The SOTT thread has me thinking...

I remember the first time I heard songs such as "Controversy", "DMSR", "She's Always In My Hair" or "17 Days" and I remember being completely smitten with each by the end of the first verse. I really like the songs "Everywhere", "The Marrying Kind", and "ICP&C", but will he ever make me feel the way I did when I heard some of his earlier stuff for the first time? I guess I haven't felt "it" since christening "TGE".

It means we are getting older.....it's not his fault.....

MidnightFunk said:

Agreed, new music mostly just doesn't make an impact like that anymore when you're older and have seen and heard it all before. You are just a lot less impressionable when you are older compared to your teenage years.

funkaholic1972 said:

that is just assinine. if that were the case, how come, dspite getting older, I am still affected by alot of new music the way I was affected by older Prince music,I'm just not affected by Prince's new music that way. so obviously it isn't age, or experience, but Prince's music.

by your logic, older people could never enjoy anything since they are just too disillusioned by experience. you should be embarrased just to utter suh an ignorant statement, which obviously isn't true to any extent

Prince's music just isn't as revolutionary or simply as good as it once was, that is on him, not me.

funkaholic1972 said:

i dunno. i am only 15, started listening aged 12, and too be honest i was and still am BLOWN AWAY by his 80s material. Parade, SOTT and Lovesexy were all created at his peak and they are as great now as they were then. But take say Rave, TRC and Musicology. Yes i enjoyed the music, but i wasn't as astounded as i was when discovering the 80s albums. I neither he nor us is to blame, both have changed. The majority of his audience has developed and become more adult and older. Most of his fans are in their 30s now. As his hardcore fanbase ages, the audience he is producing for and seems to be targeting, seems to be at a stage the majority of you were all at 20 years ago.

We want the more experimental wild and rique side of prince while he seems to be going for the total opposite.

But i believe he DOES still have it in him to produce something equivelant if not BETTER than say Parade. Its weather he decides to that is the true case.

THE QUESTION SHOULD BE---

Will you ever allow yourself to feel that way again???

Prince is not responsible for how you feel---you are. How you respond to any stimulation has to do a lot more with you and less with who is tickling you. Get it?

He makes me feel "that" way everyday.

what i am saying is....i am married with kids...

my wife and i still digging each other after 18 years

and watching my kids do things and grow just are the things i focus on now...

I still love Prince music and still get excited when he comes 2 town...

but...a new Prince cd with NEVER make me feel the way I did when i was 16 and

very little else 2 think about....it's just the way life goes.....

i wish for that feeling sometimes, too...
the moment i always think of is when i first heard "when doves cry"
are we longing for our youth, or are we just hungry for new sounds, innovation?
i think a lot of it has to do with
how prolific he is...
we've been spoiled with so much rich material
over a wide range of styles, that we as fans are hard to
surprise or even impress.

skywalker said:

I understand, to an extent, the point you're trying to make but if your logic is absolute, then I suppose if Roseanne Barr put out an album and most everyone who listened to it thought it was less than stellar and weren't overly thrilled with or excited by the material, then that reaction is TOTALLY on the listener and has nothing to do whatsoever with the material/music itself recorded by Roseanne Barr?

I personally think the material and the artist **DO** have something very much to do with the listener's reaction to said material. (I say this with the understanding that everyone is unique and has their own tastes and ideas on what constitutes "good music" or "music that moves them", but damn..to say how a person responds to ANY STIMULATION is all about them and NOT about the artist or the material itself is a bit shortsighted.) If I listen to the Rave album, while there are a couple bright spots, overall that album is a big mess and has a muddled, trying-to-hard vibe to it...which, really, is the place where Prince was and how he was feeling musically (and personally, imo) at that time of his life. However if I listen to Lovesexy or SOTT, there is a totally different feeling to the music. Not even touching on the aspect of TALENT here (which we all know Prince has tons of..) but just on the artist's own place in life at the time he/she records particular material, I feel that comes through and translates into their work. You can use many many other examples of other artists and certain albums in their catalogues to illustrate this point.

