Been listening to Jesse Johnson's Revue for a while now. Damn, he nails all Prince cliches down to the point where it's difficult to tell if the production is done by him or Prince. The big difference is that the songs has less edge and originality as a whole. They sound a bit more "normal".

The bass style is quite similar to Andre Cymone and Prince. The synths and bassline has that minimalistic sound that Prince would do on songs like G-Spot.
If Prince was good at emulating Jesse guitar, then Jesse is just as good at mimicking the whole Prince production style. It's screaming Jamie Starr alot more than Flyte Tyme Productions. Who was playing the instruments on this album? Did Jesse do the most of the album alone?

When that is said, the album is still a great sounding album to me, with maybe a 2-3 throwaways. The rest is great production wise, is catchy, dancable, and tons of cool riffs. Also Jesse does the impossible, he is able to give the album personality even though it's almost 100% copy of the Prince style. The huge difference is a lot less in your face and more monotone vocal. Makes you appreciate the music more as a background music.

Though each and every MPLS sound artist back then, starting with ex collaborators (André, Jesse, Morris, Mark...) tried to emulate 's pre-1985 signature sound, none managed to sound like him to the point someone with a true habit of 's signature sound could get confused. 4 one thing there was the complexity of the music. Even 's most barebone grooves always had some fucked up little details or unexpected musicial elements popping in here and there. Jesse never had that, his songs, while extremely enjoyable and efficient, were extremely repetitive and predictable. Also Jesse had a very personal keyboards signature sound on his first albums that was unique to him and distinguised him from and everyone else. On the other hand, they all managed to emulate 's typical keyboards and even linn drum sound at times, none was able to emulate his very personal guitar signature sound (I'm talking rock guitar not necessarly rythm guitar).

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Not sure if they really played on the album but in theory Jesse had a band at this point, including ex Time members Mark Cardenas and Gerry Hubbard. David Z also engineered at least some tracks. See full credits here: http://www.discogs.com/Je...se/2262743

databank said:

Though each and every MPLS sound artist back then, starting with ex collaborators (André, Jesse, Morris, Mark...) tried to emulate 's pre-1985 signature sound, none managed to sound like him to the point someone with a true habit of 's signature sound could get confused. 4 one thing there was the complexity of the music. Even 's most barebone grooves always had some fucked up little details or unexpected musicial elements popping in here and there. Jesse never had that, his songs, while extremely enjoyable and efficient, were extremely repetitive and predictable. Also Jesse had a very personal keyboards signature sound on his first albums that was unique to him and distinguised him from and everyone else. On the other hand, they all managed to emulate 's typical keyboards and even linn drum sound at times, none was able to emulate his very personal guitar signature sound (I'm talking rock guitar not necessarly rythm guitar).

.

Not sure if they really played on the album but in theory Jesse had a band at this point, including ex Time members Mark Cardenas and Gerry Hubbard. David Z also engineered at least some tracks. See full credits here: http://www.discogs.com/Je...se/2262743

I would agree that Prince has some weird details and musoical elements popping in here and there that Jesse didn't have, and yeah I can tell the difference . But I think he does a good job though, and some of the songs are great tracks for the dancefloor. To be honest, I feel like he at the beginning almost was obsessed with many of the details in Prince music. The extended album version of I Wanna Be Your Man is a great example. If it had Prince vocals instead with some small adjustments here and there, I wouldn't automatically think that somebody else than Prince was behind this song if he did his own vocals and did some minor changes to the mix. I will have to do some more research to dissect his way of mimicking Prince . Thanks for the links.

Btw, Andre Cymone is a perfect example of someone that was able to create something of his own when he released his first solo album. The only reason why it sounds Princey to me, is that Prince also sounds a bit like Andre. They learned from eachother. His last album on the other hand was trying to emulate prince more, as he was probably forced a little bit by his record label as well as trying to make Dance Electric fit the whole concept of the record. His own approach was alot "whiter" if I'm allowed to say that.

Replica said:

databank said:

Though each and every MPLS sound artist back then, starting with ex collaborators (André, Jesse, Morris, Mark...) tried to emulate 's pre-1985 signature sound, none managed to sound like him to the point someone with a true habit of 's signature sound could get confused. 4 one thing there was the complexity of the music. Even 's most barebone grooves always had some fucked up little details or unexpected musicial elements popping in here and there. Jesse never had that, his songs, while extremely enjoyable and efficient, were extremely repetitive and predictable. Also Jesse had a very personal keyboards signature sound on his first albums that was unique to him and distinguised him from and everyone else. On the other hand, they all managed to emulate 's typical keyboards and even linn drum sound at times, none was able to emulate his very personal guitar signature sound (I'm talking rock guitar not necessarly rythm guitar).

