JT AND I HAVE A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION AND I DIDN'T WANT TO JACK A NEWBIE THREAD. OFFER YOUR INSIGHT. LIKE REV IS RIGHT AND JT IS WRONG


Rev said:

Sorry, I think I'm going muddy it up for you.Yes, Prince made a little mystical story out of it, but this album is dark in production and content.


I'm going to have to call shenanigans on that. Of all 8 songs TBA, only a single track - Bob George - can be considered literally "dark" in subject matter. Where's the darkness in the rest of it?

Le Grind, Superfunkycaligragisexy, Rockhard In A Funky Place - simple party songs with a sexual nature. If these are "dark" then the Dirty Mind and 1999 albums are the work of Satan.
Cindy C. - Another simple party song, possibly inspired by Cindy Crawford
Dead On It - a humorus parody of rap music.
When 2 R in Love - a tender, gentle love song
2 Nigs United 4 West Compton - is an instrumental with no apparent hidden agenda.

The bottom line is that TBA is NOT a dark album. It's no more dark than anything else that came before it. What is most unusual about it, is that it's a rather mindless party album. This makes sense because many of the tracks were intro'd at one of Sheila E.'s birthday parties... certainly not a "dark" occasion.

All the hype about it being dark was just part of the mystique created by Prince in order to point out how spiritual and positive LoveSexy was supposed to be. Prince is back to writing the same style songs by D&P but no one goes around saying how dark that album is...

Decipher that intro 4 me and I'll let u know. lol
A bucket o' squirrel meat sure sounds dark 2 me as well.

i dunno. i was listening to stuff like bauhaus and diamanda galas when the black album came out. it didn't sound dark at all to my ears.

Rev it would help if you used proper quoting because it looks like you are taking credit for what I said, in both threads now, which was:

Of all 8 songs TBA, only a single track - Bob George - can be considered literally "dark" in subject matter. Where's the darkness in the rest of it?

Le Grind, Superfunkycaligragisexy, Rockhard In A Funky Place - simple party songs with a sexual nature. If these are "dark" then the Dirty Mind and 1999 albums are the work of Satan.
Cindy C. - Another simple party song, possibly inspired by Cindy Crawford
Dead On It - a humorus parody of rap music.
When 2 R in Love - a tender, gentle love song
2 Nigs United 4 West Compton - is an instrumental with no apparent hidden agenda.

The bottom line is that TBA is NOT a dark album. It's no more dark than anything else that came before it. What is most unusual about it, is that it's a rather mindless party album. This makes sense because many of the tracks were intro'd at one of Sheila E.'s birthday parties... certainly not a "dark" occasion.

All the hype about it being dark was just part of the mystique created by Prince in order to point out how spiritual and positive LoveSexy was supposed to be. Prince is back to writing the same style songs by D&P but no one goes around saying how dark that album is...

Now that's not to say that you can't pick out a single line here or there and say it's negative, or whatever, but you can do that with any of the albums that came before it. If Prince hadn't cast a shadow on it, it would be just another party record.

The ONLY thing dark about the black album is the COVER.

christos7 said:

Assuming you take the line literally... Squirrel meat was a common meat alternative, just like rabbit, in areas of the American South until quite recently. "The Joy Of Cooking" even lists several ways in which to prepare and serve it. Is "The Joy Of Cooking" a dark book? I would think the 'darkness' of funky recipes pale in comparison to darker subject matter, like incest on Dirty Mind for example.

I definitely think it sounds dark -- dirty and angry. Any time you're trying to "prove something," which by all accounts he was, the work is inspired by your baser instincts.

Besides which, Prince himself used the album's "darkness" as the rationale for not releasing The Black Album. If we are to believe anyone as to whether it is or isn't, oughtn't it be the one who made it?

i think 'chaos & disorder' sounds FAR darker and angrier.

and yeah, the artist knows best what is a 'dark' album to him/her, but an artist can be in a really low/bleak place in their life and still manage to crank out something joyous...they probably don't have good memories of making that art, but does that make the product 'dark'?

Genesia said:

It certainly sounds 'dirty' but at what point is it angry? Outside of Bob George, a large number of the remaining tracks are humorous in nature. Also, by many accounts, the material on TBA started out as music for Sheila E.'s birthday party.



No. That's part of the hype and mystique created after the fact. On previous occasions Prince has, also, claimed that Parade was a bad album, 1999 was the work of a 4th grader, that The Gold Experience was better than any album ever released before it, that Emancipation was the album he was born to make, etc, etc... He knocks anything and everything in his catalog to suit whatever current agenda he might have.

