I'd settle for '1999 Pt.2', the kind of sound you get when a young genius locks himself in his basement for a 2 weeks, knowing he can do all this stuff better than anyone else and is anxious to prove it to everyone. There's a hunger and a certain fire in these old records that everyone recalls so fondly; a real drive to prove something and make a statement. Maybe it's because Prince was younger, hornier, had less money and hadn't really become PRINCE yet. I can listen to '1999' to this day and STILL hear little sounds and nuances I never noticed before, and THAT makes a great record - a Desert Island Disc. "Paul's Boutique" is another one in this vein.

My brother in-law gave up on Prince a while ago. He says that somewhere along the line, Prince got more interested in being Prince than with writing good songs - and I'm beginning to understand what he's talking about. Maybe a little less time spent manufacturing and marketing perfume, reading the Watchtower, tailoring suits and applying makeup would help in this regard, but I'm not Prince, and he has nothing left to prove to me or anyone else really. His legend is etched in granite. Maybe it's my own selfishness I face when I listen to his recent stuff, because there's no one left to fill the vacuum he created when he stopped being the innovator he once was and began to repeat himself, saving his best and freshest sounds for the aftershows and the vault.

The reason people are nostalgic for the old days is because those records were challenging for different - and better - reasons. they were better records, and most everyone realizes it. When I first heard "Housequake", I couldn't believe my ears and broke out in gooseflesh trying to figure out what this guy was doing. Then I listened to it again. And again. "Lovesexy" took me forever to absorb and appreciate. "Purple Rain" is the only Prince record that we listen to still and don't skip at least one track. "Venus DeMilo" made me wonder if it could make my Grandmother appreciate this freak I was listening to. Right around "Batman" the problem started. Then GB and D&P. "Symbol" came out and gave me hope. "Gold" kept me there. Even "Emancipation" is OK by me. The newer stuff is challenging only because we're challenging OURSELVES to squeeze that feeling we had into what what were hearing now....

so maybe it's our fault.

But call me "Still Waiting" for those goosebumps and the desire to play that CD over and over again; not because I want it to be good, but because I want to hear it again and it gets better every time. "Planet Earth" is fine, but I didn't dash to the wrecka sto the day it dropped and anxiously buy it.

herb4 said:

I can confess that feeling too, that, since Batman, Prince has not been able to produce a thoroughly exciting and addictive album for me. Not that he has to do it for me, personally, just sayin'.

I think the blowback (commercially, critically, and fanwise) from Lovesexy threw his mojo off a little. But I digress.

He still produces those little moments for me on every album. IMHO, Graffiti Bridge, , and The Gold Experience were as close as he came album-wise. Emancipation and Chaos and Disorder could have been a candidate if there weren't so much dated filler. I can see how people could regard his post-Rave work as awe-inspiring, particularly newer fans, but not for me.

But I've tried really hard to accept each album on its own terms and enjoy it for its own sake, for where Prince is at that time, not where I think he should be. That's how I've approached PE. I don't expect him to reincarnate PR, Parade or SOTT. But I darn sure wouldn't mind.

namepeace said:

What do you mean exactly? Lovesexy seems to have helped him in the long run. Are you saying it didn't blow up commercially like he thought it would...? that he didn't make enough money off of it...? The fucking album cover ALONE, I know for a fact, sent many potential Life-Longers into the hills to deal with their own homophobia. Me, I always categorized it along side what John Lennon did. Play "Lovesexy" right now, then play PE and ask yourself which one you want to hear again.

namepeace said:

There's no question that my favorite Prince albums had me quite confused at first. I didn't really like them the first few times through. Granted I'm much older and I've logged thousands of hours of music, but the new albums don't do that to me. I feel like I can grasp them the first time through. They have the technical prowess (probably more than the early stuff, even), but not the creative side.

The most recent album to really grab my attention for a long time was TRC. And that, I'll admit, isn't a great song collection. It's great music, and that's cool with me. But no one song stands out as a classic, or even particularly groundbreaking. I just really like the music.

herb4 said:

but it was a huge flop, and it wasn't well received, outside of some die hards like us.

I think the whole sense of him "losing his direction" that supposedly made him make the Black Album was just intensified with Lovesexy. I don't think Batman was any better, as far as musically reconnecting with his people, it was just part of a huge movie, and he was lucky for that. D&P was what really brought him back, though it hurt his image in MY eyes.

It's easy to look back and see what he did back then as successful, but even Sign 'o' the Times wasn't loved by everyone, & didn't have hit after hit on the radio. Parade & the movie were not huge hits. Prince was struggling commercially at the same time he was making masterpieces.
[Edited 7/26/07 17:16pm]

I did. Just there. I'm sorry if my use of the passive voice threw you. I would think you would forgive me my idiosyncrasies in style since down below you claim to be knowing what "many Prince fans think."

