LotusFlow3r/Mplsound reminds of Diamonds and Pearls/Symbol-era Prince. Both sets come after a neutered, sexless record (Graffiti Bridge, Planet Earth) that reunited him with old school company (The Time, Wendy and Lisa)--which seems to reinvigorate him. He comes roaring back with testosterone.

LotusFlow3r makes references to 'other universes,' galaxies, dimensions, 'the new world,' dreams and energy fields. Clearly something in Prince's life has opened up new vistas for him. There are indications it's a budding new love. He mentions they 'just met' on 'The Morning After' and 'Wall of Berlin.' 'Boom' evokes a birthing, an eruption. You can feel his optimism on '4Ever,' the opening chords sound like a new day dawning.

The vocals on 'Feel Better' are tense and agitated, like he's blueballing from an unconsummated romance. Sorta like 'My Name is Prince,' when he was jonesing for Mayte. He even uses the same guitar-as-divine-instrument-of-God metaphor. Prince has rediscovered his dick, and he's in full-strut peacock mode here.

My guess is, he's infatuated with Salma Hayek. He's beating his chest, kicking sand in other people's faces, demonstrating that he's an alpha. The music is so galvanizing, marshaling all his powers of songcraft, and instincts for domination, there's no way this was inspired by some two-bit bimbo. No, Prince has his sights set on bigger fish. LotusFlow3r/Mplsound unabashedly summons his 80s mojo and beckons, like a siren, his mainstream brood. Prince is trying to impress an alpha female. I suspect 'Hey Valentina' isn't the only song about Ms. Hayek.

Unfortunately, there's no emotional depth. The impending feeling of birthing, of expansion described in 'Boom' proves to be little more than pent up horniness. Prince is having a relapse of his lascivious ways, panting, squealing, moaning, to no good end. Note how often he mentions 'guilt' on this record. And 'I don't care' pops up everywhere, an old standby from the 80s.

Meanwhile the romantic overtures are piffling come-ons: 'How beautiful r u... another wonder of the world realized.' 'What we do together makes history.' 'To all others I'm blind.' 'No one forgets you, most of all not me...' Empty flattery and hyperbole. That's all 'Hey Valentina' is: stroking a starlet's ego, kissing her ass. 'Better With Time' is especially risible, because it thinks it's being so deep. But it doesn't have a thought in its vapid little head. The opening lines are humiliatingly, crushingly vain: He quotes someone who compliments his agelessness, then reminds us that he's just quoting. Oh, Prince...

Then there's the evasiveness. 'How desperate am I,' he sings on 'Here,' teasing with the possibility of naked emotion. Then he confesses being scared... of 'loving u like crazy.' He comes within a hair's breadth of vulnerable feeling, then withdraws into cliches. Just like his observations on race in 'Dreamer'. He broaches the subject, only to flee into word play (and the song further degenerates into paranoid conspiracies). Every time Prince approaches the contents of his fears, he ducks and faints. He even does this musically. The intro to 77 Beverly Park is eerie and haunted. But then he inexplicably abandons it for some restaurant music. The opening melody on 4Ever is lovely and unguarded, then the chorus happens, the insipid lyrics happen, and he ends up stamping out the initial glimmer of inspiration.

Recoiling from intimacy, withholding himself, seems to be his default mode now. Even when he's browbeating bootleggers and 'haters on the internet' on 'No Candy 4 U,' his punishment is to deny them his music. It reminds of the sentiment in 'Hide the Bone,' a sort of hoarding of oneself, refusal to share. Which is why Prince albums are so unsatisfying now. He doesn't share what's in his heart of hearts.

At this point, he may be hopelessly alienated from his true feelings. I mean, he's still trafficking in that ridiculous reverse psychology bit: 'I just don't want u here/I just don't want u near.' 'I ain't gonna trip, cuz I have other plans.' Prince's idea of courtship seems to be playing the 'Opposite Game.' Also known as LYING. And speaking of games, what unnamed power keeps compelling Prince to compose game show jingles? 'Strollin'. 'Silly Game'. 'What Do U Want Me 2 Do'. 'Love Like Jazz'. He revisits this motif every time he mounts a commercial comeback. Getting his 'game' face on, hur hur.

