theVelvetRoper said:

Loved it. But I love and appreciate all of Prince's work. I don't think the average fan understand how lucky we are. Imagine if Prince came out with 1 cd every 5 to 6 years.....

some good trax on that cd actually, i like
big white mansion
joint 2 joint
love we make

right back here in my arms
jam of the year
and oh yes face down

so all in all an album if condensed down is very good in my book
[Edited 3/28/06 7:43am]

The songwriting was there but I remember wondering why he didn't use real drums especially after Gold and Chaos. I didn't think it would age well and it hasn't at all, it's sounds incredibly lame and dated.

Disk 2 (except for the dreaded E-Male) was and is my favorite of the three without a doubt

sosgemini said:

Fair enough assessment, SwingoutSisterTwin....I was just listening to it last night..some good songs, but too many songs. People keep overlooking Prince's version of One of Us, which I love (his version, not the overlooking part)

This is one of the ONLY CD's that shows such a wide range of flavors from one single artist. Its the song styles all meshed together that shows P at his best. Are all of the songs his best?? Of course not....but show me another "MUSICIAN" who could write, produce, and perform 36 songs on an album, much less come up with the different genres and range of music contained in Emancipation. YOU CANT. This is by far one of his best works, hands down!! So, to all the haters....listen to "Face Down", and hear P's vibe directed atcha!! (P's FUNK at its best.)

ndigo said:

Exactly. A common criticism is that "There's too much filler" and "It should have been edited down to one CD", yet no two people ever agree on the best tracks. Funny that. Good job we got all 36 then.

NPGman said:

Line it up next to SoTT, and Emancipations range is very very narrow. It's one bland r n b 'jam/joint/whatever' after another. It reminds me of what I'd expect out of a double album by R Kelly or Nelly.

Had Prince made Emancipation 1 disc, hell even 2 discs even, it would have turned out alot better. But because it's 3 discs, it sounds pretty bloated. I wouldn't call it a bad record, much less his worst(that title goes to NewPower Soul). It's just not great.

Actually, I think that Prince had some sort of small comeback with Emancipation. It didn't sell terribly(sold a little over 500,000), and the Jam of The Year tour was a big success. Yea, people probably still thought Prince was nutty, but at least it showed he wasn't entirely reclusive.

Then the Crystal Ball fiasco happened...

Emancipation is one of my top ten favorite Prince albums ever!!! It hasn't stood the test of time as well as some of his others but I remember in 1996 when it first came out how absolutely crazy in love I was with the complete triple set, my favorite being disc 2. Totally and inexplicably underrated, I thought it was masterful. It had maybe 2 or 3 clunky songs on it out of 36, but even those (Da,Da,Da, We Gets Up, title track) got into my head eventualy and now I love them all!

In fact, Emancipation is my favorite Prince album of the last ten years. Though, his best album of the nineties is still the Gold Experience, I don't care what all the haters say!

Then again, why listen 2 me ... I'm one of the few people here who would also rank Grafitti Bridge in my top ten faves.

Emancipation is a love cd written by prince (well 90 percent of it) to Mayte.It is a good cd of alot of LOOOOOVVVVVEEEEE songs lololol no pun intended.I would probably give that cd to someone who recently got married.I listened to it like last month.

Emancipation was, and still is a great album. It was an epic project which allowed Prince, in his greatest attempt, to have more control and freedom as a producer, arranger, and performer. He showed mostly all his cards here: from R&B and rock to jazz and techno and created a solid, sprawling album. The second disc stands out the most because it's like a love letter to his then-wife Mayte. That disc also is most expressive and romantic. Although it's not my favorite album, I think it was one of the best he did in the 90's alone and the riskest album he did, in general. I loved the concept and the message he put out at the time (although that slogan, "the album he was born 2 make", was corny). There were some weaker tunes on here, but that was just the minor issues. The production was not the best because the whole album is mostly build up on synthesizers and computers, but that production was cool. Yes, it was overlong, actually running 3 whole hours and no, it's not a classic nor a masterwork like Sign O The Times was, but Emancipation is a killer album.
[Edited 3/28/06 20:10pm]

silverchild said:

Yes, I nearly die of boredom every time I try to listen to it...

I personally love the album, agreed there are some weak tracks on there (namely most of disc 2 - my opinion of course) However I own two copies, as a second copy was picked up for about £1.99 (as stated in an earlier post).

The reason for 2 copies? well one for the house,and one lives in the car.

I love the randomness of the track Joint 2 Joint.

Any album containing "Sleep Around," "Joint 2 Joint," and P's take on "One of Us" is all right by me!

I was really disappointed the day this came out - after the Come / Gold Experience / Chaos And Disorder era, I was hoping for so much more power - my favorite tracks were the '94-'95-era NPG band tracks.

I was so excited before the album release, and had stupidly-high expectations. After disc one, I was very underwhelmed, disc two was better and I loved disc three, but as a whole it just seemed like too much digital/plastic production (which, unfortunately, has continued to varying degrees even up to 3121).

I've been finding that I enjoy the album much more over the last few years, perhaps because I don't listen to it too much. This was the first sign for me that Prince's newfound freedom may not be all it was cracked up to be...

