Rainbow Children hands down, Lotusflower is good but not that good. IMO.

Not quite. TRC is in a class of its own. I'm loving the 2 CDs and in some places, it starts to take me back to TRC, but not fully.

SquirrelMeat said:

agreed

rusty1 said:

honestly, i believe he still has good ideas, but i think he censors himself because he is afraid to be too funky.

think on this.

all his urges have been cordoned off as 'evil' by his religion. there's nowhere for him to go but schmaltz, and pseudo-nasty songs that can nevertheless be interpreted, if you strain, as jw come-ons.

i think prince is frightened of his talent because of the overwhelming emotions that come with it.

stanleylieber said:

totally If he was no longer having to flip the hell out without having to consider outside forces the gifts god gave him would blow everyone out of the water. EV E RY ONE.

PurpleLove7 said:

I agree totally, and this is why everyone always leaves disappointed, because they keep comparing to lovesexy and PR and Sign o the times etc....u just cant do it. TRC is a totally different concept, not even on the same order as Lotus, its Prince almost 10 years older, different things in his life, different beliefs, influences etc..

to me, Lotus is like getting everything that was good about TRC without all the annoying shit that came along with it. plus, you know, there are actual songs on it.

I'll take Lotusflow3r over The Rainbow Children anyday of the week. I understand what he was trying to do with TRC but I wasn't digging it at all. I did like how organic the instrumentation was on the recording but that was about it. I felt the music was just lounge or elevator music imo. I was happy to hear Lotusflow3r because of the same organic sound that TRC had. I guess I'm just not much of a TRC fan. I will go on a limb here to say that it is my least favorite album of Prince's.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

you can hear it in the songs. he creeps up on a stunning melodic resolution and then backs off and just lets it deflate into the same 90s r&b cliche. on basically every album since his conversion, the killer melodies are mixed WAY low, when they appear at all. nowadays he teases you with his genius instead of unleashing it like a torrential downpour. teasing is fine, but not when teasing is all you get.

look at those old live clips. look at his face. it's like he's hooked up to electricity. you can just FEEL that he can't hold it back.

now watch him playing leno funk on tv.

no offense, but what happened?

i don't really believe he's washed up and out of juice. but i do believe he intentionally sublimates the crazy energy that wells up inside him. if you read carefully and connect the dots, this really started with 'lovesexy,' it just took him a while to fully suppress his genius under his 'everything must be positive' persona.

he's gotten a lot of practice of the last two decades, and it's gotten to the point where he's really good at cutting his ideas off at the knees before they get out of control.

can you imagine how much that guitar solo during 'fury' on snl must have scared him, after it was all over and he had a minute to reflect?

i think that's why we didn't see any more of that kind of thing. prince puts the clamps on pretty quickly these days.

stanleylieber said:

It's too bad that he is capable of unleashing like that but then cleans up the studio version. I understand some things are impromptu and that live vs studio isn't always going to match but the studio version of fury is just embarrassing to that SNL performance. Why not unleash on the studio? He must be cognizant of this fact.

watch some of those video clips from lovesexy-era aftershows.

look at his face.

what happened?

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

my (admittedly based on very little first hand knowledge) interpretation is that he seems terrified of losing control to the groove the way he used to in the old days. he wants everything to proceed from his philosophy now, rather than just going with the flow. he is willing to compromise his music in order to avoid feeling like the music is driving him instead of it being him driving the music.

stanleylieber said:

And look at the lyrical content of fury. About a woman scorned. No positive BS and look at the results. Prince just needs to be real again.

the wandering jams that used to take place at soundchecks, concerts and aftershows really felt spiritual. the 'i wish u heaven'/'god is alive' jams were particularly CRAZY.

i think 'the rainbow children' started to recapture some of that feeling that the music was guiding the process. it seems sort of paradoxical since 'trc' is easily his most dogmatic work. but in spite of the way it was all tied up with his own peculiar take on jw, the MUSIC really seemed to be steering.