Like everyone on this earth, Prince has gone through times of strife and confusion in his life and also of great happiness and joy, both personally and professionally, and it's my opinoin that Prince has been struggling and feeling confused as to how to express himself musically and still be true to both his personal musical vision and to the other areas in his life like his religion, et. al, and I think the music and albums of the last decade truly DO reflect that. Sure, how a person respnds to stimulus does largely depend on their own individual experiences and mindset and attitudes, but IMO it's NOT *ALL* on them how they react to music, or to how much certain music moves them or touches them. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you claim that your reaction to Prince's, or to anyone's, music, or the vibe you get from it is WHOLLY based on ONLY yourself, means you aren't **really** listening to the music and allowing yourself to **really** hear what the music is conveying.

I don't really want to get into a philosophical argument, nor do I wish to split hairs over semantics; I was merely wondering if the guy will be able to conjure in me an excitement he was able to bring forth time and time again during the '80s. I was completely blown away by "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and "Sea Change", so I don't think I'm incapable of swooning over music simply because I'm no longer nineteen, I was merely pondering (out loud) as to whether Prince would join those ranks again.

And yes, he does still foment lust, smiles, and merriment in me. Everyday.

thats an ever debatable question - prince is capable of so MUCH and we expect SO MUCH thatits never really enough never really good enough - never quite WHAT we expected - and always always no matter what he puts out it falls short of where we DIE hards want him to be... err maybe thats the error

is he pleasing him? pleasing us? or pleasing the pocket?

in the meantime i am digging some of the newer talent that doesn't illicit LUST per se but they do make me swoon Leela James' voice is on point...Damian Marley mmm....

He could make me feel the same way again but only if he released some of the old stuff from the vault from the early 1980s. When I heard some of his unreleased songs for the first time a few years ago such as "Extraloveable", "Heaven", etc., I got that exact same feeling I used to feel and haven't felt since 1984.

I think we're all sentimentally attached to the eras that made us fans. While we may enjoy later music(at least I expect to), it'll never make us feel like our first few Prince albums did.

sexymuthafuka said:

I guess by "lust", I was referring to a desire for more music like his 80's fare. I wasn't suggesting that I'm ready to dry hump the speaker everytime "Darling Nikki" comes on. That said, the litter guy is quite prurient, isn't he?

MidnightFunk said:

Yes, and yes.

I wouldn't want to be 16 again, actually.

Good thread!

I remember how I used to feel in the 80s when I first heard a new Prince track.I would go insane! Hearing songs like "1999","Private Joy" and "When Doves Cry" for the first time just blew me away.I miss the excitement,but I guess alot of it has to do with getting older.

I would NEVER wanna b 16 again....

NEVER!!!!

MidnightFunk said:

Yeh it has something to do with this... I mean it just so happens my favourite Prince period early 80's to early 90's does correlate with the days of my youth eg, early teens to early 20's . But even so I would still argue there was something special about most of the stuff he did in this era and i do think he was more experimental and maybe even creative in those days , yeh sure I was in my prime but so was he

I would never want to be 16 again but I definately wish I had been older back during that era so I could have gone to clubs and really enjoyed myself to the fullest. Once I was old enough, music as a whole had changed for the extreme worst. I was cheated out of some great partying years.

dumbass said:

I guess it is a bit of both, I do agree that he was more innovative and experimental back in the 80's. But getting older and less impressionable has got to do with it too.

I guess by "lust", I was referring to a desire for more music like his 80's fare. I wasn't suggesting that I'm ready to dry hump the speaker everytime "Darling Nikki" comes on. That said, the litter guy is quite prurient, isn't he? [/quote]


lol - not dry hump the speaker!!


no i agree i think we all have era's that we appreciate PRINCE betta - and somehow i DON't think that we WILL see those again on a WHOLE... but HEY what a RYDE - right!!

as for that LATTER man - what a RYDE...

he could do it..sorry folks but i just dont buy into this "prince is older and his fanbase is too" bullshit..

bjork has been in the business since she was 11 or so.....she blew me away with Vaspertine.....long after her twenty years in the industry.....emmy lou harris blew me away with her last album and she has been in the industry way way longer then prince...daniel lanoua (sic) did it a few years back and he has been in the industry longer then prince.....miles davis did it...quincy jones did it....sade did it..fuck; simply red did it to a minor (and i mean minor) extent with his/their last album....tears for fears floored me with their last release.....sure it wasnt original but it had emotion...it made me care about them....hell, mj's butterflies mustard more emotion then the crap prince has been waxing...and even prince himself has had two moments of excitement...musicology and reflections...

its a simplistic and ill prepared statement to say prince and his fans are old...

it can be done...the question is; does prince wanna do it (not just for one or two songs per album..but on a consistent mindblowing album level)...prince seems to think his only competition is him in the past.....talk about a recipe for complacentcy...(sic...aight..sorry for the mispells but i am drunk as fuck and need some sleep..night night all-sos)

sosgemini said:

I agree with much of what you've said as I, too, am unable to join the 'age has ruined it for us' school of thought.

