Doing a paper for my recording class about (one of) my favorite album(s), Lovesexy, and I'm curious to see if anyone knows if it was recorded analog, as with reel to reel tape, or digital. Any help would be appreciated.

Analog.

I don't think P has released any full digital recordings. Has he?

daPrettyman said:

Not yet.

thanks for the info guys. the paper turned out great!

CerpinTaxt said:

Mind sharing?

Yeah, get your share on. I think alot of us would be keen to have a read.

Artist and Album Background
Prince Rogers Nelson (b. June 7, 1958) is a prolific artist, in both quantity and quality of work. With 29 released albums, including the upcoming 3-CD set LotusFlow3r, and many unreleased, leaked albums (Dream Factory, Camille, and The Rebels, to name a few), his amount of songs easily reaches into the thousands. He has played most of the instruments on most of his albums since the very beginning, 1978’s For You, with the reoccurring note “Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by Prince” in most every set of liner notes. 1999 was Prince’s first big album. The follow up, Purple Rain, released in 1984, was as much a cultural phenomenon as it was an amazing blend of rock, funk, jazz, and R&B.
From 1984 on, fans and media began to criticize Prince for making “white” music. His first four albums (1978-1982) had been largely funk, disco, and R&B based, becoming relatively successful in urban markets like his native Minneapolis. Purple Rain and its successors, Around the World in a Day, Parade, and Sign “O” the Times featured a larger amount of guitar, piano, strings, and eclectic percussion than the early albums. As a response to his detractors, Prince planned to release an album full of dirty, hard funk to prove he can still funk like the best of them. Titled The Black Album, Prince completed it in late ’87. The record featured no artwork or print. Prince pulled the release after about 5000 test pressings were made and shipped. As a result, it has become one of the most-bootlegged albums of all time, with countless generations of copies made.
According to legend, Prince, a generally drug and drink-free man, tried ecstasy one night in 1987. A being named Spooky Electric, symbolic of the devil, told Prince not to release The Black Album, that is was representative of all things evil. After the album was cancelled, Prince put out 1988’s Lovesexy, the total opposite of everything The Black Album was. Featuring a nude Prince on the cover, Lovesexy is all about “the feeling you get when you’re falling in love, not with a boy or a girl, but with the heaven’s above.” It condemned Spooky Electric and praised God and the feeling of Lovesexy. Musically, it is along the same vein of his prior efforts with a mix of rock and R&B, with an emphasis on intricate arrangements. The lyrics take advantage of the fine line between sexuality and spirituality, with a condoning of both. One of the reasons I enjoy the album so much from a conceptual point of view is because Lovesexy praises overall spirituality, with no message condoning a certain religion or criticizing another. While an entire paper could be written taking apart the arching storyline of the album, this paper will focus on the sonic aspects.

General Album Information
Lovesexy was released in 1988 on LP, cassette, and CD. On the US CD, the album is one continuous track; totaling 45:03 from start to finish. Prince’s intentions to make the listener experience the entire “trip” likely didn’t go over well with everyone. Now, we are able to splice and dice to infinity and create a “tracked” version, something I have done myself using GarageBand. Somewhat strangely, upon the ’88 release, the UK version of Lovesexy is tracked, as a traditional CD would be.
Three singles were put out, “Alphabet St.,” “Glam Slam,” and “I Wish U Heaven.” Non-album b-sides (common in the Prince world) included “Alphabet St. (This Is Not Music, This Is A Trip),” “Escape (Free Yo Mind From This Rat Race),” and “Scarlet Pussy.”
Before the actual music begins on Lovesexy, a female voice soothingly announces, “Rain is wet, sugar is sweet. Clap your hands and stomp your feet. Everybody, everybody knows, when love calls, you gotta go.” The backing music to this introduction comes from a composer named Delia Derbyshire, a piece called “Clouds.” A standalone piece in its own right, Prince took it and used it for his own purposes. The album opener, “Eye No” contains large portions of an unreleased outtake, “The Ball,” including a dialogue segue later used again on 1990’s Graffiti Bridge. Track 7, “When 2 R In Love,” is the only song also featured on the cancelled Black Album, a strangely romantic, calm song to tie to the two polar opposite albums together.
To generalize to an extent, Lovesexy is, sonically, a very dense album. The amount of overdubbing done in the making of this must be extremely high. From the opener, “Eye No,” there is percussion-a-plenty. Live kits, drum machines, tambourines, congas, and cuicas. “Eye No” was recorded with a live band, as opposed to the common one-man band style of Prince’s music. Sheila E. is most likely playing drums on that track. Besides percussion, background vocals pop up everywhere, as little improvisations or epic choruses of many Princes singing in unison. At this point in his career, Prince had a pretty steady touring band that he likely utilized for a few performances on Lovesexy. The horn, guitar and synth lines that weave in and out with the lyrics create an intense, upbeat, rich sound as in the title track, “Lovesexy.” Whispers, gum chewing, breathing, are all very audibly clear. I think this brings the album to the next level in making it a more personal experience. There are also sudden blasts of sound effects, as in “Alphabet St.” at the 1:11 mark, when a car is heard burning out, referencing the ’66 or ’67 Thunderbird mentioned in the verse prior. Or in the humorous dialogue that connects “Eye No” with “Alphabet St.”

