As posted by me at Housequake.com:



Above you can see the entrance to Kronzprinzenpalais located at Unter den Linded 3 in Berlin. I was astounded to see the huge banners at the façade of the building. As we entered the lobby we were greeted by Universal’s staff. Each of the people wore 3121 t-shirt. White was the theme for yesterday – walls were decorated with white tapestries, onto which the well-known 3121 logo was projected. There were 3121 flower pots with purple tulips and 3121 drinks (I was too excited to try them!). Finally the door opened. Earlier we were asked to leave all our personal belongings in a cloak room...

No recording devices were allowed to be brought in for the playback (no bootlegs thus far ). Kronzprinzenpalais’ Spiegelsaal was lavishly furnished with white couches, coffee tables and poof chairs. There were around 30 people present at the listening session I attended. I was anticipating what would come next and happy because the speakers looked and sounded (there was some lounge music on while the people were gathering) impressive.

No sooner had we started to get comfortable than the things turned even more exciting. One of the Universal’s execs made a speech in German (I do not speak German, unfortunately) and introduced to us the NPG Records rep and a Universal Motown USA rep. That having been done, the rep took a CD-R copy with 3121 scribbled on it, slid it into an elaborate CD player and the playback commenced. Before she pressed the “play” button I could see there were 12 tracks to be played as I was sitting right in front of the CD player’s display [Smile]

I will try to describe each of the songs as accurately as I can. Please not that I only were blessed to hear the album once and my description might not be totally accurate. It is going to be difficult because the album sounds unlike anything you have heard!!! I am positive about that point!

On a side note, we were given no tracklist, no titles, no promo stuff, nada! I will let you know why later. The titles I give you are the ones from CD-WOW, as I think they might be pretty close to the truth.

1. 3121 (running time: ?)

The opener of Prince’s newest album hits you really hard. It is a slow to mid tempo funk extravaganza. The drums are really hard, the bass is really prominent. It sounds really psychedelic, like something by Bill Laswell & Material. It has got a lot of rhythm guitar, absolutely crazy synths, and an electric guitar solo at the end. It is sung in a Camille voice, which actually gets even more distorted. It is highly experimental and will make your jaws drop I assure you. It does include the “thru the gates, leave your clothes on the floor etc.” lyrics. Funnily enough, it ended with the words “it is going down like the wall in Berlin”! I got goose bumps in a blink of an eye!

2. Lolita (4:04)

This is a “Lady Cab Driver” meets “I Wanna Be Your Lover” tune, very catchy and melody oriented. The drums remind me of “Lady Cab Driver” while the synth line sounded like the latter cut. Prince sings swaggeringly “Lolita, you may be sweet, but you’ll never make a cheat of me”. There is a synth solo, some spoken word in Spanish by a female I could not identify, Prince calls “fellas” and “girls” and asks them some question to which they respond in unison.

3. Te Amo Corazon (3:35)

Exactly the same as the one released by the NPGMC.

4. Black Sweat (3:10)

Exactly the same as the one released by the NPGMC.

5. I Don’t Wanna All Night (or I Don’t Want It All Night, could not tell) (4:03)

It begins with some keys (a Wurlitzer piano?). It is a duet with a female, Tamar presumably. The song is a ballad but very far from being schmaltzy and pretentious. There is some use of vocoder noticeable here. The song features a very nice breakdown part with drum ‘n’ bass like drumming, a little bit like the one from “The Sun, The Moon and Stars”. It ends with some beautiful vocal harmonies.

6. Love is 4ever (5:45)

An uptempo, crazy funk track with a pulverizing beat and synths on crack. Stripped down funk. Something in the vein of “Strange But True”. Prince sings “stop telling me what you want me to hear, stop giving me your wish list”. It has plenty of handclapping, fantastic rhythm guitar, Camille vocals. It sounds very complex and experimental because of the crazy drum patterns and prominent synths. Real chicken grease!

