Only a puppet has strings that can be pulled. The reason they pull your strings is because you have put them out there for people to pull.



Mirror, mirror what U C!
[Edited 7/17/07 15:46pm]

Kacey725 said:

For me in the last 19 years there are only two exceptions to this very solid perception. First there was "TRC" (I don't care about the goofiness, this guy was truly inspired) and secondly there was "Planet Earth".

I also find the production to be out of this world on both.

Someone in the know has implied that 30 or more songs were written for the "PE" project. If true, this is yet another way to turn the subjective into the objective; outside of course of actually getting some strong individual's honest feedback after several weeks.

If you truly only pick those songs that are most compelling; meaning those songs that over a long period of time compel you to play and replay them, then anyone can choose mostly the best material created over a given time.

But I completely agree with you on every other album Prince has released; they're all filled with misses and create an uneven listening experience.

The thing about humans is that we are almost always excited by what we've just created, but seeing as though none of us are perfect, plenty of stuff will be left that is far less than inspiring.

There is no doubt in my mind (especially given our current MP3 culture) that some would have vastly preferred the 30+ song "PE".

And it likely would've been as brilliant and flawed as "Emancipation". But some wouldn't care, as they would just take the type of music they enjoy and make their own play lists.

But count me as someone who is thrilled to have a complete album again.

And "The Gold Experience" is clearly that album where he needed an outsider to talk to. "We March" should be kicked to the curb. "Dayd Of Wild" should be added. And I think that the EP version of "Most Beautiful Girl" and the rawer VH1 version of "Endorphinmachine" would have finished off a rather spectacular affair.

And, quite true, I've only lived with "PE" for about 2 weeks, so my opinion might still change.

But right now I'm being moved by the songwriting and the production. Finally the man seems completely relaxed in a popular format.

A very odd thing to say.

When you're talking about truly great artists who break new ground, invent new sounds etc etc, almost without exception that intense creativity happens around the age of 25 and however long it lasts it certainly isn't there in the same intensity a decade plus later when the next generation are coming up and tuned into the next cycle of ideas and sounds. It doesn't matter whether it's Dylan with his groundbreaking trilogy of 'Bringing It All Back Home', 'Highway 61' and 'Blonde On Blonde, Michael Jackson with 'Off The Wall' and 'Thriller', Springsteen with 'Born To Run' or Prince with *insert applicable*.

The fact is that when artists are breaking out they have their entire career ahead of them with no specific expectations and pressures, nothing to conform to, no critics to placate or fanbase to maintain or record company to please and have the freedom mentally to do whatever they want. If, like Bob Dylan was in the early 60's, they're plugged directly into the zeitgeist of popular culture they can surpass everything around them and create the future.

But about 10 years later, more or less, many things have changed and you simply can't expect an artist to create in the same way as they do when they're burning at 1000mph, touring into the ground, living for music, no family, brain in overdrive.

This isn't to say that an artist can't or wont make records as good as or better than the ones from their early artistic explosion, just simply that they wont be as utterly innovative and relentlessly creative.

Of course you can point out all sorts of exceptions and say 'Who is more innovative/creative than Tom Waits aged 56' which is to miss the point really. The fact is there is no artist who once comfortably settled into middle age with a few not-so-great albums under their belt who is going to sit alongside the next generation of artists who are defining the direction of mainstream popular music with whatever sound they're coming up with, be it truly original or harking back to something before. In other words, when Prince wrote 'Black Sweat', he did not write it in the same mind-set as anything comparable off the early albums. When he knocked out e.g. Controversy he wasn't stopping to think about his legacy, his place in the industry relative to his contempoararies, what Michael Jackson was up to or whether it would be seen as cool by MTV or get played on radio. He was simply creating. Period.

However hard Liam Gallagher might try to blend in as part of the current resurgence of old-skool rock n roll in the UK which is hugely influenced by Oasis, his band will never be viewed that way by anyone in 2007 and however hard they try they will never again write an album like 'Definitely Maybe' that defines and leads a generation of musicians. They might have a great hit song like 'The Importance Of Being Idle' but it isn't seen by anyone as part of the same 'movement' of new bands like The Killers, Libertines, Arctic Monkeys etc etc. Oasis are in their own category, their own movement now. Their scene disappeared and a new one grew out of the ashes. Prince can play with beyonce but the generation who grew up on 'Crazy In Love' wont see 'Black Sweat' etc as part of what's theirs, their generations own music. And i doesn't matter how hard an artists tries, they can never go back there and re-enter that mindset of a 25 year old starting out,being on a level with all their contemporaries before they've made it out of clubs and halls.

