Sdldawn said:

Yes, Musicology was totally overrated and wasn't that good at all, I haven't played it for years. It was over marketed and over hyped as P's comeback when really it wasn't that good at all.

Lotusflow3r beats it by a million miles, his best since Eman I reckon.
[Edited 5/27/09 10:14am]

TheFreakerFantastic said:

yeah, it's just a bad production on Musicology.. I don't think the songs are that bad.. they just have a very plastic feeling to them that is hard for me to listen to for any length of time.

The new discs are not as exciting to me as, say, Lovesexy was in 1988, but I think they're very consistent and good. Solid efforts, musical & fun.

Sdldawn said:

It also feels very forced. There's not much real inspiration there, though as with every prince album I like a few songs

NDRU said:

Honestly, it sounds like an album he wrote deliberately so it could be replicated easily live on stage.

The entire thing sounds like it was designed to be played live. And I don't get the artwork. It's terrible.

Imago said:

Perhaps, if I were to give it more credit than it deserves, I might say that Musicology, by the nature of it's title indicates the simple textbook demonstrations of various musical styles contained therein.

But really I think it's a fairly weak Prince album.

To give it a little credit, I'd say he deliberately dumbed it down for the masses, and to some extent it worked. Not that the album took off, but his image was more acceptable to people than it had been for many years.

NDRU said:

but do you think it had alot to do with that album? I mean, It is a very simple sounding record.. but with all the events that took place around the album.. i'm tryin to figure out what exactly took off for him.. cause it seemed like no'one really cared about the new album despite how well it did. Countless albums weren't even taken at some of those shows..

i dunno.. through all that hype that year.. I bet no'one even remembers the tune of any song on that disk.. that wasn't a hardcore fan

Prince is cult. Simple as that.

only 'pretty' people get his music.

Sdldawn said:

I don't know. I think people heard the album a bit. Musicology (the song) got some airplay and there was a video. I saw it a bunch of times. I even heard the song in a bar just a few months ago. I think even though the album was not a big hit it was out there amongst normal folken more than the last three have been. I knew a bunch of people who bought it, but hadn't bought a new prince album for years.

But to really answer the question, I believe that was more due to Prince's comeback than due to the album itself. The album was just a reminder that Prince was still around and launching a big tour of his huge hits.
[Edited 5/27/09 14:46pm]

Sdldawn said:

But isn't Life of the party in the first half?

Musicology was a real low point for me and I've enjoyed each release more and more since. 3121 had some amazing stuff but I skip a few, Planet Earth I only skip Chelsea Rodgers and Lotus/MPLS have no skippers for me.

I love the direction he's been heading in. Fully expecting another Musicology or NPS next time out though.

IstenSzek said:

For me, Crimosn & Clover doesn't sit right at the point it is at on the album. I love The Morning After and the whole flow of the album. That's not to say that I don't love Crimson though, I've put it on the end after Back To The Lotus. So I have a fantastic Prince album, with an excellent cover song as a bonus track.

I'm listening right now for the 1st time!

I found LF a little disappointing - I guess coz I expected to be one of the people to be blown away (which I was in the end, but I had to wait till I got literally to the end: Back to the Lotus blew my mind!). I found bits of it cringe-worthy, especially lyrics and delivery.
MPLS sounded cool, but not mindblowing on a first listen.
ELIXER was less bad than I expected (although Everytime sux big time and I'm currently listening to Immersion and having trouble resisting the skip...)

Now I listened to the entire Lotus Flow3r album and it´s amazing. One can really hear that Prince did this one with special care, like he did with TRC. Not dated, beautiful arrangements and production, good songs and great guitar playing, not to mention it was so cool to hear Michael and Sonny on some tracks.
[Edited 6/4/09 12:05pm]