'lotusflow3r' has a bit of that in the flow between songs, but it still feels stifled to me. ironically, 'lovesexy' was one of his least preachy albums in terms of lyrical content. i pretty much loathe the message of 'trc' but it gets a pass from me because it feels like prince. it has a beat.

stanleylieber said:

Everyone knows how I feel about the religous BS but it gets a pass from me too because at the time you can tell just how genuine it all was for him. I think he's jaded on it but can't eat crow and is just saving face at this point. 30 seconds of Everywhere blows the entire Lotus project out of the water.

stanleylieber said:

That is interesting, when i went to a string of shows at the O2 in 2007, there were certain nights when he simply flipped out and other nights when he was very subdued.

I remember the first night I went, being lucky enough to be near the stage, when he arrived on, he had this expression on his face, and I turned to my brother and said, we are in for a good night, and it was f...ing amazing, so much so that it convinced my brother to get tickets for the aftershow.

The following night, was a different concert completely, he never got into it at all, was simply going thru the motions, not that it helped kicking the concert off with Planet earth. Needless to say, he didnt turn up at the aftershow either, which was all the one anyway, as we didnt go.

Whether this has something to do with his age or religion is a tough one to call though.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

prince can do it if he wants to. i just think he's exercising a wrong-headed form of self-control.

unfortunately for us.

Whitnail said:

i guess it could be age. though that's also a depressing thought.

it just seems like he has intentionally made the choice to step aside of really scorching hot ideas. it's almost like he's trying to prove a point that he can make good stuff while staying within the lines of his philosophy. (that philosophy being: always keep calm. always think positive. always maintain control.)


[Edited 4/6/09 16:46pm]

stanleylieber said:

I hope you are wrong about that one, but it is a very plausible idea

stanleylieber said:

stanleylieber said:

Which, as we all know was always in him. It's only magnified and worsened now that religion is added on top of it. Instead of obsessing on a good band and practicing the music til it's schorching the eardrums out of people's heads he's turning his attention where it shouldn't be. The same genius that created whole amazing albums by himself and led band efforts down places like Lovesexy and Gold Experience has the time and wherewithal to harrass some poor lady who posted a video of her baby dancing to his music? Prince needs to be bitchslapped back into reality. Unfortunately until he faces some kind of legal trouble for doing things the wrong way, it won't happen.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

exactly. it's like that laser sharp focus has been taken off the music and aimed in other areas.

stanleylieber said:

It's easier to lash out on others than to look inward and see where the problem really lies.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

the thing that sucks for me, as a fan, is that prince plays this whole transformation off as being some kind of maturation process. and there is an army of fans willing to agree with him who will jump on your back for noting your observation that something is missing.

i know he's still in there. 'trc' is proof.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

There has been alot of discussion here recently about the 80s versus now Prince, but fact is, that raw energy that he displayed, particularly on the Lovesexy tour, has rarely ever shown up again apart from the Gold tour. Odd thing about the Lovesexy tour was, it was not well recieved in America because of its preachy nature.

The ONA tour followed the release of the TRC album, and from what I saw on the Aladdin DVD, it certainly didnt set my world on fire, same can be said of ONA live, apart from the aftershow. So he must somehow restrain himself, why he does it I will never know, but I know from what i experienced in London in 2007, that the side he tries to contain, pops up now and again and wreaks havoc, like the good ol days.

Whitnail said:

i've heard some great shows from the '98-'08 period. unfortunately the two i attended ('97 and '98) were pretty flat. all medleys and prince flirting with the front row.

stanleylieber said:

Most of the boots i have heard from 97 and 98 are exactly as you have described and i think the Rave 2000 dvd is a very good example of that as well

In my opinion, "The Rainbow Children," plays more like a book telling a full length story, which I totally appreciate 4 that reason alone, yet because of that I can't compare it with standard song collections.

Love em' both 4 what they are.

LotusFlow3r by FAR. The Rainbow Children is interesting, but it is so claustrophobic and comes off sounding like a headache. Plus, I think "Mellow" is the very worst song in Prince's career.