What becomes intersting, however, is what happens when artists mature and free themselves of expectations and create a clean slate as if they were starting again. Prince did this on 'The Rainbow Children', an album arguably made for nobody except him and his maker. In 1996 he said to an interviewer whilst listening to 'Emancipation': "That's the sound of freedom." Admittedly he couldn't have put it out with Warners and they would probably have baled at some of the more eclectic side 3 tracks but it's not a free album in the sense that he was audibly trying very hard to write a lot of 'Prince' music that would sell in droves without a label because it HAD to be a sucess for him. Whilst independence from Warners gave him some freedoms, at the time he wasn't writing completely freely and the same can be said for 'Rave' and arguably 'Musicology'and '3121'.

However, as I said, it's when he chooses to create for creations sake without thinking about sales, or fans or critics or his past sounds that he continues to excel as on the 2000 recordings which made fantatic use of new technology, 'TRC', 'ONA', and 'N.E.W.S'.

And the most important thing in all this, going back to the original question about 'Planet Earth' not having the groundbreaking sounds of early Prince, is that just because the sound of the music and a lot of the ideas aren't blow-your-mind-away inventive and fresh doesn't mean that the actual songs can't be potentially great. Ok, so there's nothing as out-there-mental as 'If I Was Ur Girlfriend' which happened by accident when someone fucked up in on the cntrol booth or protest lyrics as potent and zany as on 'SOTT'. The guy is 49 and even if he wears odd socks his brain isn't whirring at a zillion light years with a trillion possibilities an ideas and sounds and colots anymore. When he goes onstage now with his gun-mic it can never mean or be what it was 15 years ago. That doesn't mean you can't appreciate his new stuff in terms of a great arrangement, a brilliant vocal, a superb melody, a beat that insists you move, even if none of those things are genuinely innovative. Just enjoy it for what it is.

jpav basically said what I've tried to say in a few paragraphs. I needn't have bothered!:



Clarity Man Says:


I agree to an extent though I wouldn't be quite so harsh. In my opinion 'Gold' was the last record he made when he was still connected to 'the well', or his 'creative muse' i.e. the album at the tail end of that intense creative period that tends to peak when artists are in their mid 20's. On 'Gold', regardless of whether you like the album personally, you can't argue that it's a real explosions of sounds; you can just tell that the music is pouring out of him and the tape can barely handle the strain,particularly on 'Gold', 'Shhh', 'Beautiful Girl', 'I Hate U'. What I'm saying is that it doesn't sound forced.

Crucially this is at age 35/36, and I really believe you can make a science of this because once they start getting closer to 40, artists stop leading and innovating and start playing catch-up with the new, younger artists and also start trying to compete with themselves.

I agree that on 'Emancipation' it's painfully obvious Prince was trying to sound as contemporary as possible and with so much effort. That effort just isn't there on 'Gold'; the goods came naturally. Where I disagree with you is with 'Emancipation' being 'awful'. It's not sheer blinding genius, admittedly, and even if it were slimmed to a single disc it wouldn't stand next to 'SOTT' etc but there are still lots of things to explore. I always say that a 'bad' Dylan/Prince/Michael Jackson/Stevie Wonder (*insert genius/legend as applicable) album is generally a lot more interesting than most of the stuff by lesser srtists who never matched their greatest artistic heights in the first place. Dylan's 80's output was often petty poor but there are gems scattered everywhere, rusty scraps that have been polished into live gems etc etc.

The only thing that bothers me about this ongoing trend of Prince periodically releasing a deliberately more commercial/mainstream record (Emancipation, Rave, Musicology, 3121, Planet Earth) is that half the point of leaving Warners was so he could do all the fringe stuff he's always wanted. Ok, so he's decided that the 4CD's-a-year plan of one rock, one jazz, one acoustic one pop simply wasn't going to work out over time and allow him to continue flying private jets everywhere but the releases in the spirit of the NMGMC have totally dried up in the last couple years. I want him to put out the TRC's and NEWS's and Xenaphobia's and Chocolate Invasion's and C-Note's. I want him to continue the ONA style hardcore-fan driven shows where he's completely free to eschew the hits in favour of new and obscure material. I don't see why he can't do both.

Considering no compromise with Warners over re-releasing/re-mastering his catalogue seems at all imminent and considering he's given up on online distribution just as the NPGMC was gaining a really impressive post-Warners catalogue and considering he's clamping down on all bootlegging activity including Youtube with no sign of any official release of the masses of great Vault material already in circulation, it's actually a pretty depressing time to be a real Prince fan, at least in some respects. I may be in a minority but for me the NPCMC club years, despite all the technical issues, were golden years as a Prince fan. I was old enough to see him for the first time as the Hit N Run and ONA shows happened, right in the middle of all this hardcore-fan centred activity and releases. It really felt like being part of a secret club that nobody else knew about and to appreciate records like TRC, ONA and NEWS and have front row seating at theatre shows where this new, unknown material was exclusively performed for the only people who 'got it' was magical. Not quite the same as the Musicology and 3121 eras. But hey, I guess he just has to raise his profile again every once in a while before he slips off the radar.