.

Not sure if they really played on the album but in theory Jesse had a band at this point, including ex Time members Mark Cardenas and Gerry Hubbard. David Z also engineered at least some tracks. See full credits here: http://www.discogs.com/Je...se/2262743

I would agree that Prince has some weird details and musoical elements popping in here and there that Jesse didn't have, and yeah I can tell the difference . But I think he does a good job though, and some of the songs are great tracks for the dancefloor. To be honest, I feel like he at the beginning almost was obsessed with many of the details in Prince music. The extended album version of I Wanna Be Your Man is a great example. If it had Prince vocals instead with some small adjustments here and there, I wouldn't automatically think that somebody else than Prince was behind this song if he did his own vocals and did some minor changes to the mix. I will have to do some more research to dissect his way of mimicking Prince . Thanks for the links.

Btw, Andre Cymone is a perfect example of someone that was able to create something of his own when he released his first solo album. The only reason why it sounds Princey to me, is that Prince also sounds a bit like Andre. They learned from eachother. His last album on the other hand was trying to emulate prince more, as he was probably forced a little bit by his record label as well as trying to make Dance Electric fit the whole concept of the record. His own approach was alot "whiter" if I'm allowed to say that.

I totally agree with André, his first 2 albums owe much more 2 the new wave scene than 2 and it's very likely that he taught a lot when it came to emulating Gary Numan and The Cars Living In The New Wave is a sheer masterpiece IMHO by the way. Now when it came 2 A.C., André much more clearly tried to emulate sounds that were typically 's, and even more suprisingly he managed to sound as weird as did!

^There's also a melody thing. Jesse, Morris, Mark, ready For The World, u name it, none of them had the strong sense of melody had. They all had what I would call typical R&B melodies and u could take any new jack swing record from 10 years later and the melodies would still sound the same.

Don't get me wrong I really like Jesse's albums and productions, I'm madly in love with the song Every Shade Of Love, I'm also madly in love with Morris' full Color Of Success album and I really enjoy what came after that. I also quite like Mark's 2 albums and I think Mazarati (basically Mark's first album) is an absolute masterpiece, and to be honest I still have to find a minneapolis sound album (whether by ex associates or totally unrelated copycats) that I dislike. As for Jam & Lewis they managed to build on that sound and create something else entirely, enventually becoming just as influencial as ! I don't want 2 put any of those folks down but there was a little glimpse of genius, an eccentric something musically speaking, a profound sense of details in the arrangements, and a very strong personality with a true poetic capacity when it came to lyrics that had and none of them had. I guess that's what give the mythic stature that none of them, even Jam & Lewis despite selling just as many albums if not more, have managed to achieve.

^To put it more bluntly where they were all -and the whole world with them- trying to sound like did in 1980-84, or exptrapolating from that sound, was doing ATWIAD, Parade and Madhouse. That's I guess the best way of defining the difference between him and all of them.

I mos def need to take a closer look at Mark Browns solo efforts, I have totally dismissed him as a solo artist. Mazarati is the shit though . And yeah, I completely agree on Andre. I actually think he also introduced Devo to Prince. Imagine what a funky dude like Prince would do with these two songs combined with an obsession for sex and James Brown

Sexuality anyone? lol


I agree that when they were trying to do the Prince sound, that's when you can really tell the difference. It also says something about who truly understood it. Thankfully Jesse Johnson has done some great stuff with his album Verbal Penetration that sounds nothing like Prince. It sounds more like Curtis Mayfield updatet. And if it was stripped down to on album, it would have been something special. It's great as is, but alot of the songs are a bit to similar imo.

databank said:

^To put it more bluntly where they were all -and the whole world with them- trying to sound like did in 1980-84, or exptrapolating from that sound, was doing ATWIAD, Parade and Madhouse. That's I guess the best way of defining the difference between him and all of them.

Zannaloaf said:

databank said:

^To put it more bluntly where they were all -and the whole world with them- trying to sound like did in 1980-84, or exptrapolating from that sound, was doing ATWIAD, Parade and Madhouse. That's I guess the best way of defining the difference between him and all of them.

Just a reminder he was Prince then and is again now...unless you have a thing for using the symbol?

I was mad when he reverted back to "Prince". 4 me he'll always be .