Ok, was listening to this album the other day, love it, some very powerful songs.

This was his 1st album as a free man so to speak. Free of all chains, bound by no restrictions, this is what freedom sounds like, etc, you know the rest. Ok, if that was the case, why on earth would he want to throw those chains back on for this album, and put himself back into slavery by setting out to do 3 cd's with exactly 12 tracks, each being exactly 60 minutes long? He put himself right back into artistic slavery the second he was free of it. To me at least, he created the very situation he was trying to get out of by doing this. How many songs didn't make the cut because it would put it under or over 60 mins? how many versions of songs had to be reworked to add more space, cut space, etc. Doesn't sound like freedom to me. Am I crazy to think this? There has to be someone else out there that has made this observation.

I still love the album to this day, but I have always found it perplexing as to why he did this.

peace

leadline

I think there has been quite a lot of discussion and opinions expressed about the relative merits of the songs on Emancipation and about what was and wasn't included. I have to say I hadn't thought too much about the symetrical or conventional format you identify...maybe he was just going for balance or perhaps his own marketing research confirmed industry formats as...? the most cost effective? useful? well-received? I don't know.

But I certainly never read the format of E. as contrary to the concepts of the 'album' (freedom, love, family etc).

have u ever thought that most people who has the old 1999 cd didnt have DMSR on it?well i feel that CD's still didnt have that much memory on them like they did in that time.

1999 i can understand, he didnt set those constraints, those were a limitation of the media as you state. The emcnipation project however is just very perplexing to me. The creative slavery he threw himself into by having each cd exactly 12songs 60 mins, is just mind boggling to me

mmm, not really...think of it as just one of them princey quirks. not restrictive at all, just his way of doin shit.

leadline said:

He considered himself enslaved by a corporation which was imposing restrictions on him that he hated and didn't want to follow.

The time stuff on Emancipation was something he dreamed up and followed through with, like "let's see if I can do this!"

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Exactly. It's like saying "A painter has the opportunity to paint on the largest canvas in the world, instead he chooses to paint on a regular size canvas - he must be resticting himself!". The difference between the Warners restiction and Prince's "60min" restriction is that HE made the rules, not somebody else. Besides do you think Warner Bros would ever have released a 3CD album with all new material only a year after the last album had been released? No way.

I see your point and you could always chalk it up to Prince's contrary nature, however, I know that he saw this project as a challenge to his creativity (not a restriction) to put out a three CD set with the his own parameters of '12 songs per disc at exactly 60 minutes a piece'.

Also,there was something about the fact that he had been studying the Egyptians at the time and that it seemed to mean something to him that this three disc project had these symetrical elements that somehow mirrored the relationship between the pyramids and the stars and the fact that they are a message from the Egyptians about the origins of the universe.

I know that sounds nutty, but Prince never really explained that thought clearly enough.

A blank canvas with no boundaries is often an intimidating and shapeless thing.
An artist usually has to give themselves some kind of boundary or invented rules
to even start a project. You have to set yourself some criteria for whatever
you create, even though you may end up abandoning them in the end. You have to
set the rules before you can break them.

I think it's another case of Prince setting himself a challenge, he's done it
with individual songs before. Like with 'La, La, La, He, He, Hee' or 'U Got The
Look'.

BorisFishpaw said:

Sorry, Boris, I don't know the particular challenge Prince created for himself with U Got The Look. Could you elaborate?