I have to say...Around the World is amoung my favorite of Prince albums....and as the years go by...I love it more and more! It was so different during its time! To open with such an adventurous track as if to lead you on his own funky safari! I LOVE IT

I love the storytelling in each song. I love that the Revolution (primarily Wendy, Lisa, Susannah) were more involved...

From the lush arrangement of COTH to the oversexed Tamborine and Temptaion....I love it all!

One thing..."She's Always In My Hair" should have been on the album as well as the lead off single!!!

Post your testimonials here!!!

There is something about PAISLEY PARK that everytime I hear it I feel this vibe of Euphoria and I am moved to tears, but it's tears of joy filled with love. I never shed them but that's how the song makes me feel. oooooh TMI that took alot for me to admit that.LOL

Fantastic album!!!! *****. This is in my top 5. This album came at the right time in my life. I was going through a very hard time. The songs helped me through it all. Yes I agree this album is brilliant!! It's the 1st. album I made love 2. My girlfriend at the time hated prince. And that album.

i love ATWIAD.
it might not b my fav prince album of all time but i view this album as a testement 2 the fact that prince is a MUSICIAN not just an entertainer. he could have easily milked PR 4 another 6 months-1 year and then release PR part 2. but he decided on a total change of musical direction and i really admire prince 2 this day because of that.

Rhapsody said:

I agree with you on that! I always found myself getting a little emotional with that song! I still hope that I'll find such inner peace! My mind is there...my heart is still workin on it!

"Admission is easy, just say u believe and come 2 this place in your heart.....Paisley Park is in YOUR heart"

Definitely a concept album from Prince! I have to give it to Prince for releasing this album after a succesful turn with Purple Rain. It separated his fans from casual Prince listeners. And we've been there for the ride ever since...

"Just like the sun, the Rainbow Children, rise."

I think it is very good. I love it

Yes.

Sorry. Simple question. Simple answer. I loved this album and still do. It's one of his albums (like LS) which is a real trip. I don't understand those who hate Tambourine. I love it. PP is amazing. America, Pop Life, Temptation. I still find myself involuntarily humming "Condition of the Heart" on occasion - "every day's a yellow day, I'm blinded by the daisies in your yard" (how did he get "eau" 2 rhyme with "do", tho?).

High,

Yes eye agree! That whole time period including Under the Cherrymoon and that tour were brilliant. In my eyes the best time for Prince...

Liquid

One other thing...

I dont believe "The Ladder" is a rip-off of "Purple Rain"....I've heard this before from fellow fams.....Yes they are both very "anthem-y" arena ballads and both have a spiritual tone...but I think they are both seperatly beautiful songs....Eddie M's sax was a nice touch to the "Ladder".....

Sidenote: I just got some Prince outtakes downloaded from a friend and in it was a VERY 1984 sounding "Around The World In A Day"...the arrangement was very much that of most Prince/protigee releases between 82-84. I'm aware that most of ATWIAD was recorded in the summer of 84. I just remember on P's Rolling Stone interview in 85 saying something like "You know how easy it would have been to have made a Purple Rain 2??? To put ATWIAD in a whole different key???"...HE DID!!!! Maybe I just got to facinated by this alternate version...I love it.....I LOVE THE RELEASED VERSION even more...but that other version reminded me of Jungle Love and Possessed...anyway....I'm done ranting! This is one long ass side note...sorry
[This message was edited Sun Mar 10 14:42:07 PST 2002 by VANITYSprisonBYTCH]

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

I wish us both such Inner Peace

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

He didn't. It's in the same key as the released version!!!

langebleu said:

Hey Langebleu....

I'm on crack today....I didnt mean key as far as the version I heard..I meant the arrangement of the track....It was without all the different instruments...A very live sounding track but done in the studio and much faster.....anyway...had to correct myself....thanx for checkin!

In retrospect, ATWIAD was incredible for it's time. I think that that period was the beginning of "the trip" that many of us have shared; listening to his music over the years. ATWIAD was an "about face" to the style of music he had built his fanbase with. He was using other instruments other than 2 giutars,a bass,a set of drums and some keyboards. This brotha had a pan flute, timpani drums and a gong. As much as I love the music prince wrote from '78-'84 I think that ATWIAD started an ongoing trend of divirsity in his work.

mojoe said:

NAIL ON THE HEAD!!!

when you said the beginning of "the trip"...this was when we couldnt get enough of each album and every album that came out after was better and different and more exciting than the previous....MAN i miss those times!!! I have to admit that I hesitated to listen to TRC at first because of all the sonic abuse I suffered with much of his music of late! TRC is hope of better things to come!---FINGERS CROSSED again!!!!!

I agree. The 12" versions of the songs are so much better. Along with the Bsides. 12" America, 12" Raspberry Beret. She's Always in my Hair.

Also the artwork on the album cover is beautiful. I like how the 12"s use the same artwork and different characters from the album cover.

I love this album for many reasons!! for one.. it was the firstv album recorded in paisley park studios!! another is it is 180 degrees from "1999/purpl rain" vibe!! Prince DIDNOT try to recreate or milk his 1984 success.. like everyone else at the time..

I love this whole album/vibe, ect!!

Rhapsody said:

I agree 100%. Open u r heart, open ur mind....Just if every1 on this planet could do this!!!!!

I know I'm in the minority,but I've never been too fond of this album.Sure,there are a few cool songs ("Paisley Park","Raspberry Beret","Pop Life"),but overall,the album just doesn't move me.I understand the concept,and what Prince was trying to do with this project,but to me,it just doesn't work.

