lotusflower said:

Exactly! Drop the gimmicks! Quit trying to 'do your own thing' and 'appeal to the masses' at the same time. Because it can't be done! And if it can then what are you waiting for? Prove me (and I believe a lot of the real fans) wrong!

NeoGeo24bit said:

another great post from you Geo, wow.. yeah it makes me a little sad/ bad also... all these "unsatisfied" comments,

still: you have to speak your honest opinion about the music..... you can't take into the picture that you are hurting the artist, can you....

I wish the best for Prince, but my opinion is this is a bad song, and this needs to be told.

I wouldn't be honest to anybody if I said this was a great tune. Auch.

alexnvrmind said:

I don't disagree, exactly, but hoping for Prince to be more like Bruce or Neil is a lost cause

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Maybe he truly does feel at peace. Hard to imagine, but maybe he does.

Here's another thought: when he was younger, it was easy for him to write about the kind of things that younger people relate to. What does a 50-year-old man write about that doesn't get him clowned? How does he write about the fact that, about two hours into a show, he starts limping noticeably? About the fact that he wears a big gold necklace because he doesn't feel like dyeing his chest hair?That if he goes after a younger woman, he's pretty much in dirty old man territory? Or if he desires an older woman, he's lost his mojo? If he writes a political song, one group of people gets offended. If he writes a religious song, another group of people gets offended.

I think, on some level, we're looking to Prince to make us feel young again. How in the name of heaven is he supposed to do that?

Bohemian67 said:

Clearly nobody would be here if Prince hadn't impacted our lives, be it when we were younger, 2002, or just last week with his music. I'm indifferent to Prince's music because it's become such a trite affair that he's made it impossible for me to feel anything other than pity for him. He's become a tragic figure. Almost a pop Lear who's turned so far inward one would think his mind has been lost and his once great kingdom now crumbles around him as he stumbles through the wilderness, wild eyed and playing the solo from Purple Rain over and over and over and over...

There's nothing more I'd love than just half of a great new album from Prince because when Prince is on, there's nobody better. Unfortunately, the lights were apparently turned off in 1996 and though there is an occasional electric hiccup, there's not a steady current and the only flashes worth keeping are his live performances. I imagine this disaster of a studio cut would work well live as an instrumental jam but as a pop song, it's so polished, predictable and painful that it should be shipped off at once with Purple and Gold to land of Never Was.

Someone earlier said he should just record with a garage band and I couldn't agree more. Plug in, turn it up, don't overdub and see what happens. It certainly can't be any worse than what he's currently doing.

thedance said:

Prince is still a genius and a legend, no matter if he realizes 100 bad songs or albums in a row. Prince should just sell Paisley Park (it's really been downhill since he built that place), and move into a garage and get a band going. A young band. Make new, fresh music and teach the band members how to be great musicians. That would probably be the best gift he could give someone else, instead of just making music about himself. That music would be raw and real. These last two songs have been soft, poorly written, and badly produced.
[Edited 2/26/10 14:46pm]

Genesia said:

I wholeheartedly agree !!! I remember being at the ONA concerts thinking to myself, how can he be here right now... with what he was going through? yet working to move on or 'cover up' what's inside. Another view point is The Celebrations was the last time he reached out to bring us in his world. Yes,the reason being was to witness to everyone on a large scale when that didn't work...and folks start stealing from the kitchen/bootlegs that honeymoon was over QUICKFAST !. so here we are 10 years later with a solid NPGMC music output but sporadic/ less-than-cohesive releases. TRC & N.E.W.S for me gave listeners a sense of what his mind-frame was during that period.

you don't have to show your own vulnerability to write a great song:

listen to "the balad of dorothy parker"

sure he mentions himself, but in the way the narrator of a novel is
speaking to you of their experience. the narrator, not the author.

prince can write good works of fiction when it comes to feelings or
human relationships. i'm sure that 95% of the songs that people are
thinking of as "prince showing his personal vulnerability or where
he gives us a look into his private affairs" are nothing more than
purely fictional lyrics. which is just fine.

he just worded it more elegantly and more in a more universal way
in the past. he still does at times but his vocabulary seems to be
stuck in the same groove. for instance, it seems like a lovesong
can't be a lovesong anymore unless the feelings mentioned or the
love serenaded is "forever", "everlasting", "eternal" etc etc.

