There were other cd's released that were simply better. And before anyone rants aboutno one comparing to Prince due to his sheer skill with regard to playing, songwriting, dancing, etc., let me just say that, even though I never directly compare anyone to Prince, one can say that this cd or that was simply better than the other. With that being said, if I had to say what my fave cd of the year is, it would have to be....Van Hunt. Sure, he's no Prince, but who the fuck is? But, for all intents and purposes, Van Hunt put together an album that, like Prince of yesteryear, defies categorization. Very well written, great melodies, the whole package...listenable for years and years to come, never growing old. This cd's flow is like a quiet river...you can sit there all day and get lost in it from beginning to end. Musicology, on the other hand, is old news to me. Sure, when it was released, I jumped on it being that it was a new official Prince cd, but after a few spins, I grew weary. Even today when I pop it in I find myself skipping all over the place. It just doesn't have that Prince flow for some reason, and I can't place my finger on it. The one song that I thinnk is a true masterpiece is "Reflection." Pure Prince through and through. Not because it sounds like him in the past, but because you can feel taht song...I feel like I'm sitting on the porch next to him as he;s sininging about how it used to be. I even thoght I would get back into it with the Cinammon Girl "contoversy." When I saw Michele Malkin rip on the video, and realized that she hadn't even watched it obviously, I got the song. Genius. But the message is what hit me, not the music. I found that a bit odd for a Prince tune. I give Prince his props; I feel that this was his "you bitches wrote me off, this how easy this shit is" cd, and coupled with the success of his tour, he threw it back in their faces and then some. So, while I still give Prince an A+ for his strategy with this cd and tour, the content just cannot stand up to scrutiny. is it bad music? Hell no. I still pop it in every once in a while. I'm basing this soley on the fact that I typically judge music by it's ability to stand the test of time. 90% of what Prince put out I would consider timeless. But not Musicolgy. It's not that it will sound dated, it just sounds uninspired after a few listens.
I still think that Prince has no peers in the music industry. But, nobody's perfect.

i think there were better albums released this year, sure. i think as poppy splashy fun albums go, gwen stefani's solo album blows musicology away. i think as experimental funk goes, !!!'s 'louden up now' kills musicology in a heartbeat. and i could go on and on...but, as far as the whole package - touring, promoting, and YES, even the album - i can't help but feel like prince really showed 'em how it's done this year.

Shit, Scheisse, Merde !

BlackandRising said:

i lke to take you on ur above quote.musicology is still less than a year.dont you think it is too early in the day to judge it on ur above premise?
most prince classic were almost written off as uninspired but prince has always gotten the better of that bad situation by proving his skeptics wrong.ten years from now listen to musicology and then and only then would ur argument be worth any reply.

BlackandRising said:

No shit.

Thank God 4 That. I would be a bad year if MusicO would be the best with somemany good artist around.

Fhunkin said:

yes, i liked the !!! album too.

raveon2tnek said:

Most of my favorite Prince albums took me over a year if not years to finally enjoy. Knowing how this site is, when the next album drops, people here are going to be saying Musicology is a masterpiece and "blah blah blah" is a piece of uninspired crap. It happens every year and 2005 will be no different.

raveon2tnek said:

I appreciate your take on it, but Musicology is literally the first album from Prince that I just cannot listen to on a regular basis. I don't even know where the cd is it's been so long since I've listened to it. I conceded that Prince definitely proved his critics wrong...in fact, he in as much as shoved their words down their throats this year and then some. For that, again, I give Prince mad props for the year 2004. But again, I feel that when he put Musicology together, he had this goal in mind more so than making a cd like he has in the past. I would argue that if he did make a cd in the vein of SOTT, i.e., a cd that people will be talking about for years to come, the tour wouldn't have been as successful. I think that the attention span by most today demands that if you want a hit, it damn near has to be immediately likeable. That's not to say that if it is, it won't be likeable in the future. This cd was immediately likeable, but it was like eating the same thing every day...you just get sick of it.
Again, not knocking Prince; I think this whole thing was a stoke of genius on his part. But I think he's going to use the popularity gained here to make a CD that he truly wants to make (or at least I'm hoping).

BlackandRising said:

Just wondering here, what makes you think that Prince didn't want to make this CD or a CD like this? I'm not trying to dog you, I really want to know where you're coming from with that opinion.
[Edited 12/23/04 10:32am]

purplecam said:

I'm not saying that he didn't want to make a cd like this...in fact, I'm saying the opposite. I think he understands that doing things that are totally Prince are seen as a little left by the buying public, hence he needed to put something out that was radio-friendly and not hard to listen to, or take 10 years of listening to "get." A cd that is not immediately enjoyable these days is not going to make it commercially (at least immediately)...it's just the nature of the beast.
So in order to do what he did, he needed that kind of cd, i.e., Musicology.
I mean, if he had released something quirky along the line of SOTT, Lovesexy, etc. (not that I'm comparing them), I really don't think he would have been as successful this year as he has. So he did what he had to do. Release a "commercially viable" cd that put him in the spotlight again. Again, these are simply my opinions.

Now I understand. I remember thinking that he needed to make an accesible album if he was going to get fans back. I've also noticed that when Prince makes a simple pop album, most of the die-hards don't like it but the casual to not a fan really enjoy it. Thanks for explaining it to me BlackandRising.