But most damning of all is Elixer. Here Prince betrays how emotionally arrested he is. If his female proteges are a projection of his feminine ideal, he hasn't moved past the nasty girl/Vanity/whore model. Bria is made to sing such lines as 'go ahead, pull my hair,' 'i'll give him anything he desires,' 'he takes what he wants and that's just fine.' Not only is she expected to service his every sexual whim, she must also constantly reassure him that there's no one else. 'There'll never be another boy,' all others are 'broke-back bustas unemployed,' 'brothas who call me shorty in a pickup line.' And on 'A Kept Woman,' Prince channels Mayte: Somebody who dances for him, stays locked up in the house, and cries. But of course, she's blissfully in love with him. Oh, Prince...

For all the machismo on LotusFlow3r/Mplsound, Prince is terrified of male competition. He's got to keep his woman imprisoned to feel any security. Elixer is female disempowerment writ large. Bria's given no identity of her own, she's not allowed any political thoughts, just the role of strumpet, wifey, caretaker. She's a barbie doll dressed up to deliver the template for Prince concubinage. Listen to the vampirism of 'Everytime,' the wilding/ravaging of 'Immersion'/'Elixir'. Bria is reduced to animal, the victim of a 'beasting,' and her job is to purr in fainting acquiescence. She's just a ceremonial object for Prince's rapaciousness. It's appalling. Prince, I don't think Salma's gonna call.

Wow, was that a review or a psych session on the couch for Mr. Nelson?

^^

Purple Rain reminds me of 1999-era Prince. Both sets display narcissistic tendencies and sexual frustration rooted in childhood failures to reconcile the Oedipus complex.

Let's Go Crazy references purple bananas, which are no doubt here phallic objects demonstrative of Prince's failure to accept his inability to please his id's desire for his mother at an early age. As if it wasn't obvious enough, he also pants desperately to showcase that his primordial hunger is his master status, and the guitar solo that follows is a subconscious simulation of an orgasm.

Take Me With U sees Prince assuming a patriarchal alpha male identity in which the passive female is meant to follow his lead and be the willing receptacle of his violently repressed sexual needs and self-loathing induced need to control.

The Beautiful Ones now makes the female victim the brunt of his narcissistic rage, as Prince screams and shouts for the woman to massage his ego and vindicate his penile supremacy at the expense of the other man vaguely referenced, which probably refers more broadly to every other man alive.

Computer Blue and Darling Nikki then combine together for more reductionism, showing that Prince, having been sexually repressed at a young age and unable to develop through the Freudian stages successfully, merely sees penises and vaginas that he must conquer for sexual domination.

I Would Die 4 U and Baby I'm a Star see Prince use a veneer of modesty, and he even appears to venerate Christ in the former. In truth, these songs are outlets for Prince to vicariously assume the identity of a God and proclaim his divinity to the masses.

Then Purple Rain closes with an implicit condemnation of females through his convenient use of "forgiveness" for the female failing to worship him as the god he sees himself to be. The final cries near the end are further symbols of Prince's desperation to appease his Oedipus complex while viewing everyone around him as enemies of Prince World.
[Edited 3/29/09 15:20pm]

IstenSzek said:

Hmm, i've never heard of this track.

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

I Got My 2 Copies Today!Sweet! O>+

That was kind of a funny perspective there...although I believe that Prince is in a crazy kind of mood 4 good reason. Prince loves somebody.

Maybe he will marry the girl...Maybe he won't. Perhaps she'll let him decide.

PurpleKnight said:

yeah but the music was slammin'.

PurpleKnight said:

The latter dressed as the former.

2freaky4church1 said:

Its meant to. First time I heard it I thought tribute song.

PurpleKnight said:

PurpleKnight said:

Oh, well. back to being vaguely serious..... That really isn't true, now is it. My last post, not that I thought it needed to be spelled out, was dripping in sarcasm. Now if you add that sarcasm together with another post, just a short way back, where I indicated 'I loved Splash', then what you get is a criticism of your criticism; not of either song. See the difference? To spell it out further, I was showing, in a slightly obtuse way, that singularly pointing out flaws in a song does not then necessarily mean that the song as a whole is flawed. In essence a song can often be more than the sum of it's parts.

