Thats a very personal take on Lovesexy ...copmpaired to Pauls boutique both albums are castaways from fans (initialy overlooked works) its only for the listeners who can see past the cover sometimes the uncoolest albums to others turn out to be your personal favourates .

you so blatently UNDER rate LoveSexy ....why ?

PurpleKnight said:

well one thing that needs 2 b understood about lovesexy is that its a message record...the message thru all the songs is basically love is god god is love get god in your life and everything wil be fine etc etc etc.

secondly its considered great..for me anyways because for one i cannot listen to the majority of gospel music...i'd like to but i can't..most gospel that i've heard is straight forward and mega preachy..i can't get with that...(which is why i'll probly never buy the rainbow children judging from the few tracks i've heard)but lovesexy is different...it has some straightforward ones but it don't feel like he's sayin U HAVE TO LOVE GOD! but u should try it..it'll be nice. ..and the whole single track this is cool 2 me...yea it was SUPER annoying at first cuz i'd want to skip strait to i wish u heaven or to anna stesia,but now i like it that way..kinda hard to explain why tho..its also great, to me any way cuz it has great music on it...and the fact that it was drug induced makes it kinda interesting to me cuz its like wow this is what he can do as the result of drugs and all that i can't wait til the next record to see what he's like with out em....u get me?

also i agree with u on the whole too short i wish u heaven and anna stesia shoulda closed the record out things.
[Edited 12/26/04 12:51pm]
[Edited 12/26/04 12:52pm]

I have to partly agree with you. For me, Lovesexy is a pivotal album in the Prince cannon - it represents a line, before it - a clear progression, after it, an odd mixture of positives and negatives.

I think Prince locking himself up in Paisley Park is a big factor in the decline, and Lovesexy was the first Prince album recorded entirely at Paisley Park (If memory serves!)

I would say Lovesexy is an amazing album, but it is a bookmark on the end of Prince's best work, and thus has elements of that which came before, and that which would follow.

I think what I love about Lovesexy is the themeatics, the flow, the feeling of the album - And although I like what he did on the album - What I don't particularly like about it is that it doesn't sound like Prince was pushing himself anymore. Like he'd found a groove, a niche, and decided to settle there. There isn't really anything on Lovesexy we hadn't heard from Prince before (the Lovesexy sound was well underway with projects like Camille, The Black Album and the first two Madhouse records).

The Lovesexy sound is then made crisper, cleaner and more mechanical with the Rave/Batman. After this we see Prince chasing genres (House and Rap).

So, in answer to the question - Why is it so over-rated?

- Well, it's generally accepted to be the last great Prince record.
- It was Prince giving a big F.U. to everyone, doing what HE wanted to do - before doing so was deemed uncool by pop culture.
- It ends that chapter in Prince's career where he was a giant of pop music, the era when many people became fans, their childhood and adolesence.
- The tour - I'd say it was THE tour of his career, and it means a lot to the fans who attended.
- The self-made mythology that surrounds it's conception (The Black Album).
- It is a great record!

Its overrated because it was released in the 80s (1988). The Black Album is a much better album.

PurpleKnight said:

Emancipation was a good album but there is a song or 2 that should'vr been cut

ABeautifulOne said:

You mean a disc or two!

PurpleKnight said:

Well, let's get off the fence here.

Emancipation is a 3CD set - so cut away the shit, and you're still in luck with a handful of decent tracks.

Lovesexy is a VINYL LP - 45 mins of music, 9 tracks - just over half a CD today.

There's more classic tracks on Lovesexy than there are half-decent ones on Emancipation. What a crap comparison!

PurpleKnight said:

Um, cuz Prince did it.

Dance said:

And? He's also responsible for the absolute "masterpiece" New Power Soul.

NouveauDance said:

yeah I can't get into Disc 3 but i keep Disc 2 on repeat all day

PurpleKnight said:

That's not what I meant...

Dance said:

Sorry. Maybe you could try elaborating then?

yeah I can't get into Disc 3 but i keep Disc 2 on repeat all day

Some of Disc III definitely sucks (Slave? New World? Yuck), but it's got Face Down, Style, My Computer, The Love We Make, etc. There's some great stuff on there.

PurpleKnight said:

Grow up young brotha, and rather listen to some MJ record...that's what you need...
Liszt and I are from the same country so I know what I am talking about...

Lodger said:

Huh? Just because I find Lovesexy to be mediocre doesn't mean there's a problem with my ability to appreciate the complexity of Prince's art. I just don't see what's special about Lovesexy. It's an average album placed in a fortunate era.

And Liszt who btw? Franz Liszt, the composer?
[Edited 12/26/04 15:57pm]

it seems to be that the european audience love it almost as a religious/spiritual experience, and the yanks just dont get it !

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PurpleKnight said:

Yes! His name is Liszt Ferenc...you know he's Hungarian....
[Edited 12/26/04 15:59pm]

PurpleKnight said:

OH LAWD!! Anyway, it's just like P said "Either you have a mindblowing experience with it or not." Plain and simple. That's what i LOVE about Lovesexy, how "overproduced" it is. He didn't pull any punches. It has this "full" sound to it, like he didn't hold ANYTHING back. It was him saying "FUCK IT" and doing his own shit. and i LOVE it..not to mention i have a personal reason for loving it so much.

PurpleKnight said:[quote]

Dance said:

u 4got The Human Body that song is SHIT

That's cool, I love Liszt's music! The God of the piano.





Oops, I did. I think I was trying to repress it.
[Edited 12/26/04 16:01pm]

ABeautifulOne said:

Your avatar is the SHIT!!

Lovesexy is to preachy and over-produced and Emancapation has to many love songs for Mayte (Soul Sanctuary) and Prince trying to do teckno (New World).

It was the last really great album. It's got this flow that you don't find on later albums.

I'm not saying that he hasn't made better songs since but as a collection of songs it flows like a good movie.

I think that your overall appreciation may depend on:

a) Your age at the time of first listen;
b) If you heard this album sequentially after Sign O' The Times and The Black Album;
c) How American you are.

Do you remember before the internet and actually queuing in front of a record store to open so you could buy the new Prince single?

Remember that the last single from Sign O' The Times was 'I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man'? Stadium-rock MOR pop and then... BOOM! 'Alphabet St.' dropped. It sounded like nothing else before. A funky sparse ballad with nursery-rhyme melodies, cartoon production and the 'Yeah, yeah, yeah' refrain. It sounded like a barely-rehearsed jam recorded to 4-track. It's the only time that I can ever remember local mainstream DJs playing both sides of the 7".

Then the video... Silly, wilfully cheap, garish, bizarre but above all - fun. Subliminal messages and chroma-key distortion.

I can remember buying the album on cassette like it was yesterday. I got the bus into town, armed with my walkman. I was confronted with nude Princes all over the record store. The image is still my favourite of his album covers. It's art - it really is. The flower's stamen standing in for his dick was sacred and profane all at the same time.



I listened to the album all the way through on the journey back home. It was like the musical equivalent of drinking undiluted squash.

Somebody earlier commented that the album was "shiny" sounding. It isn't at all - not in the way that his 90s crap was. It sounded "bright" - not shiny.

rudeboynpg said:

New World isn't techno at all...

Lodger said:

New World is Prince TRYING to do techno.