Continuous Flow
As stated prior, the US CD release of Lovesexy is configured as one continuous track. You can’t go forward to the next song or back to the one you just listened to without starting the whole album over. While each one of the nine songs function as complete ideas on their own, the album as a whole creates one large track in an audible sense as well. The filtered drum pattern that begins at the end of “Eye No,” beneath the dialogue, is the same pattern used in the next track “Alphabet St.” When the latter track begins, the drum pattern is noticeably louder and more upfront. “Glam Slam” ends in an indulgent keyboard solo that acts as a transition to the next song, “Anna Stesia.” The title track, “Lovesexy,” re-states the “Rain is wet…” chant from the album opener, this time in a full singing chorus. “Lovesexy” then becomes “When 2 R In Love” after a reverse snare and a flam introduce the booming bass drum of the latter song. The last song, “Positivity,” is an epic 7:27 long ode to all things “plus sign (+)” that ends the same way the album began, with the ambient Derbyshire piece “Clouds” playing among sound effects of water. A few other songs throughout the album fade out or end in a more traditional sense.
I’d have to make an educated guess in regards to the continuity of the album. I think the majority of the album’s basic tracks were recorded first, and then overdubs were put in. After each song was basically complete, I believe that Prince went back and came up with these little transitions to smooth out the album and probably physically spliced them in. Eric Leeds, one of Prince’s horn players for years, is known to have said they recorded the entirety of Lovesexy as a group, and then Prince ruined it with massive amounts of overdubs. Whether or not Prince was recording analog or digital at this point is something I am not too sure about. I would assume working with analog would be very painstaking, based on all the overdubs throughout the album.

Sound Quality
While Lovesexy is impressively complex and dense on a musical level, the overall sound quality of the CD leaves something to be desired. In my opinion, there is not enough bass present on the CD, probably as a result of choices made in the mixing process. I am unsure if an LP version would sound any different. The drums are very airy and the horns are very bright, further emphasizing the high end. Subsequent fan-made “mixes” that have separated the album into tracks and added various EQ settings somewhat improve the overall sound of the album, at the expense of increasing the overall volume of the songs. It should be noted that these homemade “remasters” do not use any sort of master tracks, but instead alter the songs as they exist, often in FLAC form.

The Recording Process
Prince is notoriously difficult to work with in the studio. Often he’ll make everyone else leave the studio so he can do everything himself. Sometimes he will play a 4 or 8 bar phrase on the drums and ask the engineer to loop it, then move to the bass and do the same thing, and so on. As a result, Prince has been known to flesh out an entire, polished song in under an hour.
I have seen video from the Lovesexy era showing Prince in the studio laying down a bass part. It shows Prince sitting in front of the mixing console with bass in hand, mixing and playing simultaneously on the same take. His bass is plugged directly into the board. I have also seen images of him recording vocals with a microphone hanging directly above the console, so he can record overdubs whenever an idea strikes him. Lovesexy seems like it was done in this vein of performing.
A song like “I Wish U Heaven” could be an entirely solo composition and performance for Prince. A basic catchy drum beat chugs along, most likely a programmed beat with added reverb looped for the duration of the song. Guitars both clean and distorted play power chords that echo the melody of the song. Chorus-ed out keys play runs in between vocals while synths sit in the back center and come forward at the peak of the choruses. Every now and then simple triggered harp embellishments ring. A concise, catchy tune that clocks in at under three minutes.

Panning, Effects, and Volume Automation
A very important part of what makes an album sound “good” is the placement of each track throughout the audible space between hard left, center, and hard right. A quick scan through each track reveals much of why Lovesexy sound so dense. In my opinion, a lot of it has to do with the forwardness, stereo setting, and programming of the drums. On a track like “When 2 R In Love,” the hi-hat has an echo on it that adds an extra level of syncopation to the song any time it rings. The frantic drums in “Dance On” are in stereo, with the bass drum and snare more center and the cymbals harder left and right, emulating the placement of a live kit. So much of Prince’s music is powered by the drums that without them, these songs wouldn’t be able to hit the groove that they do.
With the exception of “I Wish U Heaven,” most of the lead vocals on Lovesexy are dead center, and the background vocals are varying degrees of left and right. In some cases, like the chorus of “Glam Slam,” Prince’s lead center vocal is heavily enhanced by the harmonizing overdubbed vocals that are both hard left and hard right. This results in a rich, textured sound.
The title track, at around 4:24 in, becomes a heated dialogue between two members of the opposite sex (“Tonight we make love with only words, girls first”….and so on). The female voice that begins a tangent slowly changes pitch and tone, the sign of a voice being sped up or slowed down physically after recording. After alternating between a high, airy female tone and a low, drag queen voice, the female reaches a climactic scream at 4:54. Immediately after, the voice of Prince altered to be in the same ultra high airy range comes in and continues the intense dialogue. This little segment last around a minute and is one of my favorite parts of the album, both for its humor and cunning use of voice manipulation. I’m not exactly sure technically how this was done in the context of Lovesexy, but I have a vague understanding.