It's not an unrealistic expectation or hope to have.



I agree, and that's been his strong suit. I think that's what he'll be remembered for. His catalogue his huge. It never ceases to amaze me how many more variations he can come up with for the standard pop song. His songwriting mind is encyclopedic. He does have a penchant for the corny, which doesn't bother me a bit. I actually find it endearing.



I really don't care what people want, nor do I care how the Prince fan community is divided or what they agree on. Nor do I care what the general populace wants. That wasn't part of my assessment or of my comments. And I don't think I fall into either category in what I said above, so I'm not sure why you mention it. By saying, as I did, that he needs to "learn to age," I mean that he needs to get away from the old stuff. I'm personally not looking for a return of SOTT or PR or whatever the fan favorites are.



That "Prince is back" thing is perennial! Just like his performing his Hits for the last time! I can't believe that people here even give that any weight other than to say that it shows the inanities of marketing campaigns. I even think it might be counterproductive, if he himself is indeed responsible for labeling everything he does as a "comeback," since it keeps reinforcing in people's minds the incorrect notion that he went away.

But maybe he is responsible for that "Prince is back!" meme everytime a new record comes out. Maybe that's why he even took the drastic step of going by that symbol, cause he knew that one day he could say, "Prince is back!"

As for ageing very well, I think the jury is out on that. "Prince is back!" would seem to be more nostalgic than anything. And while he certainly should not cut himself off from his past, he needs to see it as different than what he is now.



I remember one time I was in the NPGMC chatroom and one of the mods, or whatever they called themselves, were asking everyone if they would be more attracted to the Club if we had access to material before it was avaiable to the genral public, or something like that, and everyone in the room was like Yeah yeah! I was like "what does it matter?"

That underground stuff is all for a present day audience, a fan club etc. I am not talking about that when I say that he needs to learn to age. (In fact, that sounds condescending to say in that way now that I look at it again, but it seemed better (and more accurate) to say than he needs to learn to mature).

His prolific varied songwriting talent came from his incredible ability to learn, to digest, and to regurgitate. SOTT was like school. It was his own little homemade education. You could see him learning and his transformations were wonderful.

Maybe what was indicative above all of a dangerous shift in his thinking was when he took to calling himself "the Artist," as if there were no others, rather than "an Artist." That one article-stroke of humility would have gone a long long way...

But then again growth occurs in fits and starts.

And in the terms I am talking he is still young. He has decades left.

[quote]

Oh hush.

NDRU said:

It was by everyone who understood and appreciated music, exploration and artistry. I loved it immediately and proudly played it for my friends who still doubted Prince as a real force. It was Prince's "Exile on Main Street", "Physical Graffiti" and/or "Electric Ladyland", which weren't so commercially well received either nor generated many "hits"...if that's even the standard. "Calhoun Square" and "Days of Wild" aren't hits either, but they're classic jams. "AnnaStesia" also. Never, EVER, measure music by how much it sells.

I regard "Exoodus" and "The Undertaker" as Prince essentials when I speak to his genius. How many did those sell?

herb4 said:

hey, I never said I measure music by how it sells, but it was Prince who admitted he caved into popular opinion when he made the Black Album.

And that was directly after what turned out to be his most critically acclaimed album. But at the time what he heard was "Prince ain't funky" and he responded.
[Edited 7/26/07 18:59pm]

herb4 said:

Now, herb, slow your roll. I happen to believe Lovesexy was the finest album he made from then until now. Arguably his most revolutionary.

I'd take No, which may be perhaps my favorite Prince song of all time, over all of PE, any day, every day.

But it was (and to my knowledge, remains) his weakest seller of the decade. The critics' response could best be described as backhanded praise. And I remember him being clowned in many circles for the album cover (which, while not revolutionary today, was a real step out there 20 years ago, when people failed to look to the pose as a metaphor for the album). Add to that the Black Album saga and Warners' dissatisfaction with his market saturation (or so I've heard, as a precursor to the "Slave" era) and you had a significant commercial and PR train wreck.

I'd also add that the tour wasn't anywhere near a huge seller (you may be like me, maybe you attended the shows and saw a lot of empty seats). As I recall, it was his last arena tour for about a decade in the US.

I've always felt that, maybe, that threw Prince off a little bit, because he lost a chunk of his core post-Purple Rain audience. For the balance of the 80's, he'd been able to be artistically adventurous AND commercially successful. That didn't happen with Lovesexy. Thematically, it's his most enduring album. But I think the commercial and critical struggles of that era induced him to try to follow new trends.

