlegging his music, hence the whole PFU dust up, housequake shutting down, etc. He really only wanted NPGMC online.

He knew that he wasn't regularly filling entire arenas with orgers, lol. Only a few members here believe that this site had more than an occasional influence on Prince.

he tried to shutdown the org after we had a thread of unflattering pics, i still feel guilty because i was one of the ones laughing at some of the pics, he tried blocking all pics and shutting down the org and writing phunk, nothing to do with bootlegs. our man had control issues, we all have issues that we struggle with all our lives, that was his, maybe the point of his life was to learn that he cannot control everything.

meh didn't care for it after a few listens. Although the title track wasn't that bad and could have been a cloassic if it was arranged better. 3121 wasn't as bad as Musicology

PeteSilas said:

babynoz said:

What seemed to bother him most about fansites was not being able to control content such as photos but moreso he really believed that fansites were havens for bootlegging his music, hence the whole PFU dust up, housequake shutting down, etc. He really only wanted NPGMC online.

He knew that he wasn't regularly filling entire arenas with orgers, lol. Only a few members here believe that this site had more than an occasional influence on Prince.

he tried to shutdown the org after we had a thread of unflattering pics, i still feel guilty because i was one of the ones laughing at some of the pics, he tried blocking all pics and shutting down the org and writing phunk, nothing to do with bootlegs. our man had control issues, we all have issues that we struggle with all our lives, that was his, maybe the point of his life was to learn that he cannot control everything.

My guess is Prince was the kind of guy "yeah, but I'd rather die trying".
Which is fantastically sad. Or sadly fantastic.
That drive still remains a mistery.

I guess when your fingers obey the mind at such speed, when harmonies
are reworked in the mind while going to the studio, everything else in life
becomes almost mundane. Don't forget we're talking about someone that had for many years,
a very limited view on the world on a global scale, except for news headlines.
What I mean by that is the world, the way people function (they need to relax and rest otherwise they go mad at each other or themselves),
probably started to look alien to Prince, and that is probably why he looked like a total alien to the world at certain periods.

I could not and still it doesn't flow through me easily

I think it is stronger than Musicology though

BUT I love the 3121 era. The title track is tight. I has always felt like a shadow of Rock Hard In A Funky Place.

The 3121 title track is awesome - love it very much!!!

Lolita - get rid of that one or maybe a different recording of it would work better.
Incense And Candles - rubbish, I would remove that one.
The Word - ok, but quite weak, a nice guitar solo! A re-recording may help this one.
Black Sweat - it's ok and passable but not mindblowing amazing.

The order and general flow doesn't work that great.

Maybe 10 tracks would have worked better.

Prince was never good at self-editing and ordering tracks. A&R people can help if Prince was to ever listen!

Love, Satisfied, Fury, Beautiful Loved And Blessed, The Dance and Get On The Boat (love Maceo on this one) are great tracks!!!