Conclusion
Much more could be said about this 1988 release. The subsequent tour was grandiose, involving props like a swing set and a working car. Prince apparently did not recoup from the tour and therefore never brought it outside of Europe. As a result of such a financial blow, Prince’s next project was something much more commercially viable, the soundtrack to Batman. Many see Lovesexy as Prince’s last great, ambitious work. I personally enjoy this album because it offers so much to hear that repeated listenings can only result in a better understanding and appreciation for each song. However, I very rarely listen to the whole thing through, thanks to the wonders of technology. Regardless, between the epic harmonies and funky rhythm sections, Lovesexy will always be one of the best albums in my book.

CerpinTaxt said:

Pretty good paper. I see a few things that I have to clarify/ask:

1. The record featured no artwork or print. Prince pulled the release after about 5000 test pressings were made and shipped. As a result, it has become one of the most-bootlegged albums of all time, with countless generations of copies made.

If I'm not mistaken, the album was complete and shipped to record stores. It was at the last minute that Prince ordered the copies returned and be destroyed. Now, all copies weren't returned, therefore we got the bootleg copies. As for the artwork, the album was never intended to have any art other than a black cover. The only writing on the album was to be on the label of the LP listing the songs in peach colored writing.

2. Lovesexy was released in 1988 on LP, cassette, and CD. On the US CD, the album is one continuous track; totaling 45:03 from start to finish. Prince’s intentions to make the listener experience the entire “trip” likely didn’t go over well with everyone. Now, we are able to splice and dice to infinity and create a “tracked” version, something I have done myself using GarageBand. Somewhat strangely, upon the ’88 release, the UK version of Lovesexy is tracked, as a traditional CD would be.

There are US pressings of the cd that are tracked. They were issued as promo copies.

3. Three singles were put out, “Alphabet St.,” “Glam Slam,” and “I Wish U Heaven.” Non-album b-sides (common in the Prince world) included “Alphabet St. (This Is Not Music, This Is A Trip),” “Escape (Free Yo Mind From This Rat Race),” and “Scarlet Pussy.”

Singles are "released" and not "put out".

4. I’d have to make an educated guess in regards to the continuity of the album. I think the majority of the album’s basic tracks were recorded first, and then overdubs were put in. After each song was basically complete, I believe that Prince went back and came up with these little transitions to smooth out the album and probably physically spliced them in. Eric Leeds, one of Prince’s horn players for years, is known to have said they recorded the entirety of Lovesexy as a group, and then Prince ruined it with massive amounts of overdubs. Whether or not Prince was recording analog or digital at this point is something I am not too sure about. I would assume working with analog would be very painstaking, based on all the overdubs throughout the album.
There is an interviews with Sheila, Cat and Eric where they all discuss the recording of Lovesexy. If I'm not mistaken, the album was done in 2 weeks with Alphabet St. being the last track that was recorded.

5. Prince is notoriously difficult to work with in the studio. Often he’ll make everyone else leave the studio so he can do everything himself. Sometimes he will play a 4 or 8 bar phrase on the drums and ask the engineer to loop it, then move to the bass and do the same thing, and so on. As a result, Prince has been known to flesh out an entire, polished song in under an hour.

I wouldn't say that Prince is "notoriously difficult" to work with without backing that up (for the sake of the paper).

6. Sheila E. is most likely playing drums on that track.
You might want to investigate this a little. On "Eye No", it sounds like Prince on drums and Sheila on percussion. I don't have the cd in front of me to check the credits, though.

7. It might also be a good idea to list the musicians that played in one of your early paragraphs.

I hope u aren't offended about me doing this. I was an English minor and a Journalism major in college. Good job, though, overall.
[Edited 3/19/09 13:56pm]

Offended? Not at all! I appreciate anybody taking the time to read this paper. In all honesty, it was due the day after St. Patrick's day, at 2:50pm. I woke up feeling like I felt the night before and threw this together in a couple hours. The Black Album stuff was all of the top of my head, and I was still slightly inebriated . Fortunately for me, my professor isn't too big into Prince, so hopefully this paper will generate some interest, regardless of the inaccuracies within.

Thanks again for reading it and giving me some constructive crit. Hundalasiliah!

CerpinTaxt said:

I understand. I've "been there, done that" when it comes to doing things at the last minute.

Aaaaaah-brings back memories-we had to dissect albums way back when I was studtinfg sound engineering-I use dto love that aspect-and massively helpful understanding an album when you do that. Lovesexy sounds way better with the cans on. still a fantastic record.

squirrelgrease said:

analdigital

myloveis4ever said:

Butt of course.