gone are the days of washing each other's hair or being still and
holding one another to imagine what silence looks like. gone are
even the days of wanting to take a brush and paint a wall around
you so that you will never have to feel the pain and suffering that
is a part of the human condition.

i found a slight glimmer of hope in "love like jazz" which has a
more free flowing approach to the subjest. but "4ever", which is
the only song on Lotusflower that i slighty dislike, once again
suffers from what i'm trying to pinpoint.

much of that has to be directly related to his beliefs, no doubt.
but if you're gonna sing about a taste for sin or splitting the
boards behind the bed in two and yet restrict yourself in other
ways to please the religious side of yourself, i think you're
measuring with painfully double standards.

didn't he recently say about a song that mentioned making love
that 'it might be about this girl who could be THE ONE" or some
weird stuff like that. as if he has to consolidate any thoughts
about wanting to have sex to the idea that it's ok because we
will get married. wtf? lol.

he used to be a good lyricist. never the best. certainly no joni
mitchell, but than again, how many other artists are? he did well
and wrote stuff we could relate to or stuff that was abstract
enough to fit anyone like a glove, no matter how they approached
it.

the lyrics are still interesting and even great in a few places
but the pallet is so limited. there's only so many times you can
sing about the evil record executives, the contracts or about
how good you are and what a bad mofo you are in the studio etc.

my main problem with MJ after the first trial was that he could not
let the matter rest in his music after he'd sung about it a few
times. but he hung on to it for too long. every other damn song on
history is about his struggles and like "boohoo, look at me, i've
been wronged". it bores people. write about the unfairness of life
or the disappointments but don't keep calling out the bad guys
time and time again. snooooze.

he just seems to genuinely be in this mindset that we're seeing so
much of lately. i'm still not sure what to think of it.

Wall said:

Fixed, because even they have become as predictably boring as his albums. You'd think a man who has a back catalog as large as he has would change it up alot more often.

Genesia said:

true, and when you're young you're trying to figure shit out. Especially as a man you're confused and angry all the damn time.

I doubt Prince is totally at peace, but I bet he's a lot more comfortable and mello than when he was at 23. I know I sure as hell am!

So what do you write about? He's attempting to write about social, spiritual, & mind matters rather than emotional ones, only I am not sure he's up to it from a lyrical standpoint.

Thank you, Prince for your wonderful gift. I appreciate anytime you drop new material. I cannot wait for the new CD. Merci.

Klyph said:

Fair enough. I'm just trying to balance some things in his favor. A live Prince show is still worth seeing but if you've seen one in the past 20 years, you've seen them all.

It's funny how Prince albums used to be met with the same anticipation Dylan records were met with--just what is gonna do this time?--but now, one can predict the sound and style of a song before it's even released.

And scratch what I said about wanting just half a great album from him, at this point, I'll take just one more great song.

Genesia said:

OK, I'm on the precipice of 40 and this is what a 50 year old sings and writes about? I mean I know you're in your 50s so maybe you relate to it better but maybe I just need to get older

IstenSzek said:

I'm really not trying to be an ass with this question, but are you or do you consider yourself a writer? Because I am/do, and the one thing I know is that most fictional material is based in some sort of reality. And I'm willing to bet that Dorothy Parker is more "real" than you think. Don't forget, the author IS the narrator regardless of how it is written.

NDRU said:

And all of those things require a deep dive. To a man for whom lyrics dashed off while lying on a purple bed in a studio made him a star, that's got to be a tough switch.

He's a great writer...but writing only gets harder as time goes on and there's more of your own for people to compare it against. It's daunting, it really is.

Well long story short Prince can and will do whatever he wants regardless of the fans and while I will keep a little glimmer of hope alive for something truly amazing, at least 'We'll always have 'Paris' (insert song(s)/album(s) of your choice here) to remember the good times.

Klyph said:

But he mixed a whoel hell of a lot of metaphor into reality. Now his metaphorical musings are just rambling.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

And thats putting it nicely!

