For your knowledge & pleasure!

Again, the Director of Indie 103 has heard the entire CD, the tracks had transitions. He explains that the album begins by four minutes and explosive instrumental intro & the song Crimson & Clover emerges from nowhere from this instrumental intro.
He added that all the tracks are very "heavy" on guitar from beginning to end. That themselves have been surprised by this very spirit Rock and, to their enthusiasm, Prince has released four pieces.
[b]Prince said they have scheduled a series of concerts for the release of the CD. [/b]

NuPwr319 said:

Agreed.

The thing that gets me about today's music business is that they overlook the older singers and musicians.

I was thinking the other day when I was listening to the 80s channel on XM. They played "Cocomo" from the Beach Boys, "Susudio" from Phil Collins, and "I've Had The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing. I, then remembered that the majority of those artists wouldn't get any radio play now. In the 80s, it seemed that we actually paid homage to our musical icons. In the 80s, you had LOTS of people on the charts that were over 40 making hits and getting LOTS of radio play along with the youngsters of the time (Prince, Madonna, etc.). Hell, even James Brown managed to get a few hits out of the 80s.
I wish times would be like that again, but I know it won't happen. The youngsters now have no respect for their elders.

[snip] Is it all great - no, but it never was. That's the beauty of art, you never know what you are going to create until you create it. I am just thankful that he continues to create and SHARE it with us because I dig what I'm hearing overall.

bellanoche said:

So true. Many of us long term fans have got our rose coloured spectacles on when we think back to the 80s. What we forget includes:

1. The musical landscape was very different and what Prince did was NEW and EXCITING

2. We were all much younger and going along on a musical journey of discovery that, for most of us, coincided with us going through puberty/teenage and all those amazing changes you experience as you grow up

3. We had not yet become cynical spoilt adults (been there, heard that, got the t-shirt)

4. And finally, perhaps controversially for any of the FAMS, I would argue that pretty much every single Prince album contains at least one DUD TRACK!

Okay define DUD. Well that is of course going to depend on your personal taste but by way of example; for me Purple Rain's dud track is I Would Die 4 U - I hate it and just cannot listen to it, ever! Strangely my wife, who is not a Prince fan, loves that track - go figure!

Prince is 50. The world is a different place. So much musical ground has been covered (both by Prince and by others) since the 80s that there is simply no way he could continue to be "original" or "ground-breaking".

As said before...I just hope he continues to deliver good solid music that *I* enjoy!

Prince doesn't want to use record labels etc.....Jeez, if these songs were a demo from a new band there wouldn't really be much of a choice as no label would touch these songs. If they did it would be to make money out of his established name. Lame lame lame. He's not even treading water anymore, just sinking into some awful safe middle ground of blues-lite college band level jams.
I wish he'd stop for a while. Go trekking in India or something. It's really starting to ruin my enjoyment of his good stuff.

williammelvinhicks said:

If he does stop, I still want new material every year. It is hard to get through a year without something new from him.

jaypotton said:

Everything you said is the truth but the bolded part in particular speaks to me the most. All I've ever wanted from Prince was good, solid music. I didn't care if the music was experimental or sounded like it came from another world. All I cared about was that I liked the music or not. I cared that Prince's music made me dance and that I felt the music. It'll be 25 years of me being a fan next year and as young as I was when I became a fan and now, I can say that I still care and I'm still excited about what the future brings for Prince and for us fans. These 5 new tracks solidify why I'm still excited about Prince. As long as I still have that excitement, I will always remain a Prince fan. Real talk.

purplecam said:

I cannot agree more! Every album that Prince has released has had music on it that reaffirmed why I have been a fan for so long. There are songs that cover the range of my emotions and life experiences on every album. I am 33 and I have been listening to Prince since I was about 6 or 7 years old. As a longtime fan, I really cannot complain about his overall output.

