Just watched a 3121/Prince discussion on Newsnight Review,5 people in heated discussion-4 pro,one anti 3121-anyone see this?

Yes, and it was a pretty interesting discussion.

Please take the following as a kind of stream of consciosness of what I remember (only caught the name of one person)

Some of the things that were said:

the presenter called him the 'polymath pixie of pop' and this was his 'newest musical opus - the enigmatically titled 3121'

'he's updated his seminal Paisley Park sound of the 80s for a new generation'

the guy called Kwame called it "fon-kay" with a fresh sound & instrumentation' although 'there's a bit in the middle that's mundane R&B'. He was raving about it.

it 'reeks of funk'

Then they discussed how's he's tipping his hat back to the likes of James Brown - but then agreed that he's tipping his hat back to Prince. The presenter questioned whether he was listening to too much Prince and not enough OutKast, for example. The blond woman countered, "How can you listen to too much Prince?"

The dark-haired woman gave props to any 5ft man who could make her alliterate.

The blond woman asserted that this establishes that he's "really great on his own" but not collaborating. She mentioned a couple of times that Ta'mar has a voice but no personality. There were negative mutterings about the Latin stuff.

The one guy who wasn't convinced by the album said he was going to say negative things but when he saw the clips on the screen (they showed some old stuff followed by Fury at the BRITs, Te Amo video, Black Sweat video) it made him want to reconsider.

Kwame said, "Just listen to the guitar work"

They then discussed whether 'the kids' would like this. And the general consensus was 'no', despite his being a pioneer in txt msg language and that this was for the older generation. Also, some of the 'lounge' stuff would be pretty popular in the current musical climate.

Kwame was just happy that it wasn't a situation like Michael Jackson a couple of years ago - "a middle-aged man trying to sound hip". This is FRESH JAM.

They also discussed a little bit about the religious nature of some of the lyrics. The negative guy thought they were laughable, Kwame thought they were interesting.

The negative guy said parts of the album reminded him of Sign O The Times (the album), at which point the blond woman asserted that it was his best album since then (HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE HEARD THAT IN THE LAST DECADE?!?!) but the negative guy thought the lyrics were too full of 'self-regard'. Nothing political like Sign O The Times - 3121 is his house and it's all about partying and gettting 'satisfied' in there.

Overall, it was extremely postive and a very interesting discussion.

I hope somebody posts this video, thereby saving too many people from reading my unstructured scribblings.

leecaldon said:

The video will be up on the website tomorrow:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/h...efault.stm

Thanks. I would love to see this. Sounds like a great discussion. Neither all positive, nor all negative...

I saw it too!

leecaldon said:

I think he said that the best parts of the album reminded him of the best parts of Sign O' The Times.

I liked how the presenter mentioned Wendy, Lisa and Cat as if they were all household names.

I don't find the song Sign o The times to be Political...at least not pointedly. It was more of his musing about what was happening at the time. A random thought (or a few) brought to paper and then to music all within a day. It was "the days thought" and nothing more.

I think P thinks about his music and lyrics too much these days.

I saw it aswell. i got a phonecall sayin "turn it on Newsnight Prince is on it" i thought Prince on the news? omg something has happened to him!! but whew just a review!
it was nice for once to see him get such a positive feedback and overall praises on TV. obviously the other 3 r big fans.
the negative guy was just sayin that 2 play devil's advocate. he was probably told to do that to juice it up a bit.

Its up on the bbc site now. The prince chat starts about 9 1/2 mins in.

They don't seem that keen on Tamar.

Sue Perkins does my nut in.
Why the hell is she famous anyway? her and her sidekick Mel are just not funny.
They try to be, but it just ends up painfully cringeworthy.

That was actually pretty good

muirdo said:

well at least she never slagged Prince off

catpark said:

i noticed that she seemed to be quite a fan.
She's not my cup of tea though.

muirdo said:

Shes not mine either. she is a crap comedian

i found 'Light Lunch' quite entertaining as a 6th former. I'm going to attempt to watch the vid in work while it's quiet.....

The whole thing was refreshingly positive and they all seemed pretty clued in on Prince too. Whether they were fans or just well-prepared, it was cool anyway

I find the whole idea of this a little bizarre.

Nothing wrong with a healthy discussion about the merits of Prince, it's all good publicity for 3121 but it's funny that everyone on the show agrees that Tamar is bland

It was funny that they mentioned names, such as Tamar like the audience in England would happen to know. His best album since Sign O The Times?

Polymath pixie of pop

Cool - but it's ironic that one of them (the blonde woman) and I tink at least one other mentioned cringeing and cringeworthy stuff on the album - this whole discussio had me cringeing and embarrassed for them over and over. You can't discuss P in posh pseudo-intellectual accents, and polite retorts: you're a bunch a wankers!!!!

NouveauDance said:

Is the video still there? Because if it is, I'm having trouble finding it...

RUHip2TheJive said:

Click on the purple button on the right that says "Latest Programme" and you can watch the whole show

FruitToAttractBears said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol...id=4686677

this is the direct link


starts after 9min 30secs
[Edited 3/19/06 11:32am]

Thanks FruitToAttractBears and asg.

Got it

Punjabi guy: "Kwami, can you see yourself getting jiggy with it?"

That was fun to see. Overall, very positive. They're definitely buzzed about it and that's good.

Now can someone tell us what Prince's new name is? These guys obviously know something that we don't. They kept saying "his name was Prince"

leecaldon said:

and yet only 2 years ago he criticised my sounds for being too 80's and said i needed to update them

apparently not

Prince ur a GAS

sacredwarrior said:

Damn, he was being mighty nice to you.

What is up with ppl saying best album since SOTT? Are you kidding me?

BSK3601 said:

Yes he was.

leecaldon said:

- I hope so!!


- There is a problem I find in some Prince´s music. I love when an artist expresses his/her feelings, but sometimes Prince is too much self-indulgent in the lyrics. How can someone relate to stuff like ´My name is Prince´ or ´Undisputed´?