Clarity Man again:



Amen.



Infuriating, ain't it? How can the greatest all-round live performer of his generation (and he knows it) not want to put out some evidence of this? If he wasnt some respect and mainstream exposure, he could do a lot worse than putting out a properly executed live album and DVD (as opposed to the utter mess that was the Aladdin DVD: I went to the 5 UK ONA shows which were drenched in genius and had nothing to do with that sack of wank DVD).



You'll find much of the same on the most dedicated message boards of any truly great artist around today, bar few. You have to accept that the hard-core fans who know everything there is to know generally find it exasperating when an artist they love seemingly wastes their potential. I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan, but far from hardcore, and from my perspective, he's a guy who seems amazingly in tune with his fans, the industry, the times, his lagacy, his position and what he needs to be doing. But if I go to te most popular Bryce message board, all the hardcore fans seem to be permanently tearing him a new arsehole and saying every decision he makes is inane and that he's basically really really thick. It can be a bit depressing but they're usually right. But it's your choice of whether you want to get involved and swallow some difficult truths about your heroes or sit back with some rose-tinted glasses and enjoy them the way you'd like to.

Riveproet get's it and hits the nail on the head in far fewer words than myself:



Mccartney is another good example who you brought up: his last record, 'Chaos and Creation In The Back Yard' is wonderful. Glorious melodies, wonderful singing, great lyrics by anyone's standard (not just Paul's!) and an album of back to back great songs with no filler that gets better with every listen. Is it going to change the face of popular music or culture? No. Is it going to impact even the tinniest bit on the new generation of bands who the NME wank over? No. Is it bloody brilliant? Yes! Could he have written it 10, 20, 30 years ago? No! Ditto Dylan's 'Time Out Of Mind', Van's 'Magic Time'...



No way man, come off it. I get your frustration but that's beyond exaggeration. The majority of Prince's recent commercial stuff is not worse than some American Idol twit's first album. Future Baby Mama, Black Sweat, Insert Whatever You Want may all be forced, relatively pale comparisons of vintage Prince but there's still more too them than the majority of pure drivel on commercial radio and MTV.

Amen to Brendan's post about taste and hate/passion.

Ha ha, Kacey has made the exact same point as me about Paul McCartney's last 2 albums, but in more detail. Brilliant post about the potential of collaboration or at least some outside perscpective.

Brendan on Kacey:


Agreed on both points. From the first listen I had a feeling that 'Planet Earth' was going to be better than the previous two which were really too far in the try-hard bracket wheras PE seems a lot more natural but more than anything it sounds fantastic to me, production-wise. Even where there are layers and layers of sounds it's all beautifully separated and clear and the vocals are pristine.



Of course, and that's a separate bag of fish altogether. If Guns N' Roses had releases 'Use Your Illusions 1+2' as a single disc it would arguably have been seen as one of the best rock records of the 90's alongside 'Nevermind' rather than as an example of the 'bloated' 80's stadium rock that grunge snuffed out. In a perfect world the 'filler' tracks, once rooted out to EVERYONE'S satisfaction would make good b-sides or an outtake set or bootleg fodder. The same goes for 'Emancipation'. But then who the fudge are we to say how an artist should present their work?

Personally, I'd rather have everything going and make my own playlist, comfortable in the knowledge that a truly great album lies buried in the middle of lots mixed ideas. If critics and lazy fans haven't got the imagination to do the same and complain about too much product (oh god! there are TWO CD's from this artist in the last 12 months instead of one! I can't possible cope with all that music! my tiny brain can't process it and decide what it likes!!) then that's their problem. And if the artist is content not to whittle their output down into a more palatable potential classic and garner acclaim and sales that's their perogative.



It does seem that way, after a few days with the album.

I'm going to bed now. Not bad for a first post, eh? If anyone actually finished it, well fucking done! (Damn, I fogo to check if you can swear on here....).

Kacey725 said:

Post of the year!

I think he's trying to move far away from what he did in the past, because so many other people are doing it now. He's always been one to try not to do what everyone else is doing. I still think he's got it in him , he just need to discover that new sound that defines him.

Very well said. I would respond to each cogent point, but we’d be here all day and I know for damn sure nobody would read that monstrosity.

45 years in the business and Bob Dylan has created 3 of his best albums.

But, no, they didn’t change popular music and I’m quite sure that they have reinvented almost nothing. They were great because the music is great.

Bob is just creating in the universe that he's already built for himself. And he’s creating some of the most inspiring music of his astonishing career; even after several years of mostly hit-and-miss material.

But If I were waiting around for Bob to reinvent music for the planet, I doubt I’d be enjoying his latest, simply because it wouldn’t at all make sense in that context.

There is no shame in only liking terrific artists who are changing the face of music.