If The Black album was truly a dark and evil thing as the story makes it out to be, then Prince would have locked it up and remained quiet instead of inventing an elaborate fairy tale to explain it's existence, and then advertising it by playing songs from it in concert (one of which was the 'darkest' on the record). It's all just part of the Prince Show.

jtfolden said:

there we are.

jtfolden said:

Okay, you are getting hung up on the words. (That's not a knock -- I'm a writer by trade, so I can appreciate that.) But I'm not talking about humorous lyrics. I'm talking about the sound of the music. Most of it is dissonant, a lot of it's written in a minor key, the tracks are packed and noisy, the percussion is pissed off -- and it all sounds like it was recorded in a Minneapolis sewer.

Trust me -- I'm a spleenful person by nature. In other words, I know from angry.

Genesia said:

huh, kinda like lovesexy

jtfolden said:

I can agree with all of that JT. The simple fact that is was supposedly written for Sheila's party pretty much throws the "dark/angry" theory out the window. (Of course, that is assuming the sources got that right).
I remember being amazed how he included it in the LoveSexy show after the whole message in the AS video, blah, blah. Obviously, he used those songs to make the "switch" from "dark" to "light" during the show, but if he had really felt that strongly against the material he wouldn't have played it- the same way he's not doing the songs dependant on cursing anymore.

Anx said:

paisley16 said:

Exactly. Even as late as 1992 he was still mentioning the album in liner notes. If you REALLY don't want someone buying something then you don't continually advertise it to a mass audience that would have had no idea of it's existence otherwise.

Genesia said:

but I think that was just making sure it sounded "rock hard in a funky place", not necessarily aiming for a "dark/angry" sound.

jtfolden said:

Prince is constantly evovling and contradicting himself. Are we trying to say that the album is black in color and mystique and has no angst. I disagree

the songs I'm reffering to are
Super funky is filled sex, despair, confusion and lack of control wrapped up in a great musical whirlwind/pace.

Rock hard - not a party song. It's also has the super funky theme.

Bob George - I think we agree. Even though some great humor mixed w/17 or so MF

2 nigs united - Frantic - no rainbows and party time here.

that's almost half the album. I would agree that 1999, dirty mind are darker albums with very little positive message.

Anx said:

Yeah, I remember them and Swans ..etc. I had friends into that. But relative to Prince albums is what I think we're talking here.

jtfolden said:

Different culture / different norms and values

Some people monkey brains, we'd get put in jail here if we did that. And be considered a freak.

Anx said:

Lovesexy definitely has its dark moments. But I don't recall saying that was a happy, jolly album, either. There's no question Dance On (for example) would've been right at home on TBA -- just like W2RIL works on Lovesexy. (Actually, it works better on Lovesexy than it does on TBA, I think.)

Lovesexy is majorly dense. (Was it Eric Leeds who said Prince should be constitutionally barred from using more than 24 tracks? ) But a majority of the songs are in major keys. And the percussion has a totally different feel -- much lighter. It feels...I don't know..."sunny" to me -- as opposed to TBA, which sounds like you should listen to it in a bunker.

Anx said:

That is confused and disorganized. When I look back in my life, when I was going through things like that, I don't get a warm and comforting feeling. It seemed there was very little effort in putting a cohesive theme.

Anx said:

Sure the production is of the same error, but Lovesexy has empowering and positive messages ? There might dance songs on TBA, but nothing uplifting.

Does it matter?

The Black album isn't 'dark', it's a straight up no-brainer funky party album.
It's no darker than Newpower Soul (another party album).

Rev said:

Okay, hold up, if you agree that earlier albums are 'darker' than The Black Album (and you state in message #17 that we're comparing TBA to other Prince albums here) then, logically, you are admitting that it isn't that dark of an album in the context of his catalog of work. Even many later albums feature darker themes than what are represented here. ...and lest we get confused, the talk of sex doesn't automatically make a record dark.

This is drastically the opposite of the hype that has been created around this recording. TBA is propped up as, essentially, being a work of evil - a singular stroke of shocking judgement - far removed from his normal body of work and that it should never see the light of day.

When in reality it's a shallow party record that doesn't take any of it's subject matter seriously, probably because it doesn't really have anything to say anyway. That's the only real difference between TBA and most of Prince's other early releases - there's no real message or agenda here. It's pretty much all mindless dance music.

Graycap23 said:

Yep.
However,
the album would like very much that people judge it by the content of it's songs & not by the color of it's cover.
And it doesn't like the term "dark".
It prefers the term "Funk-American".

theodore said:

not really, a newbie was looking for advice and JT made the statement and I disagreed.

Hmmm good question. In comparison to his other albums, it's not a light hearted album either. The music is grittier sounds a bit constricted and dense. But it is a party Album with a few in jokes on it. It certainly has a black sound to it...more so than his previous efforts at the time. The lyrics aren't of the loving kind either. Songs like Dead on It, Bob George, Superfunky, I'd say have darker under tones than other work he has done.

That said, I don't find the songs any darker than let's say Darling Nikki Or Lady Cab Driver.

i always found this album to be uplifting and joyful. it's my favorite.
never got the whole "dark" thing.