I also think that this album contains two of the weakest Prince tracks ever..."Tambourine" and "Temptation",which both sound like throwaways.I always consider 'SOTT' to be the REAL follow-up to 'Purple Rain'.

"Around the World in A Day" was released just as one of the 80's most underrated sub-genres of pop/rock was emerging."Neo Psychedelia" was one of several post-punk genres forged in the early nineteen eighties due to the continued progression of punk into the mainstream consciousness. Considering most of punk's followers were never much for the "establishment" as it were, they began evolving and fusing their lauded art with the stylings of such lauded sixties artists as the "Byrds," "Cream," "Big Brother and the Holding Company" and teeny-bopping acid-droppers the "Chocolate Watchband" and the "Kinks."

Though most of this movement was relegated to underground clubs within the New York and Los Angeles areas, some eventually made it onto amateurish, lo-fi records by the "Three O' Clock" (which were offered "Neon Telephone" by Prince in later years) and "Echo and the Bunnymen." As the years progressed, the style and its various off-spring ("Noise Rock" and "Shoe Gazing") began to slowly trickle to the fore-front of the 80s pop scene, spawning hits for "The Church" and the aforementioned "Bunnymen." Soon thereafter, prolific artists, much like Prince, tried their hand at the jangly, eclectic and distorted alternative sounds that began infiltrating the musical consciousness of the mid-1980s and thus albums such as "ATWIAD" began cropping up here and there--some which met commercial praise and success, some which did not. Initially, Prince's 1985 opus did not fare well with music critics, who wrote the album of as a mere rip-off of "Yellow Submarine" and "Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

While several tracks sound remarkably similar to the material that the Beatles were churning out during the late 1960s, it is unfair to judge the album on the first (or seventeenth) listen. To truly enjoy what Prince aspired for, one must take all aspects of the record into mind: the artwork, both haunting and vibrant, captures the spirit of the "psychedelic sixites" (chaos and disorder, followed by the demand for peace during the 'summer of love') astonishingly well; the recording itself crackles in both lo-fidelity and hi-fidelity, giving one a sense of the past and the present, allowing the album a timelessness like no other; and finally, Prince's mindset at the time was both disturbing and enthusiastic. The media and his personal life ate at him day and night, even prompting him to "give up" touring for awhile.

The aforementioned aspects all molded into a brilliant (yet flawed) forray that still sounds good today, considering "Neo Psychedelia" has since returned to its underground origins. While different from other Prince projects, it'sa welcome change of pace from the typical "Minneapolis Sound" prevalent during the time.

Buy it, listen and love it.

DavidEye said:

Used to think the same as you David Eye until very recently. I've rediscovered the soul of both ATWIAD and Parade, and in some ways find them more of an interesting listen than SOTT or PR.

Of course neither ATWIAD or Parade are as critically acclaimed as either PR or SOTT, but the music to me seems to come alive that much more as a result. In contrast, PR & SOTT seem to come off a little less spontaneous musically, and more rigidly structured. Don't get me wrong, I love them both - they are brilliant albums but I'm finding them a little contrived compared to ARTWIAD at the moment.

Around The World In A Day was a respectable effort. It was a dramatic departure from Purple Rain. For this LIL MAN should got major respect. He could as easily followed up with a sequel to PURPLE RAIN. He could have made a more commercial record. With this album, I knew that he was going to be an artist of sheer artistic value!!!!!

* Brother 9/15 aka CR3

I love that album. I also feel that Paisley Park makes you feel like ur in a world of complete peace and love. That album stands out from all the rest. However that's what makes it so fun to listen to. I love Temptation it's sexy in a different kind of way. Every song was selected perfectly to create what is ATWIAD.

I love ATWIAD. It was the first album that I ever bought the day it came out! I was introduced to Prince by Purple Rain late in 1984 and quickly used my pocket money to buy all his other albums. I rememeber actually being at the wrecka stow before it opened so that I could get the first copy in my town! The guy in the shop had not even opened the cardboard box - I even remember insisting on a copy from the middle (less chance of damage to the wonderful cover.

Oh man I am reminicing now! Anyone prefer vinyl to CD? The gatefold cover had that clever little tear off flap and the kid with the balloon was ONLY on the celephane wrap! Still got both.

Maybe I am getting old (32 now) but buying an album felt really special and substantial. Because it could get scratched you needed to treat it with care - making the record seem all the more precious. CDs seem more like an ordinary commodity no matter what the music is like.

Oh well, as long as I get the music I don't care what the format is.

ATWIAD IS THE BIG SHIZZZZZNITT!!!!! AND YES SHE'S ALWAYS IN MY HAIR IS THE ULTIMATE JAM OF ALLLL TIME FOR ME.

THAT SONG USUALLY IS THE ONE I PRAY TO HEAR AT ALL THE CONCERTS!!! THAT ONE FULFILLS MY SOUL EVERYTIME.

AMERICA IS THE BOMB TOO!!!

PEACE

Thanks for starting this thread. It made me listen to ATWIAD again - I'm doing it right now - and, well, wow. I realized I'm spending too much time listening to all the outtakes:-)
This album is great.

i've always thought that ATWIAD was one of princes most experimental records. Its an amazing listen. when it first came out i was a little yound to fully get it but when i did finally buy it in 1990 it blew me away.

This was princes most creative time. Parade is a brillent album too. Their two very over-looked LPs. Although Q magazine voted 'Parade' the best ever summer album!

No.....Oh, alright ! It is Brilliant isn't it !

y'now this was the first album i bought of prince . hadn't even heard of him before. and i didn't know what it was either , just dug the artwork. boy did it blow my mind when i heard it. i was telling everybody to listen to this amazing genius!!!

they still think i'm nuts. ha ha