Genesia said:

absolutely, and it's hard to imagine being in a position like his where you know people are reading into what you write, so you want desperately to say something important and influence them in the right way

I'm actually okay with this new song, but if I would criticize it I might say it's too calculated

Klyph said:

i am, in fact, a writer, yes. although, miserably unpublished

and i agree, most of what you write has to come from what you
know and experience. if it didn't, you wouldn't be able to
have a voice.

but not every person walking around in a novel is reflecting
an authors personality or beliefs or even experiences. that
same thing goes for songwriters.

prince didn't release "old friends 4 sale" because it was a
very personal song, eventho it isn't all that different or
much deeper than some of his other songs.

the reason he didn't release it is because it touched too
closely to the author himself.

for the same reason "wally" was completely erased from tape.

IstenSzek said:

Dorothy Parker is sensational. Ain't nobody taking that away from him.

You know what separates the two kinds of songs you're talking about? One is about the now...and the other is about the eternal. As young people, we are all - every one of us - about the now. Especially if we don't have children (which are probably the most tangible and powerful future force anyone encounters) - which Prince didn't.

As you become older, you think more about the future. Especially if you experience some hard-hitting reminders of what the future holds. (Death, most notably.) Prince experienced the deaths of his parents at a young age. He lost a child. He's had two failed marriages. What is his future? Will he share it with anyone...or will he just limp into the vault every day and caress his past?

Bkeeper said:

I agree, Prince is soo insulated he would never collaborate with any artists that are current and popular like Allicia Keys, Pharel Williams, Andra 3000, this is why he will never have a song that is commercially sucessfull and played on radio, he always states he does not care about chat positions, its just as well because with this drival no one will give a fuck, it is just plain, boring, tired old P cack.

Genesia said:

That's one of the reasons he needs someone to push him to write better, weed through the garbage and say "Nope....if it takes 3 more years before you put out some new material then so be it because this shit aint gonna cut it! BITCH!"

Klyph said:

As long as we're dealing in the improbable...do you think that if grandpa had tits he'd be grandma?
[Edited 2/26/10 15:00pm]

IstenSzek said:

I completely agree. I think that's another reason why his current output sucks to me. It's all surface "him" (or at least the "him" that he thinks he wants to be). He doesn't seem to want to actually "write", it's more like he's thinking aloud or delivering a speech instead of a story. Current Prince is alot like early Hip-Hop (and current now that I think about it, lol) to me where all they did was talk about themselves and what they want, have, gonna get and what they want you to do.

Genesia said:

hey, i'm not trying to take dorothy parker away from you. if anything
they'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers before i'll say a
bad word about it. so if i made it seem like that i am sorry

about the things prince went through, i give you: "The Truth". one of
my fav albums by him. that came right on the heels of probably the
worst thing he's ever had to go through and one that no one should
ever have to, but sadly a lot of people do.

that devastation was channeled into something beautiful and classic.
something he can look back on and be very proud of now and also in
30 years' time.

i don't want him to sing about one night stands anymore and i don't
want him to curse anyore. that's all just fine with me. i dig his
state of mind in that respect.

hell i can't evern remember what i am on about anyway that's
just prince for ya. today i'm thinking "hmmm, this isn't good and
i wish he would do something more like..bla...bla" and then by the
next week he'll have a song out that makes my jaw drop to or even
through the floor and i'll be all "prince prince prince!"

i haven't been a fan since 88 for nothing. so let me conclude all
of today's inate ramblings by admitting that prince will have to
release at least 3 consecutive albums that leave me stone cold
before i give up on the man. and we both know that's not very
likely. well, not to me anyway

Genesia said:

That would depend on who grandpa is fucking!

Genesia said:

this is what I went through in the 90's. I wanted him to do natural sounding funky psychedelic music with great melodies & deep poetic lyrics. Well, Prince was writing Now and Come & P Control, so I was smoking some strong weed to be holding out any hope for that.

Prince doesn't do what I want, but I've learned to stop expecting him to do what I want and I am less disappointed by the results.

he does what he wants and it's okay

stickassfunk said:

We tried that. Remember?

Klyph said:

i tend to write in that style too, quite often. when i'm writing a story
or a poem in that state of mind i'm thinking it's the coolest thing ever
but when i read it back a few weeks later i'll think "what the hell?".

perhaps he's writing too much and too fast. those brilliant lines and
insights that he's capable of are getting spread out 1 or 2 per song,
perhaps.

anyway, it must be hard to keep coming up with stuff after you've got
about a thousand songs under your belt.