That's what I meant.
[Edited 7/26/07 20:28pm]
[Edited 7/26/07 20:30pm]
[Edited 7/27/07 14:26pm]

I feel that Prince has knocked another one out of the ballpark!!!! I loved 3121 and I love Planet Earth. I think he sounds angelic on ATMITW and I frankly don't get why everybody keeps comparing his vocals and claiming they come up short. The man has evolved and still sounds beautiful. Some songs on this one are funky, great bass playing on others, stirring lyrics, always giving a message of hope-the 1st Track and the last, always fun and parts quite funny, songs so different from anyone else out there, and most of all PERSONAL. The man can still make every song feel PERSONAL to the listener and privileged to hear the honesty. How anyone can feel this album falls short is beyond me.

The fact that he loves what he does still shines through brilliantly and I still love when he does it. You go Prince and please don't ever stop. You are truly appreciated and I for one will always wait with anticipation to hear every note you choose to share.

NDRU said:[quote]

herb4 said:

but it was a huge flop, and it wasn't well received, outside of some die hards like us.

I think the whole sense of him "losing his direction" that supposedly made him make the Black Album was just intensified with Lovesexy. I don't think Batman was any better, as far as musically reconnecting with his people, it was just part of a huge movie, and he was lucky for that. D&P was what really brought him back, though it hurt his image in MY eyes.

It's easy to look back and see what he did back then as successful, but even Sign 'o' the Times wasn't loved by everyone, & didn't have hit after hit on the radio. Parade & the movie were not huge hits. Prince was struggling commercially at the same time he was making masterpieces.
[Edited 7/26/07 17:16pm]
[/quote
I thought the songs "u got the look" and " I could never take the place of your man were top 40 hits. "Kiss" was a huge, huge hit even though the Parade album wasn't.

sthoudek said:

Yeah, and 'Kiss' was a Grammy-winner too! The Sign "O" The Times album was his second album that was nominated for an Album Of The Year Grammy, but enventually lost to U2's Joshua Tree. Sign "O" The Times also reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and achieved the greatest critical acclaim of his career, topping the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll and reached the top 100 of Rolling Stone's list and The All-Time 100 Albums of TIME Magazine, which declared it was the best album of the 1980s, and it would be hard to disagree with them. Oh and SOTT yielded three top ten hits, the most he had since Purple Rain back in 1984-85. So, I think SOTT was a "short-lived comeback" for him because he to so many critics, he was considered to be in a mainstream rut since Around The World In A Day and many indeed thought he lost his touch. But when you think about what was happening during 1985-1988, was that he was at his artistic peak and I don't think too many people understood the directions he was going in, because he already made blockbuster watermarks with Purple Rain and 1999 and they wanted him to continue to follow in the trademarks of those. I don't think that was ever Prince's style or "motive" rather.

Lovesexy, on the other hand, was a commercial failure because of two things:

1- The controversy behind the album cover
2- Many teenagers and young folks who had the MTV and VH1 syndrome, thought that Prince simply lost his touch to keep up with many of the artists of that day and continue to make cutting edge music.


Lovesexy still is one of the many overlooked, grand moments in Prince's elaborate and diverse career. Aside from the disturbing cover, it was an artistic triumph of his personal expression on spirituality and love, and I don't think the much of the public and some of the critics understood that. It was never my personal favorite, but it deserved (and still deserves today) to be an amazing record. It kept him on the straight and narrow road, artistically.

Exactly.

The more i listen 2 it the less i like it. Guitar & Clesea Rodgers being the only 2 tracks that i like.

There is nothing innovative here, it's Prince caricaturing himself 2 a ridiculous extent, the melodies are uninventive, the arrangements are sometimes grotesque & the whole thing shows a tendency 2 bad taste, taking the worst of american pop-rock & mixing it with under-quality Prince clichés.

I had doubts about "Musicology" & "3121" but they still contained strong tracks. I'm sad 2 admit it but after 18 years of being a Prince fan, "Planet Earth" is the 1st Prince album that i just... don't like. I don't understand what he's trying 2 do here, i just don't.

sthoudek said:

Sure, and Alphabet St was a bit of a hit, too. Prince was always a superstar afterall.

I guess my point is that Prince responds to public opinion. Parade wasn't a huge hit, and the movie failed miserably, and he was quoted as saying the album was a disaster apart from Kiss (the only hit). Well, in retrospect it's one of his finest albums, and I think he probably realizes it now, but at the time it was "let's retool this Prince thing."