PurpleKnight said:

Well, yes. I guess you do have a point here. However, having said that, I think the 'Forever' chorus, as simple as it is, does do it's job. Sure it could be better. But for me it's not so bad that it detracts from the from the 'song as a whole'. And we're back to where we started.

the main problem i have with '4ever' is the same problem i have with many of p's multitracked choruses these days -- it's so screechy and distorted it hurts my ears. if i turn the track down really low and sort of half-listen to it it has a pleasant melody and arrangement. but something is wrong with the mix these days. when the chorus hits it's like getting punched in the face. (in a bad way. )

When The Morning After played...I knew this wasnt going to be the album i expected. So I immediately threw my expectations out the door and took it for what it was and the album just flowed. Love this album. Gems my friends. Boom, Colonized Mind, Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful, Love Like Jazz, Wall Of Berlin & Dreamer just rip through me. These two albums are just satisfying.

stanleylieber said:

TyphoonTip said:[quote]

PurpleKnight said:

Well, I never caught the post where you said you loved Splash, and please forgive my lack of perspicacity for sarcasm on a message board. All that was apparent from your post was that Splash has less than stellar lyrics, and therefore, 4Ever's lyrics are not really bad so much as they are the standard for Prince.

I still maintain that a song with exceptionally poor lyrics (as I believe 4Ever to have) fails unless the melody is exceptionally good (such as is the case with Colonized Mind).

Nevermind. I like LOTUSFLOW3R a lot, and 4Ever is the only song I'm compelled to skip.
[Edited 3/29/09 20:45pm]

PurpleKnight said:

Touché.

I'm a Prince fan who has admittedly lost interest over time. I do buy all of his releases and there is always something that I like, a track here, a track there, but, overall the last few albums really didn't excite me.

I was very sceptical about lotusflower

But, I actually love it. It's eclectic, yet cohesive. It sounds like Prince, but it's not just a rehash. It's fresh.

I remember when Michelle Ndegeocello's "The World Has Made me the Man of My Dreams" was released last year, there was a thread, and some people posited that this was the sort of far flung, interesting album that Prince should be making.

And, he did just that. Lotusflower is like Prince meets N'Degeocello meets Steely Dan, meets Funkadelic.

I love the instrumentals, and I love the Crimson and Clover cover (I can honestly say that I like all versions - Tommy James, Joan Jett, and now Prince)

Colonized Mind and Love Like Jazz are fantastic. Wall of Berlin and Back to the Lotus are incredible.

There is not one song that I would skip. Nothing here offends. I'm really digging this CD.

PurpleKnight said:

OK this is too funny and sad at the same time since when you think about it, it's kind of dead on, but I got to ask for the sake of argument and completeness, what about 'When Doves Cry'? Where does it fit in and what does it signify? (And I thought my Psych 101 class gave me insight? lol!)

Peace!

alexnvrmind said:

Aw shit. In my haste to make fun of padawan (hey, there's a reason he's not a full fledged Jedi Knight like me, and yes, I know I'm a nerd), I forgot to include When Doves Cry.

When Doves Cry is perhaps the saddest proof of Prince's subconscious turmoil. He blatantly confesses that his mother is never satisfied, which is both an indication of his mother's insatiability and a precursor to his own inner feelings of sexual inadequacy. The fact that he conflates a lover's angst with parental conflict makes it clear that Prince is unable to separate familial relations from his sexual frustration.

I'm digging this album! I think this is his best (and most consistent) album since TRC!

Dreamer : All I can say is DAMN!! This is the most flat out rock guitar that Prince has ever played on a studio cut to my knowledge since maybe Bambi and for some reason i've heard some say Dez played that and some say Prince played that.

BOOM!



Excellent album. Very enthralling.

Am I the only one who listened to '4Ever' repeatedly...it is such a nice song. I like Boom too of course.

"4Ever" is a very nice song, one of my favorites off Lotusflow3r.

"Dreamer" goes HARD!! Freakin in love with this song!!! "Boom" is my stuff too!!!

I love 4Ever as well. However, I think it's probably gonna be LotusFlow3r's "Take Me With U" or "Slow Love" -- a track that some people only come to appreciate/enjoy in time through the sheer greatness of the album on which it resides.

I'm lovin' "The Morning After" as well. It kinda reminds me a bit of Raspberry Beret, for some reason. It's a keeper.

Love2tha9s said:

have you heard 'the undertaker' album? it's must listen!

after a few more listens i am enjoying 'lotusflow3r' more and more.

this has probably already been addressed but I'm to lazy to go sifting through to find out..
anyway...why is it when I put my lotusflow3r CD into my PC to play it none of the info comes up? like album title and song titles? I have to go fill all that in manually?