Like you, that is all I have ever wanted - good, solid music that I can enjoy. He has never had to reinvent the wheel for me. I never imagined life without my Prince music playing in the background, and the great thing is that I do not have to. What's even better is that I do not have to have the same songs playing in the background! I can count on something new to add to the mix every year or so without fail. How many fans of other artists can say that? He still continues to create good music.

As JP says, there have always been "duds," but the "duds" are relative. For example, off of PR, I LOVE "I Would Die 4 U," but I was never keen on "Take Me With U." The wonderful thing is that the garden is so beautiful overall that a weed or two doesn't disturb its beauty - those weeds are just parts of nature.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/12/18/prince-premieres-four-new-songs-on-las-indie-103-new-album-on-the-way/

Los Angeles’ rock radio station Indie 103 was “summoned” to go up to Prince’s home this past week to preview his new album. According to the station’s “Mr. Shovel,” Prince doesn’t have a record label and “wants nothing to do with record labels, so he’s meeting with people to figure out how to operate at his level without a record label.” Following a long conversation with the Purple Rain star, the radio reps were played the new album in Prince’s home entertainment theatre. “It’s heavy, rockin’, and our enthusiasm was immediate,” Mr. Shovel said. Prince then said the station could preview a few of the new songs on Indie 103, so that’s where we were today at 3 p.m.

The album kicks off with an explosive, four-minute instrumental before launching into the first song that was played on the radio… Prince covering Tommy James & the Shondells’ “Crimson & Clover,” with the Purple One altering the lyrics as he’s been known to do during his cover performances. Keeping with the original, the vocals sound like Prince is submerged under water. Things deviate at the chorus, however, as Prince belts out the “ooh baby, I think I love you” part of Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady.”

“Colonized Mind” was the second song played. Another laid-back guitar joint, it seems like Prince’s intention on this album is to make people stop dancing and just chill. More aquatic layering on Prince’s voice as he sings politicized lyrics with lyrics along the lines of “Did you know your record deal was another way for ‘The Man’ to steal.” Yeah, we don’t think Prince wants anything to do with record labels. The guitar solo is killer, out-guitaring the entirety of Planet Earth’s “Guitar,” before the chorus returns.

“Wall of Berlin” was the third song played. Again, more guitar virtuosity by Prince. If he’s aiming to make an album similar to Side C of Electric Ladyland, he’s off to a good start. The songs also sound more intimate, like the Artist recorded these songs without any Revolution and New Power Generation behind him. “4ever” is the ballad, with Prince busting out the piano before being joined by backup singers. It’s not “Free,” “Ballad of Dorothy Parker” or “Sometimes It Snows In April,” but it’s still a solid, latter-day Prince slow dance as he ruminates about marriage and being with someone, well, 4ever.

And that’s all we get. For now, at least. Again, according to the DJs, Prince’s new album is finished and he’s just looking for a non-record label vessel in which to release it. We’ll keep you posted in what promises to be a busy year for Prince.

Daniel Kreps

williammelvinhicks said:

If he does stop, I still want new material every year. It is hard to get through a year without something new from him.

Prince is buggin' again tho yall! Forget the record companies, people are sellin' their music on MySpace, itunes etc. and the singles are free downloads now! Prince is still awesome from what I'm hearin', I'll buy the album only if it's a download, I do agree, however, that Prince is nuts to hold his new music back when there are all these options and avenues. And no more Prince vinyl? What up wit that?

LondonStyle said:

Oh snap, Prince should sell the new cd on ebay 4 $9.99 buy it now and burn them/sell them himself! Who's gonna stop him if he owns the master copy! LOL! Pissin' my pants over here!

FrankieDJ said:

that would be a riot.

if prince sold a bunch of EPs as homemade burned CD-rs on eBay, complete with poorly photographed product pic and a description full of typos (all done completely on purpose to mess with everyone)...of course, with a disclaimer stating the EP was 100% legit...i'd be interested to see who'd actually believe it was a joke.

do it, prince - do it!