It was a very good album but it could have been SO MUCH BETTER, It had too many songs on it. Plus it came after the tour de force known as The Gold Experience. A big downer. But I have some favorites on it like:

Sleep Around
Soul Sanctuary
One Kiss At A Time
The Love We Make
New World
Face Down
The Human Body
Savior
Style
Betcha By Golly Wow
Somebody's Somebody
Joint 2 Joint

booyah said:

Just imagine this album recorded with the old NPG, the tightest and best band in the world...Michael B the Master on drums, Sonny on the Bass, and Morris and Tommy B on keys....I like it the way it is, but with those guys it would have been a FANTASTIC album, probably with even more songs, as it was originally planned to be...(52 songs)

I always enjoyed almost everything on disc 2 when I'm in the mood for it, and a couple of things from the other discs too, but surely not everything. I can understand the frustration of those who have been Prince fans long before this. I guess this is one of the albums that are better "afterwards" and new to Prince. It might have been my third or fourth Prince album.

'In this Bed I Scream' is the sh*t, though!

jone70 said:

this album is spoilt by the production (as if you hadn't read on any discussion of it) but if you can bear it, its a rich source of material for fans.

i like it better than tge (not a single song on it is worse than 'we march'). im in love with the syncopations going on all over the place. on disk 2 i feel very close to his musical ideas.

its not the album that should be sold for £1.99 but the drum machine/sample disks used (in a bundle. emancipation-free the shame!). probably his worst audio creative decision. sadly, he didnt learn much from the opinions of his fans on later albums.

ive tried to nail what other things bug me about the production. is the close room reverb effect on most things?

I think it's a great album. Someone said it sounded "samey," but I don't believe that to be true. With tracks like Sleep Around, Face Down, The Love We Make, Holy River, Style, Joint 2 Joint, Get Yo Groove On, In This Bed I Scream and Human Body, there is nothing "samey" about Emancipation. It's all over the place.

Nasalhair said:

In Christchurch New Zealand theres 3 unopened copies of it for $10.00 NZ each (The dollar is now worth 34p and 59 US cents, so not quite as cheap as your shop.

This album gets hated on alot but it really is awesome. And it was inspired by Mayte. Helllloooo???

TheBigBang said:

I love the cd.

THIS ALBUM IS SELF INDULGENT TO DEATH

Emancipation was the first time Prince could scoop all the crap in his mind and spew it on to wax. Theres only 10 worthwhile songs, none really classics, and the rest is self indulgent filler. Prince nearly choked to death from this tidal wave of crap was unleashed on to the market. Just for your deification I will rate each track out of 10. A mark of 7 means its good, 5 OK , 3 is filler and 0 is crap
CD 1. Iwill use track numbers rather than title, as its quicker

1. 4
2. 5
3. 6
4. 2 (Whats with this Motalbo shit)
5. 5
6. 7 (One of the better 10)
7. 3 (Good for migraines)
8. 8 (Nice)
9. 8
10. 9 (Probably one of the best)
11. 0 (Very crappy rapping)
12. 7 (Not bad either)

Total 64/120 very average

CD 2
1. 5 (DATED QUICKLY)
2. 5 (ditto- soupy crap aimed at Mayte)
3. 6
4. 2 (sad)
5. 6
6. 3 (funny lyrics though)
7. 5
8. 10 (Best song)
9. 0 (what the hell was he thinking!!!!)
10. 6 (starts well, gets very self indulgent at the end)
11. 1 (self indulgent synthesiser drone/ experiment)
12. 1 (More crap aimed at Mayte- the Tijuana stripper?)

Total 52/120 needs work

CD 3
1. 2
2. 1
3. 2 (All low tempo funky indulgent dated mid 90s dancing crap)
4. 2 (very bad Black album take)
5. 7 (relief after songs 1- 4)
6. 2 (again cliched 90s nonsense, gayest song on album)
7. 6 (quite funky, not a bad song)
8. 0 (very scappy rapping, by Scrap D makes Tony M sound like Jay Z)
9. 7 ( a good Prince ballad, one of the better songs)
10. 9 ( one of the best of his covers, believable lyrics and singing)
11. 4 (starts ok but gets self indulgent)
12. 3 (ditto ridiculous and over produced)

Total 45/120 poor

TOTAL SCORE 161/360 = 44.9% A marginal failure, this could have been marketed as a great single album and essentially any song that is a 2 or less shouldnt have even been put on the album, this is a self indulgent mess.

Whats funnier are the super cheap graphics, designed in 1996 by the designers of Tijuana strip parlours or colourful signs for Arab Socialist regimes and the state art gallery of Uzbekistan???

jone70 said:

I think Face down was ok as well but otherwise being a fan from back in 81/82 this was the moment when prince sounded so un prince and just plain bored that I thought he was lost forever - until Rainbow Children

Well I have to say that at the time I was convinced that this album signified the end of Prince as we knew him - he almost seemed lost in R&B hell with no way out. Still seeing as its 10 years old and this topic came up I thought I'd go back and try to listen through some of the cringe making stuff to pull out 10 tracks with which I think a non-embarassing and contemporary album could be formed on the basis that the tracks were fairly inventive, had good melodies and sounded like Prince . Anyway my Special cut 10th Anniversary Essential Emancipation is :

Joint2Joint
Emale
Saviour
In this bed I scream
Damned if I do
Slave
The Love we make
Style
Face Down
Sleep Around

will burn these on disk tomorrow and put in the car for a day ( will only take a short break from 3121 ) and try to listen like it was a proper album.

clarityman said:

I don't loathe every song on the album, I like Somebody's Somebody, Face Down & The Human Body. But only liking 3 out of 36 is pretty bad. (I even like NPS and NEWS better)...Emancipation sucks ass. The only other albums that I listen to as rarely as I listen to Emancipation are Chaos & Disorder and Kamasutra.

Enjoy one disc's worth of all the material. Just like Crystal Ball.