Do you ever get the feeling that P sometimes makes music like a kid running out of time in a gradeschool art class? I mean, you've got a piece of construction paper, some pipe cleaners, a gluestick, and a few crayons. The bell's about to ring. You slap the stuff together - the colors match, the materials stay adhered to the page, and you think to yourself, 'not bad!' I kind of suspect P does this, too. He takes a lyric from the '80s, a sample from '90s - adds a new vocal, and says to himself, "Not too shabby". Problem is, he's got a lot more to work with than the contents of some classroom. He's got the whole world, not just some wing of Paisley Park. to inspire him; I hope he uses it.

(Edited to fix a plethora of typos - I hope I caught them all!)
[Edited 8/6/05 8:58am]

jillybean said:

Again, you seem to be searching for why Prince can't make you feel that way again. Do you realize how this sounds? Who is responsible for making you feel anything but yourself.

People always comment that they want Prince to "sound like he used to" as if that's going to make them feel like they did in the 1980's again. The thing is, Prince has frequently "sounded like he used to". In 1999 he released the song "Rave un2 The Joy fantastic" and it was straight out of 1988. Did that song make you "feel that way again"? "1+1+1=3" IS the MPLS sound. Did that make you "feel that way again"? If not, it seems not to be Prince's fault. I'm not saying it's that you are "old". Just that we respond differently to things as we grow.

Example: When I was 5 years old, the slide at the park was the most exhilirating
thing I'd ever experienced. Now that same slide doesn't give me the same thrill. The slide hasn't changed, it's the exact same height, etc. Maybe it's because of my age, maybe it's because I used that slide over and over again and my brain got used to it.

I think it's the same with you and how Prince "made you feel".
[Edited 8/6/05 9:13am]

skywalker said:

i cant speak for jilly but that isn't the case for me....i know this takes away your oppurtunity to pontificate but your analogy just doesnt add up....

music is *art*...your supposed to question your reaction to it.....it has nothing to do with "enjoyment"..some of my favorite films and music are not appreciated for their enjoyment but for the emotional responce that i experienced when viewing/listening...

for me, i dont even muster an emotion when listening to most of prince's new music....reflection and i love you but i dont trust you anymore being the rare exceptions...

Yes he will!

Prince hates his fans, and we absolutely love him for it!

dumbass said:

And your over reaction to his statement and the conclusions you derived from it, [rude snip edit - luv4u].

"how come, dspite getting older, I am still affected by alot of new music the way I was affected by older Prince music"

Cause... [rude snip edit - luv4u]

Most mature people would not respond to someone stating thier opinion as it directly related to the topics question by calling thier POV 'assinine' or 'ignorant' . [rude snip edit - luv4u]

His statement is valid... take any course in critical thinking or simple adolescent developement and you will understand why I agree with it. simply relying on what you currently understand to be true... may not be enough.

skywalker said:

Look, some songs the guy wrote in the '80s were pure shite. This is what I meant to say:

It seems to me that before '94 or so, I'd say the average of 'flat out brilliant' to 'filler' tracks per album was something like 9:3. Since then, these numbers seem to have flip-flopped. I don't care if he wrote a song in 1979 or 1999, I'm simply saying I think a lot of the fare he's offered lately seems 'phoned in'. I felt the way I felt when I first heard 'SOTT' or '1999' because those albums were fantastic. From start to finish - they were eclectic, slightly esoteric, excellent things. 'C&D', 'Rave', 'NPS' - while each containing a fine track or two seem quite half-baked to me. 'TRC', while not to my liking, at least seemed thought out, inspired, and full of conviction - so I give him props for that outing. I guess I didn’t express myself very well if you’re thinking I’m merely jonesing to be 17 and unjaded again. In simple terms, I’m looking for a slightly larger quantity of quality music.

Better get those torches lit and pick up those tossing stones. I'm ready.
[Edited 8/6/05 11:28am]

QuakeXLE said:

Very well said.