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Ugot2shakesumthin said: IF " I Hate U" didnt have that horrid courtroom bit. I would say that The Gold X had one solid song,
This is some stale silly cheese, unredeamable. Come is cheesy too but at least most songs there as solid The courtroom bit is the highlight of the song. I LOVE it! See the man with the blue guitar, maybe one day he`ll be a star... |
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PurpleKnight said: I'm of the opinion that The Gold Experience remains Prince's most overlooked masterpiece.
What makes TGE so great for me is the way Prince locates his famous trademarks in the context of a complicated new world around him. He's still funky in songs like P Control and Now, but he's also touching on issues concerning his disillusionment with fame and the record industry, and evolving phenomenons like female empowerment. There's also an interesting dichotomy on TGE concerning a familiarity with his trademark sounds and the search for a new identity. The track 319 sounds like a more sexualized, more modern Kiss, Shy maintains a familiar sound yet switches things up by placing a female character as a social predator, and Gold is structurally similar to power ballads like Purple Rain but instead becomes a song about searching and transcending rather than accepting and moving on. Some people have said that the album is overproduced, but I strongly disagree. Rather than having a cheap, plastic sound, the whole album pulsates with musically rich energy; like a series of explosive live performances. It's the sound of an artist and his band coming alive in the studio. It's that energy that sets this album apart from his newest work in particular. The guitar solos and screams in Endorphinmachine (cow bell or not) capture the feel of a man on a journey he believes in. The similar urgency of Gold is the perfect way to signal a new era and close the album. It simultaneously sums up the error of his seeking commerciality in a stale musical scene while breaking free from the stagnation. That's exactly what TGE does in the end; it breaks away from the stagnation that had started to set in on Prince's musical output at the time. He could learn a thing or two by popping this one in again. Yeah, but you missed one crucial point. Three thirds of the songs on this album are lame. Tracks like 319 are just pure junk. The voices saying that Prince had lost it were already loud at this point and it's this kind of material that fed that view. There's some great stuff on here (Gold, BJB, etc.), and it has an energy that his later albums never followed up on, but the decline in his songwriting was already well underway. This album is highly overrated on this website. [Edited 1/15/09 10:56am] “The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
- Thomas Jefferson | |
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I love the disc...but it might be a tad overrated
around here. "Days of Wild" or "Interactive" would have fit better than "We March" which sounds kinda dated | |
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PurpleKnight said: EmancipationLover said: There is a lot of truth in what you write, though I disagree with the comment on Prince's current output. I wouldn't see TGE as THE Prince album which is criminally overlooked and underrated ("most overlooked masterpiece"). You can say that about a lot of Prince albums. Graffiti Bridge, O+>, TGE, Emancipation and TRC all fall into that category imo. However, what eventually makes TGE standing out is how much commercial potential it actually had, and that's also why this album makes me somehow sad because Prince wasted such a chance. Sure, TGE has its weak points. "P control" is fun, but not a prime example of Prince's songwriting abilities, "We march" is quite weak imo, "Billy Jack Bitch" is a bit too polished to be really hard-hitting funky (though those horns a killers!). I sometimes imagine this album with "Interactive", "The Ride" and a live version of "Days of Wild" on it - wow! I think that most Prince albums have at least one rather weak track on them, so TGE is no real exception. But there is so much brilliant material from this era left out here! The big problem with TGE has been Prince's strategy to release it, though (please correct me if any part of the story is wrong): IIRC, Prince wanted an independent album release after WB has granted him the independent single release with TMBGITW. Problem: The single was so successful that WB didn't want to waste more of Prince's hit potential, so they didn't allow him to release TGE on his own. Prince didn't realise that he had no chance as he had a valid contract he just had signed 1 1/2 years before. But because he's stubborn, he insisted, and that kept TGE from being released for more than a year (I remember its first announcement ca. mid-1994!). In the end, he had to release it with WB, had lost any interest in TGE and was already preparing for the "Emancipation" project. Result: what could've been a success of D&P magnitude has become a record which is loved by the diehards, but isn't even available in stores anymore, and Joe Public will never get to know it. Sad! I don't get this. Prince wanted to release it by himself? Why? TGE could have been with maybe these as singles: TMBGITW Dolphin Endorphinmachine I Hate U (sent to r&b) It has that rare quality in a Prince album where it sounds like an instant hit. I'm not an expert, but I followed his moves during the '93-'95 era quite closely, because MTV Europe still was good back then and had a proper news show rather than all this ringtone and Brooke Hogan doesn't get laid shit they've got nowadays. I don't remember where I heard or read this, but I'm quite confident that Prince actually wanted to follow the independent release of TMBGITW (which was on the newly formed NPG Records, not on WB, and was distributed by Edel in Germany IIRC) with an independent album release, and that was TGE. What I am sure about is that TGE already was announced in 1994 when the first MTV Europe Music Awards (taking place ca. early autumn 1994, I think) were announced. Prince was the highlight act at the end of the show, and MTV News reported prior to the show that he would perform "material from his brand new album 'The Gold Experience'". In fact, he performed "Peach", and TGE had to wait one more year to see the light of day - on WB! It makes sense, if you think about it - Prince's strategy at this point still was to deliver "Prince" albums to WB (like "Come" in 1994) and to release O+> albums on his own. However, he should have foreseen that the contractual situation wouldn't allow him to do that (hence also the whole "Tora Tora" nonsense in 1995, because he wouldn't have been allowed to officially appear on the independently released "Exodus" album either). As a result, Prince wasted a massive chance to score a huge commercial hit due to his stubbornness. Just imagine a second single "Dolphin" after TMBGITW (as you suggested), and that with a proper video instead of this cheap promo crap. Album released on WB at the same time, some good promotion, and you have something at least in the D&P league saleswise. Actually, Prince has lost a lot of money due to this: he had to share the profit with WB anyways, but in 1994, the profit would've been much bigger. One of the experts (Langebleu, Boris) may correct me if I got anything wrong...  | |
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it didnt have interactive on it. which is a shame, but a bit more reason to buy crystal ball
that riff clearly tipped the entire measure. too much butter for one muffin | |
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IMHO, Come is better than Gold. You can only go so far with Gold. I enjoy Orgasm, short as it is, and I love Come. [Edited 1/15/09 21:34pm] | |
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mrsquirrel said: it didnt have interactive on it. which is a shame, but a bit more reason to buy crystal ball
Interactive was on the CD-ROM Game. CB also has a not so great version of DOW, and IIRC it was edited. Far superior versions of DOW were the ones played at the Astoria in the UK in 1995 (including a bit of GCS's "Hair"), and there's one show at Paisley Park (August 26th 1995) that had a brilliant version (which then segued into Sly & The Family Stone's "In Time"). Gold could have been a resurgence for Prince, instead he waged a stupid war with WB, and by the time TGE hit the shops, it was too little, too late. 1994-95 could have been so great... Instead there was the anti-fan special on VH-1 in January 1996, and then things really took a turn for the worse. You know what, I still love that music. I never forget hearing DOW for the first time (on the radio!) and all I could think was "man, Prince is back -- with a vengeance". [Edited 1/16/09 5:26am] © Bart Van Hemelen
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