Unlike many of u, I have not had the pleasure of listening 2 The Family's album.

I have only heard "The Screams of Passion" & wished I could have it all! (is it really as good as all that???)

In order 2 ease my suffering, or increase it (u're choice of course , I'd be most gracious if those of u who have it could please write a review here, song by song.

Many thanks in advance & don't 4get 2 do the dance...electric*

Lovelife*Lovesexy...always.

Hi,

I know I'm not answering your question (completely),
but there's a great site with album reviews of 'all' Prince (-related) albums, including The Family.

http://www.thedawn.freeuk...tabank.htm

Btw, The Family is indeed a great album and you really should try to buy it somewhere...



Peace,
TheKid

Here's my track-by-track review of The Family's album...


***"High Fashion"---This song is great! A funky,uptempo song with a great hook.The lyrics deal with some "stuck up little rich girl" that St.Paul (lead singer) is trying to impress.

***"Mutiny"---Another funky jam.Sounds alot like Prince's 'Parade' era music."Mutiny,I'm takin over,you got to give up this ship,you gotta take a little trip".

***"The Screams Of Passion"---this is the album's centerpiece.A dreamy,intoxicating R&B track with really sexy lyrics.The strings make it sound heavenly.Susannah and Paul's vocals sound great,meshed together on this song to create a stunning love duet.

***"Yes"---a pointless instrumental.Sounds like it belongs on a Madhouse album.It's always great to hear Eric Leeds though,and this is one of the few moments where he gets to do his thing.

***"River Run Dry"---This song is a GEM!! The arrangement is lush and heavily orchestrated,but yet the song has a "stripped down" feel to it.The drums really stand out.The lyrics deal with the end of a relationship..."Three hundred tears,crystalline,each one containing a memory it seems...Stick pin jab in the middle of a dream,no love at the end of the rainbow".

***"Nothing Compares 2 U"---To be honest,I don't really like The Familys' version of this song.The latter versions by Sinead O'Connor and Prince himself are far superior.The Family's version sounds lifeless and too slow.

***"Susannah's Pajamas"---Yet another filler instrumental.Like "Yes",it is really just a showcase for Eric Leeds but it's not as exciting as some of the Madhouse material which came later.

***"Desire"---This song sounds like an outtake from 'Around The World In A Day'.It's a perfect closing song for the album.


Overall,I would say The Family is a decent album.There was room for improvement,though,and one can only wonder how a second Family album would have sounded.The music throughout shows exactly where Prince would soon be heading,on his own 'Parade' album.

better at the time.Prince lost His Damn Mind with the Clarie Fischer Orechestration IMHO.1) High Fashion alright track.nothing special.a nice roll&groove.2)Mutiny:Controversy part 2 basically.it's a alright song.3)the Screams of Passion:one of those Songs that Prince should have saved for His Damn Self IMHO.4)Yes: a Poor Man's 3rd String James Brown Work-out.but far more groove than "The Work' IMHO.5:River Run Dry:dug the Story-line&easily the best Lyrical Content Song IMHO.the drums are tight.thumbs up too Bobby Z on this Gem.6)Nothign Compares 2 U":dug St Paul's Singing but Sinead O'Connor easily whips Prince's&the Family's version.Clarie Fischer's Strings wreck this Song.all over the place here.7)Susannah's Pajama's:just there&Boring.8)Desire a cool ending.makes a good Album track.overall out of 5 I'd say 2.5 overall.the Basic aspects of the Music were tight in spots but the songwriting was spotty as were some of the arrangements.vocals were good to so-so. Prince wanted that cross-over money.I like that line in the Book "DMSR" where Prince says I want some of that Duran,Duran Money.well the Family at best would get Prince some of that Corey Fieldman Money.

Where can I find this? I had it on tape and lost it. Damn.

I know that many Prince's fans think that Miss Understood is a weak song but I love it , too bad it was not released on The Family album

jnoel said:

I think "Miss Understood" is a great song,and it should have been released,in some form or another.

lovebizzare said:

Try Ebay,but be prepared to pay alot for it.

Bidding on ebay? What the hell jive are u talkin'...

GETTING A COPY OF "THE FAMILY" IS VERY EASY

I walked into a used music store and bought The Family on cassette for like a dollar. Same as when I needed Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6. I've seen the original vinyls too.

If u want it factory mastered on CD, that's another case, yeah.

CinisterCee said:

Yeah,I think they want it on CD.

DavidEye said:

No, I just want a copy of it, I can't find it anywhere where I live.

I would be glad to send you a copy

BigDaddy said:

Orgnote me.

Mmmm...This could be interesting. Let's see if I can exhume my old copy of 'The Family' from my CD collection. Ah, here it is:



HIGH FASHION: Crap

MUTINY: Started promisingly, but then was also crap.

