i must admit that i am surprised that lotusflow3r disc is not getting better reviews...it is certainly one of his best in many years ....it makes me wonder if he will ever have a critically acclaimed album again...
.
mind you...it has got better reviews than 'the rainbow children'
.
http://www.metacritic.com...otusflow3r
.
http://www.metacritic.com...owchildren

i am not surprised really.....there is too much filler on it

japanrocks said:

The only thing that comes close to being called filler for me is 77 Beverly Park. But even that has it's moments. IMHO of course.

i have not listened to it in 3 weeks ...

I think reviews often come hand in hand with the promo blitz around an LP. If there's no promo, it's just another 3 out of 5 stars. Had it come out during the 21 nights, I'm sure Lotusflow3r would've had a few glowing reviews here.

NouveauDance said:

'
It's hard to have a 'Hit Album' without a record contract,promotion & marketing.
Plus, doing 'talk shows' doesnt constitute 'pushing an album'.
Prince does a fantastic job promoting himself on talk shows just not is 'music'.
He's the equivilent to "Billie Mays-Oxy Clean Man' in terms of pushing
his products on the talk show circuit'....and that necessarily doesnt add up to sales anymore.

GMAN

GMAN2000 said:

-----
I have read good reviews for the CD's He is not pushing the cd enough but music sales are terrible right now along with the economy.

MNPLSOUND
http://www.metacritic.com...q=MPLSOUND

I really like lotusflow3r, a step in my opinion from what he has been doing.

I'm suprised Lotusflow3r slightly edged out MNPLSOUND on critics reviews, not because of merit, just because of reviews i have read.

Most of the reviews I read were positive

The reviews I saw/read were about 50/50 on his 2 albums. Bria's album didn't get favorable reviews from what I saw/read.
[Edited 4/28/09 7:24am]

Maybe its just not that good. Lisa nailed it in that interview: "I would pull out more personal acoustic songs. Maybe get back to a more simple and raw expression without any worry about attitude, but only the innocent self discovery and honesty of self love, excitement of a beautiful chord, and softness that might be raging inside. Like a picture of a prize fighter when he first wakes up in the morning. "

There are hints of this in Lotusflow3r and even the soft bits of MPLSound. Its just buried underneath all the "I'm 50 years old but I still got it" posturing and the ranting that Prince thinks is insightful "social commentary."

emesem said:

I gree 100%
I dont think we got this style of posturing in his early career.
I remember my brother comenting at the time about this in the eary 90's With "Gett Off" & "Sexy MF" saying something like it was unlike him and he was pandering to a younger/diffrent demographic. And I think he also hit the nail on the head, we saw what becacame of his 90's work.
[Edited 4/28/09 8:08am]

Personally I think most reviews are quite 'on spot': a score of 6 - 7 out of 10 for the entire CD-box sounds adequate to me.

I also agree with something stated by several reviewers, namely: that on Lotusflow3r there is some splendid guitar-work to be found, and some nice instrumental touches to be heard, but that some of the songs 'underneath' are not all that special.

My main complaint about some of these reviewers: I think they too easily say: 'MPLsound harks back to its trademark sound, so its the best album of the set'.
As i have 'defended' a few times before on here, I dont find that MPLsound really copies the original eighties-sound. Next to that, MPLsound also suffers when it comes to the quality of the song-writing and production, compared to most of his music from the eighties.
I think most of these reviewers have only listened 1 or 2 times to these albums, and make the formentioned 'comparison' as an easy 'stopgap'.
[Edited 4/28/09 7:48am]

emesem said:

"I would pull out more personal acoustic songs. Maybe get back to a more simple and raw expression without any worry about attitude, but only the innocent self discovery and honesty of self love, excitement of a beautiful chord, and softness that might be raging inside. Like a picture of a prize fighter when he first wakes up in the morning."
-----
This is the reason W&L can't sell any of their music. That type of stuff has no appeal to the public at all. I'll take grooves from P anyday.
[Edited 4/28/09 7:56am]

Metacritic's average just confirms to me how meaningless someone else's opinion is when it comes to something as subjective as art.
No, not because I don't like to see negative criticism of Prince's work.
Not because I'm trying to convince others how great Lotusflower is.

Musicology, Planet Earth, and 3121 (not to mention Flo Rida's latest) have all received higher averages than Lotusflower and The Rainbow Children.
I personally couldn't be happier with albums like Lotus and TRC, and think they are miles ahead of anything else he's done this decade. Even better than some of his music from the '80's and '90's.

Apparently the critics don't feel the same, and that's fine. To each their own.

Accujack said:

I saw an advert for this the other day, I almost peed my pants laughing.

I don't care about the reviews, they're only other people's opinions. I love Lotusflow3r and also think that MPLS sound is his best in years!

Please discuss on this sticky here folks, thanks. http://prince.org/msg/7/301826