7. Satisfied (2:50)

The studio version of the song is much better than the live excerpt we were able to hear. It is a stripped down blues with beautiful passionate vocals sung in different registers. It reminds me of Ray Charles’ songs but has this Prince feel at the same time. A very heartfelt and emotional excursion in blues.

8. Fury (4:00)

This is a classic rock song with unbelievably catchy melody. It sounds just like the SNL version, although obviously it the vibe is different. No cowbells on this one [Smile] The songs is driven by synths and some heavy guitar. You can count on some fierce solos with this one!

9. Let’s Do Something (4:10)

This is a mid-tempo jam, a little bit reminiscent of “Wherever U Go, Whatever U Do”. It has some acoustic guitar and saxophone parts. “Get up, come on, let’s do something”… It seems like the weakest track on the album at first only to turn into a marvelously complex composition with a heavy guitar solo and… a congas solo. Sheila E., anyone?

10. Beautiful, Loved & Blessed (5:43)

Exactly the same as the one released by the NPGMC.

11. The Dance (5:13)

Get ready for the biggest surprise of your Prince geekhood. The Dance is the same song as the one from “The Chocolate Invasion” but… the arrangement is completely different and will make you say “OMG!!!!”! This is tango!!! It is full of real strings, piano soloing (yes!!!), Latin percussion (congas). The vocals are some much different on this version – at the very end Prince starts screaming just like he did on “The Beautiful Ones”. It is easily the best ballad he has released in a long time!!! There is a guitar and synth solo at the end, handclaps and the screams!!!

12. The Boat (6:17)

Classic funk in the vein of James Brown but nothing like “The Work Pt. 1”. It is very catchy, full of soloing and blazing horns, acoustic guitar and prominent bass licks. Again we have some vocals by a female (Tamar?). “Get on the boat people, we’ve got room for a hundred or more”. There is Maceo Parker on this track (Prince calls his name) and someone who is really good a Latin drumming (Sheila E.?). It has got a very live feel with James Brown like chants and lots of solos either on sax or percussion.

Once the listening session concluded the Spiegelsaal became filled with handclaps of the people who were privileged to listen to the album. I had the pleasure to talk to the NPG Records rep who was very kind and this is what she told me:

- there was no official tracklist as of yesterday
- Prince was supposed to hand in to Universal the artwork of the album with full credits and lyrics today (02/17/06)
- there was supposed to a full page ad in today’s USA Today with the cover of the album
- tour is planned for spring/summer

My final thoughts on the album:

This is one of the best albums from Prince, take my word for it!!! It is raw, funk oriented, with unbelievable drums, bass, synths, guitars, vocals, melodies… It is nothing like “Musicology”. I thought “Musicology” was decent albeit too calm; this one will blow your mind with its originality and power. I did not expect it be that good, honestly. The journalists that were not Prince freaks said it was “awesome”. You can dance to it, you can think to it… It is stunning!!!
[Edited 2/18/06 2:59am]

Black sweat not longer? Lame.

How'd you become the chosen one?

ewald said:

I work in the industry.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience and first impressions. I really enjoyed taking the trip to Berlin with you.

I'm quite encouraged to find out that "The Dance" is not the download version from "The Chocolate Invasion". I found that to be very forgettable, like almost all the NPGMC download tracks. Not even worthy of being considered as filler for "Emancipation".

However, buried within the production seems the nugget of a good melody just begging for air, and it could be another fascinating side of Prince hearing the results of a completely reworked version of an already recorded track.

Thanks again!

Papaj said:

Papaj said:

Thanx 4 your review..1 more time!

my question> i read reviews here & there and i noticed that 2 song seem 2 be very interresting 3121(the cristal Ball 2006?) and the Song "The Dance"....can u give us a lot more descriptions and Feelings about these 2 new songs!

Thanx in advance

peace

stef

thanks!

now i can't sleep 'til 3|21

potroastpony said:

It's on there...HE just meant there's not an extended version...

See sticky http://www.prince.org/msg/7/177834