But ultimately I’m greedy. I want to be moved by music. Of course if someone can be great within the context of carving out new space for themselves, so be it.

But ultimately what radio respects is youth (and rarely even that now). So if someone 65 writes a great song, it’s not going to be heard by the masses, because this person is not young and they’re not likely to be carving out their career or reshaping popular music.

Of course if radio just played great music, the ironic thing is that 65 year old would be played on popular radio and would be reshaping opinions. But they will not be let in the door. That’s not how the system works. That’s not how the system is setup. And until 65 year olds listen to the radio in any great numbers, the system will not change.

And the radio is rarely about greatness, it’s about sounding the same and about a few individuals setting the table for the future success.

And of course if you’re young and you have a small body or no body of work to speak of, if you really are a musical genius I sure would hope that you’re creating music that is new to you and opens up a whole other pocket of possibility.

skywalker said:

Absolutely. And isn’t that the ultimate question?

If you read on the Internet long enough you’ll find that every single Prince song is loved and every single Prince song is hated.

Sounds like a world of hippies. All things are created equally!

Well, I don’t think that they are. For me to claim otherwise is to believe that everything I create (cough, cough) is great (or at least the same). I can tell you from my perspective that it sure as hell ain’t.

But I believe there is a much deeper truth out there if one is willing to work for it. And it pretty much takes a lifetime commitment and you have to be willing to screw up endlessly. Right up my alley with the screwing up part!

Of course there’ll never be any perfectly objective truth about art, but I don’t think people have to give up because it’s all just so perfectly subjective.

No one should ever tell an individual what they are allowed to enjoy. If “Arms of Orion” moves someone so much that the hairs on their legs stand at attention, then that is their truth for that moment in time. No one can take that away.

But how wise would one be to conclude that “Arms” must be included on Prince’s mythical box set?

It probably wouldn’t be very objective or speak to any kind of deeper truth. But, who knows? Maybe you will be the person who’ll start the avalanche of deeper truth about this track that will counter the current intelligentsia.

And is not about popularity, it’s about an emotional, logical and intellectual truth that exists with or without us. “Irresistible Bitch” is considered one of Prince’s greatest creations of funk. It may ultimately prove false, but right now that is an object fact.

Does that mean then that everyone has to love it unconditionally? Certainly not.

And it doesn’t mean that you’ll enjoy “Arms” any less, it just means there is some kind of truth out there. And, who knows, given enough time, if “Arms” does have the artistic credibility, I do believe that people will eventually come around to recognize that to one degree or another.

You just can’t keep greatness down forever. It has away of rising to the top; even if it takes a 100 years or more.

Of course none of us can be totally objective, no matter how hard we might work. But I believe there is a deeper truth about art out there and that’s why I continue to seek greatness, rather than trying to have greatness seek me.

If my tastes are getting in the way of greatness, my tastes just might need to change. Or at least I might have to admit that something just might not be my “cup of tea” and so I might not currently be its best judge.

It’s all certainly a whole lot more difficult than “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Anybody can make that claim (even a 5 year old), and perhaps it will and should always hold some bit of truth for each and every one of us.

But at the end of the day such a philosophy won’t move me to grow/evolve very fast as an appreciator of art.

All things are not created equally. And it is my ridiculous task to find out what is ultimately the most compelling over time. Some things hold up, other don’t. Why is that? Search. Fail. Search. Fail. Search. Hopefully succeed.

skywalker said:

Point taken. Of course you can't know what somebody's mindset was when they did something. I just think that among other things, the fact that he has just created 30 year's worth of music inhibits him from approaching a record in the same way in 2007 as he could in the early years.

skywalker:


I thought about this and I'm not finding it so easy! I'm really enjoying reading Brendan and Skywalker's posts but I've run out of steam! I think I'll have to come back later If I'm gonna say anything useful.

bsk3601 said:

I agree. Prince has absolutely nothing left to prove. He has achieved so much over the past 3 decades and is still untouchable as a live performer. Prince has left his mark and future generations will admire Prince for his talent and creativity. The man is a legend, no matter what kind of music he releases from now on.

Brendan, skywalker, and Commissargaunt(sp?) keep up the good work. U guys bring a level of lucidicy and thoughtfulness that is very needed at the org. I wish more people posted with the same level of insight. I think u guys says things that are valuable to understanding Prince. I don't know if u guys write for a living but I've always thought that there is a great book of essays created by fans (from the org & housequake) waiting to be written.

CommissarGaunt said:

Yes! Getting Choc Invas, Slghthse, was cool, it would be nice to have music for sale again on his website, also considering someone here mentioned Prince recorded 30 tracks for Planet Earth, that would be a treat if the extra material was offered.

SquirrelMeat said:

I couldn't agree more.

mirrorbestfriend said:

^^ missed the main idea ^^

bsk3601 said:

no i didnt im right and u wrong.....