Reading this thread, I think perhaps I might have evolved in my fammyness over the years.

The extreme opinions - both the extremely positive and the extremely negative - register as little more than static, whereas in the old timey days such highly polarized opinions used to get my goat and gripe my ass.

The wildly negative comments aren't making me like the new tracks any less, and the frothy fam freakouts aren't in any way influencing me to like the new tracks any more than I already did.

The most interesting comments on this thread, to me, honestly, are the ones that seem genuinely balanced. "I liked this, didn't like that, not sure what I think of the other." Cuz, I don't know, in my experience, that's how real people really respond to art the first time around.

Which is not to say the haters aren't genuinely hatey or that the fams aren't genuinely fammy. It's just that, this time around, those extreme screaming opinions don't seem to mean as much, and they aren't getting in the way of me forming my own opinion in my own time.

I hope other people are able to take some of the louder voices on this thread with a grain of salt and honor your own opinions and responses, cuz at the end of the day, it's what YOU think that really matters.

Anyway, that's my rant. I'm gonna go find Romy and fold scarves now.

Anxiety said:

Prince has done plenty of stuff that I don't like I just happen to like these four demos, its just fits my taste really well, so how do we distinguish positive feed back from fammy? And what makes positive feedback extreme? I mean the new tracks are not perfect but i like stripped down jamming ( just trying to make sure i am not in the fammy family ) I hate that term lol

Prince is buggin' again tho yall! Forget the record companies, people are sellin' their music on MySpace, itunes etc. and the singles are free downloads now! Prince is still awesome from what I'm hearin', I'll buy the album only if it's a download, I do agree, however, that Prince is nuts to hold his new music back when there are all these options and avenues. And no more Prince vinyl? What up wit that?

LondonStyle said:

Meloh9 said:

by "fammy" i mean those who will shoot anyone down for posting any comments that are in the least bit critical, as if prince is incapable of creating anything that is ever less than perfect. i think prince is brilliant, but anyone as prolific as him is bound to toss out a few clunkers now and then. it doesn't make him a bad artist - it just means some of the things he throws out there stick for some people, and some of those things don't stick for others.

i happen to think all the new songs he recently previewed are just fine. they're not the greatest tracks ever, but i don't think they're rotten either. i like them better than anything from "planet earth", but i really disliked that album, so i'm not setting the bar very high, lol.

but if other people are honestly getting an immense amount of pleasure from the new songs, god bless 'em. and if other people are deeply disappointed by the songs, well, i guess bless them too, ha.

it's just those people who confuse their personal responses and opinions with objective fact who i'm tuning out.

All in all, the new material has evoked the worst possible reaction from me: near apathy.

Aside from the genuinely atrocious There'll Never Be Another Like Me, this batch of new songs is simply not all that memorable.

The lyrics aren't offensively bad, but they're mostly ineffectual (aside from maybe Colonized Mind). The melodies themselves seem to take a wrong turn into something forgettable and generic just as they sound like they had the potential to turn really catchy.

If the late 90's was the era of bad Prince music, this is the era of mediocre Prince music.

On the one hand, I'm grateful that he hasn't recorded a bunch of new songs as bad as Hot Wit U or Push It Up. On the other hand, it's starting to seem more and more likely that the new Prince album will be yet another that I'm compelled to play only a few times and then forget about before I throw on Sign 'O' the Times for the millionth time.

love2thenines2003 said:

Very cool mews.
I love transitions in music. It will give the project a conceptual feel.
Judging by the "sound" of the tracks, TWNBALM not included, it will also be a very live band affair as well. These four songs remind me of The Undertaker project mixed with the What's My Name/Calhoun Square stuff from Crystal Ball.Add some cool transitions/instrumental stuff and you got N.E.W.S. as well
Which would be cool. As a fully realized project,this would be something kinda new for a Prince.