Its great!! I finally bought the album and i'm satisfied.

were u late enuf to get the $5 copy of it?

it is great. it's his best in well over a decade and likely as close as we're going to get to him putting out another masterpiece on par with PR, SOTT, 1999, etc.

nosajd said:

I think I saw it for 3.99 at target

I actually just started listening to it again. I had already listened to MPLSound quite a few times, and I like it better than most of his 2000's albums, but recently put Lotus in for another go-round.

I think both of them are near-great, but the things that [I think] are wrong make it hard to enjoy them all the way through.

Still he made two completely different style albums, and both are pretty good.

Lotus in particular gives me the feeling of excitement I used to get from listening to a new Prince album. The stretch from Feel Better through $ is really nice, now that I am over the initial disappointment that 77 Beverly Park was not the kick ass tune that the intro suggested.

The album has a flow that genuinely works in parts, maybe not quite as well in others

I think my favorite song is Feel Better. Listening to that on headphones, I can hear that as a recording artist Prince is still as good as it gets. Even if he's not writing classic tunes as often, the subtleties of the voices & instruments on this song are masterful, engaged, creative, fresh. Nobody can arrange a song as well as Prince, and I include Stevie, Beatles, and anyone else you care to mention in that statement.

The rock tunes Crimson, Colonised Mind, Dreamer, aren't bad, but they don't really fit the format of the other tunes IMO. 4Ever is not really exciting from a songwriting standpoint, but I do like the performance/arrangement.

Overall, both albums seem like prince actually enjoying making music for the most part. They are fairly creative and don't sound forced. The production is smooth & even (aside from my issues with the rock stuff on Lotus) and the lyrics...well, I can deal with them.

I actually love this CD , there's so many interesting twists and turns throughout. Nothing too radicle on there but twas a step in the right direction. Unlike MPLS sound which was such a let down!.

funkyhead said:

MPLSound was a letdown to me at first, like you I like a more adventurous sounding album, and I like the "real" instruments better than keyboards & drum machines.

But the more I listened to it the more I liked it. I found it to be a more well rounded display of musicianship than Lotus, which focuses more exclusively on guitar. In fact there really isn't a song I don't like on MPLSound, and I can't say that about Lotus.

The only problem for me with this album is it has one too many slow songs and one too few fast songs. If he'd put Feel Better in place of Better with Time or something, he might have had a really strong and very classic sounding Prince album. As is, it's decent.

the title disc is great i've been listening to it a lot
lately. i had to put it aside for a while since i was scared i was
gonna play it to death. but i'm loving it just as much once again.

mplsound, i don't care for all that much. it's like a nice bunch of
funky b-sides to the rocky lotusflower album. although "dance 4 me"
and "old skool company" get a lot of spins as well. esp the ending
of "old skool company" is great imo. love that guitar over the beat.
that's what i've always loved about his music, wild crazy guitars on
top of a nice drum machine beat. love it when he does that.

IstenSzek said:

yeah Old School Company is really good, maybe even a classic album cut.

I really have grown to like what I'd initially perceived as complete throwaways, particularly the first song.

Here is a perfect li'l Prince song too.