I did post this earlier on a thread about the title track of Lovesexy.

I am curious about your opinions on this? can you relate to it? does it make sense, or not? Did Prince make his final statement with Lovesexy, was it is peak, and did it went all downhill from here? Please react.

Lovesexy - Lovesexy

I would like to mention that this is probably his penultimate song in the way that it combines all the major lyrical and musical elements he has tried out before:

- It has the synths-replacing-the horns-trick that were so typical for the Minneapolis sound, bringing 1999 to mind.

- It shows his mastership of programming great electronic beats (this one is very 'dry' and works great in the context of the arrangement)

- The skeleton of the arrangement is funk-rock (1999, Purple Rain), but it also incorpotes psychedelic guitarlines (Around the world in a day), orchestral sounds: the fake swelling strings near the end of the song (reminding Parade and his collaborations with Clare Fisher), the jazzy hornriffs (Parade) and the experiments with sped up and distortant vocals (Sign of the Times).

- The lyrics combine the tension between the 'carnal' and the 'spiritual', something that has been a 'red line' in Princes lyrics from the release of For You in 1978. He combines both in the word 'Lovesexy', in short: God = Love, and sex is good when it as an expression of a deeper understanding of love and spirituality.

- The lyrical message is delivered both as a serious message as in a humorous way. The way he is fooling around with those vocals and the ironically cocksure lyrics at the end of the song, enlightens a message that would otherwise be to serious or preachy sounding.

- The whole song is full of contradictions: the hornriffs and background vocals are often in another musical key then the rest of the music, the seemingly serious message is relativated by the playfull lyrics and voice experiments at the end of the song, the music is 'hopping' from funkrock, to gospel, to psychedlic / hardrock, ending in a climax combining all of these elements, showing his mastership when it comes to composing and arranging songs (reminding masterarrangers like Frank Zappa and George Clinton), but it doesnt make him sound too pretentious, because of the humor and a sense for a catchy poppy melody scales that down.

To be short, i consider Lovesexy, his essential track, some kind of final musical and lyrical statement, that compresses all things Prince tried to express in his music and lyrics between 1978 and 1988.

Maybe chargating a bit here, but alltough he has delivered some great music after this record, he seemed to have made his central, most important 'point' here allready. In retrospect, he could have stopped making music after this record, and leave both his fans and the critics in awe, leaving them with a 10 year long career, probably only bettered by what the Beatles achieved in the sixties.

But of course, the reality is different....

Every artist has their peak. Prince is no exception. Listening to some of his post-Lovesexy stuff, I think it would have been a tragedy for his to stop there. His recent stuff may not be chart topping and good music to some, but each cd has many gems where I can appreciate his exceptional musicianship - The Rainbow Children- is one of them. Not only that, I love, and I'm sure everyone can testify, that when you see him live, he always does great renditions of his older music such as "Pop Life" on the Alladin DVD and tons more during Musicology.

Just because an artist peaks, does not mean its the end of the road. He/she is just in a different place in music and you can either appreciate it as such, or not.

I agree totally Riverpoet.

Lovesexy was without question that capstone of his musical growth beginning with his first album.
Before Lovesexy,..every album was a constant and consistent evolution from the last,.. musically and visually and conceptually.
But after Lovesexy, ...his music and vision became more and more increasingly... directionless and aloof from his evolution as a recording artist.
Sure there were good songs and cool videos after ,....but the innovation....was gone.
(with the exception of Batman soundtrack,...which ill explain)



I think by far the most important thing Prince was doing during the Lovesexy/Black Album era ....which is completely overlooked,...was his approach to song arranging.
(ie; the placment of instrument and vocals, verse, chorus, etc, sections)
The free form, jazz like,.. almost improvisational techniques he was using to arrange the songs themselves were extremely innovative and totally unconventional at that time.
And completely ground breaking.
So much so it went over most people's heads.

The Black Album, Lovesexy....and also The Batman soundtrack are where you will find his exploration and experimentation with these arrangment forms.
Batdance is a PERFECT example,.. and his most famous... of the arrangment techniques he was pioneering at that time.

He was actually CHANGING the literal form of pop music!!
And it was very exciting....because everyone felt that as a result,.. a NEW style of music would be created.

But it didnt happen.
Prince instead,...all of a sudden.....beginning with Grafitti Bridge dropped everything and went into this mode of writing and arranging his music with stock, by the numbers arrangments, instrumentation and melodys.
Which were great. A good song is a good song,....but like i said,...the innovation which was the mark of all his previous work .....began to dissapear.

Part of the problem to a large extent , i beleive is he became a true slave,...not to Warner Brothers,..so much ,..but as to his own self image of a funk/rock superstar.
He could have gone on to explore other rythms and music styles from around the world,...but he became shackled to the sterotype of his own funk/rock genre.
Genres he had spent the previous ten years pushing them to the limits.
But once he had spent all those years taking funk and rock as far as they could go,...he didnt move on.
He stopped pushing limits.
He just stayed there.



And hes been there ever since.













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[Edited 7/29/06 19:08pm]
[Edited 7/29/06 19:21pm]

Great post.

Yeah, thanks Riverpoet31 and sexyfunkystrange for some very new (to me) reflections on Prince and Lovesexy.
Those kinds of analyses makes me appreciate his music even more.

The conclusion for me is not that he should have stopped after Lovesexy. The conclusion is that you should post some more reflections on other songs. Im looking forward...