THE SCREAMS OF PASSION: Absolute codswallop. Pigs squealing in agony would ellicit more "passion" than this.

YES: As much fun as watching paint dry. I would derive more enjoyment if someone surprised me from behind with a Christmas tree.

RIVER RUN DRY: Best track on the album by far. Metallic-sounding drum machine provides welcome relief from appalling human drumming throughout the rest of the album. (Wait a minute! Wasn't this track written by a drummer???)

NOTHING COMPARES 2 U: Complete bollocks. Bring on Sinead's version instead.

SUSANNAH'S PAJAMAS: Goes on forever and quite boring. Perfect cure for insomniacs had me wearing my own pajamas.

DESIRE: Stick to the demo version. This is watered-down pap
and Claire Fischer's orchestration is OTT. Gratuitous metaphors of bodies covering "towers" are silly and betray an infantile and mysoginistic attitude.
Writer of lyrics probably has a very small penis.




And there you have it!

Rating: 1 out of 10.


On a sad note, my new goldfish manifested their displeasure and anguish at the appalling choice of music by jumping out of their fish tank in protest, committing suicide in the process. "It was for the purposes of a review" I explained, but they died testily all over my lounge carpet.

The little fuckers. I have now fed them to my deaf cat.

I have now decided to have the above offending article peremptorially removed from my music library forthwith.

The first person at the org to post the most interesting reason for wanting my personalised copy of 'The Family' (on CD, naturally) will receive it totally free of charge, before I chuck it in the bin.


.
[This message was edited Sun Dec 1 8:05:36 PST 2002 by giotto]

giotto said:

Dude, are you NUTS?!! This was one Prince's best projects outside of his own work. It's funky, melodic, and all-around beautiful.

Giotto,are you serious?? Your review had me crackin up,but I assume you're just joking,right?

I see that my no-nonsense review has ruffled a few feathers around here.

How about this, then?


'The Family' sounds and feels like a movie score confectioned for a film which has as its premise the adventures of a young, multi-racial musical family living a life of leisurely suburban sophistication in an erzatz jazz-age time warp that has never truly existed, least of all in mid-west America... Instead, this personal Xanadu, this haven of monochrome bliss, has sprung fully-formed from the feverish and prolific mind of Minnesota's most enigmatic son.

'The Family'can aptly be described as a DEPARTURE... a brave new vehicle for Prince to boldly explore new musical horizons, his creative and artistic impulses totally unencumbered by the mundane constraints that so routinely seem to afflict lesser mortals not worthy of licking his embroidered high-heeled boots.

'The Family' sees Prince, the enfant terrible, gleefully suckling at the ample bosom of his most voluptuous creative muse. And she is grateful. For she pants in delight, and screams in sheer ecstasy.

And when the incense has cleared and she has been left catching her breath, dizzy from this glorious vertigo, tears of joy running down her cheeks of alabaster, the result - ladies and gentlemen - is an album of almost unspeakable beauty, an album that ploughs its own unique furrow in the barren, castrated landscape of pop, at once imbuing and revitalizing it with melody, joy and adventure whilst intuitively thrusting at the erogenous zones where the physical and spiritual collide in orgasm.

Prince's previous incursions into soft-porn paradise and teen trash (i.e. 'Purple Rain') have too often tended to overshadow his unique talents as a composer and arranger without peer. 'The Family' is a rare and invaluable document of Prince finally coming of age as a writer of vision, invention, harmonic and structural control. There are perhaps more bombastic Prince albums than this, but probably none as adventurous or as exciting.
Consigned to the scrapheap of history is the hopelessly outmoded "Minneapolis Sound", with its trademark Oberheim synth and cold Linn LM-1 drum machine textures (except, perhaps, on 'River Run Dry'). Most of the music on 'The Family' is far removed from the easily accessible pop rock of '1999' and becomes by necessity a trickier proposition for those cursed with appalling taste and a callous ear (i.e. most of the record-buying public). The rhapsodic strings and counter-melodies, courtesy of Claire Fischer and his heavenly orchestra, add tremendous drama to the music. The lush, evocative imagery of gentle autumn breeze, dancing curtains and leaves falling in a "velvet splash" conjure moments of stolen, illicit delight whilst transporting one's mind to a primal, bygone era when romance, rapture and liberty would nakedly and unashamedly walk hand in hand in a carefree utopia.

Smothered in glorious compositions and beautiful arrangements, 'The Family' is a classy, sophisticated triumph. Seriously, Godlike.


Would that get u off? Tell me what will!


.

Whatever!

Giotto,you're a trip

But I dig your posts.