I'm not sure why he felt challenged after Sign of the Times, but I guess it was accused of not being funky enough. Maybe EVERY record is him trying to prove something. It wouldn't be a huge shock to find out Prince was massively insecure

namepeace said:

Interesting, that's true. He's still exploring those themes.

It's $8.99 at Fry's!! Or just clip the Fry's ad and Best Buy will match it!!

I played all the r&b cuts off the album, including Mr. Goodnight, for a 55 year old man at work today. This man is lover of all genres of music, but his main passion now is jazz.

He has all the Prince albums on vinyl up to the album, but admits that he lost interest after that.

He was completely and honestly blown away by what he heard! He told me that he has always loved and appreciated Prince, but he couldn't believe that Prince was putting out this caliber of great music thirty years into his career.

This is a direct quote from him after hearing Somewhere Here On Earth, Future Baby Mama, Mr. Goodnight, and Chelsea Rodgers.

"This is some of the best stuff I've ever heard from Prince. Period"

Now I know this man's taste in music. He immediately thought that SHOE was influenced by Miles Davis, and said "that this shit is top notch"

Now take it for what it's worth, but if a non-diehard Prince fan feels this way about at least half of the album, what does this say about the so called fans who can't find one damn positive thing to say about a very above average album.

To me it seems that a lot naysayers are going to bitch and moan no matter what.

this is how i am feeling about this album

i bought a propper copy this afternoon and popped it in my car

and i will say this


i have heard alot of negative buzz and comentary about it and

when i played in my car

i was



over fucking joyed !!!!!


oh my god what are yall so unhappy about

this disc has everything

what do you want him to do, a phillip glass album??/


if you listen to this with good speakers,

and you really dont like it



your posing and not being true to how totally enjoyable this disc is



not perfect i will grant you but

f-in joyous and old time sweet

all over the map just the way i like it

and more true to himself then the last 2


now granted i liked parts of rave so dont use that against me

im loving this totally



future baby mama is a total classic

if you cant here that now,

you will (whoever you are and you know who you are) when your in a better mind space

sometimes when you dont like music,

its not because the music is bad

its because the listener

is in a bad place for whatever reason



vooms

I'm really enjoying most of the CD, and the title track is starting to grow on me. I showed my students the CD 2day. They all know i love him by now. They thought the cover was cool. And since they are working on their final video projects, ... the key component to get extra credit is to use Prince somehow. they thought it was a joke, .. and well, it did start as a joke, since it is completely unrelated. BUT, it's my call. yay Prince

I think I'm starting to agree with u Accujack. I mean, before people would say that shit I'd think "yea yea yeah....if u dont like it u dont like it." but that was about songs like "Judas Smile" and all that shit. but this is different...i just feel like if u like Prince, there's really nothing to be disappointed about here unless your have unreasonable expectations.

Accujack said:

Piepie, it's not just about unreasonable expectations.

A lot of the constant gloom and doomers already have their minds made up before a Prince album comes out.

It's hip and cool for a lot of the people on this board to denounce everything Prince has done in the last 15 years or so.

But, I have heard a lot of honest praise from certain long time orgers such as Noveau Dance, one orger I haven't heard say much positive about Prince's recent work.

Just face it. Most of the trolls on here are never going to admit to liking a new Prince album no matter what is on it.

To the honest open minded people, we KNOW that this album is a cut above most of his most recent work.

It's obvious in the production, melody, and overall feel of this album that a little more time and effort was put into this project.

love4oneanother said:

I thought EXACTLY the same thing on my first few listens to the cd. Although, the one stand out was 'Chelsea Rodgers.' It made me go: "Hi, Prince! Where you been for the past 7 tracks?" I find it very telling that this is the song w/the most discussion in the individual track threads. Also, I was hoping for a little more of Wendy and Lisa's influence. I thought after all of these years, it would just be full blown, but it's very downplayed. Alittle disappointed by that.

the albums has been upgraded from "meh" to "okay" for me.

sosgemini said:

I thought that "meh" was the sound effect for okay.

Accujack said:

the right choice, that's basically everything that's good on the album, plus the title track. he could've just made an ep with those 5 tracks, if you ask me, and it would kick the actual album's butt big time.

it was wise of you not to play the man any All The Midnights... or Lion of Judah.
try it though the next time, just for kicks.

the more I listen to it, the more I love it. It's much more accessible than 3121, and Musicology..I put it up there with the Gold Experience, one of my fave Prince albums

riffraff said:

I simply played those particular songs because I know that those are the types of songs he is most interested in.

I personally love Lion Of Judah, but I'm sure that it would not have appealed to him.

Accujack said:

your right...so then i guess it went from "meh" to "interesting".