I believe Prince Lotus Flower/Mpls is better than most of the garbage out there.
Having heard so many albums over the last two years I believe most of them are too damn overrated. the new this the new that comparrisons to the old artist when majority of todays artist can't compete witn the old.
Erykah Badus last album is the only one I liked over the last 12 months.
Mind you they have been some fantastic singles.

Is there something wrong with me? Does anyone out there think like me.

Handcuffs said:

One does not have to like everything that's out there. Most of the time I can't stand the stuff they play on the radio these days. Apart from a few exceptions, the term "having sense of melody" seems not to be considered hip anymore. It's all just a bunch of noises clutched together, ideal if you want to develope a permanent migraine for yourself.

Lotusflower and MPLS has its moments and I think they include some of Prince's best work in years.

I haven't bought a so-called "new" album in a long time, apart from Lotusflower 3-cd packet. And that was last spring while being on holiday in Paris! (Btw, I paid 19.99 euros for it, it was on a huge display in a big record store at the time, I can't remember the name of it. Some reports of people paying more than that seems quite strange.)
[Edited 3/15/10 7:09am]
[Edited 3/15/10 7:10am]

Handcuffs said:

Does that mean that some garbage is better than it?

I cannot stand MPLsound, but Lotusflower is quite good. I've taken off the tracks I dislike and replaced them with stronger stuff that wasn't on albums (glasscutter, turn me loose, pfunk, etc), and it is now a really good, strong rock album to me.

I haven't even listened to MPLSound for months, there's a couple of tracks on there that I like and that's it, so it doesn't get played.

It's all one person's opinion against someone else's though, so you're never gonna get a difinitive answer one way or another (to whether Prince's latest is better than other artist's new releases, not to whether there's something wrong with you)

the album is okay,

Colonized Mind,
Dance 4 Me,
Here,
Ol' Skool Company

these are my faves atm, it's an ok set, about 8/10.

look-i love P n all-but there is ALOT of great music out there at the mo

and as good as it is-lotus/mplsound aint a patch on Plastic Beach

Prince's Garbage is better than most Garbage out there.

It took you a year to figure that out?

Umm...actually, out of all the major releases this year (or at least, major for me) this set is pretty much toward the bottom of the pile. Tori Amos, Marilyn Manson, Nelly Furtado, and Adam Lambert all released better material. There's still good stuff on these discs, but it has an overall 'meh'-ness about it...
=0P

There's some good popular stuff out there - i really like that Owl City song for instance. it is possible to be commercial and be interesting or creative at the same time.

With a lot of Prince's albums, I had to give the album a few good listens before I really started to dig it. LotusFlow3r was nice from the get-go though, but MLPSound too a while.

My favorites off of MLPSound are No More Candy 4 U, Old Skool Company, Chocolate Box and Dance 4 Me. Kind of surprised Chocolate Box wasn't released as a single (correct me if I'm mistaken), seems like something that would get a lot of radio play today.

But I love LotusFlow3r, even though "Love Like Jazz" sounds very much like filler. Wall of Berlin is still my favorite song off the entire album. I am interested in what Prince does next.

I disagree with a lot of music recently being garbage. There are some bands that are really up to snuff out there lke Mastodon, Eisley, TV on the Radio, Artic Monkeys all still making really good music. And there are a ton more of talented bands.

I wouldn't know about, I don't waste my time listen to the garbage out there.

Lifes too short to be listening to bad music

Handcuffs said:

There's nothing wrong with you--Lotus Flower is a great album IMO. I am listening to it--critically--for the third time today, and the more I hear it, the better I like it. The album works great as a whole and has some songs--such as "Colonized Mind" that I think is up there with P's best. I am a long time fan from 1980 or so and I don't get the hate for some of the new music. I didn't listen to Prince after 1995--Gold LP--and recently started listening again. I agree with the Peach & Black site that "Colonized Mind" is under-rated and under-appreciated. Shades of Dylan and Hendrix in that song. Lotus Flower flows very nicely into each song IMO. I even think Cause & Effect could be re-worked into a strong song. It sounds unfinished to me--a work in progress. But, based on Lotusflower, I think P is far from done on delivering good, even sometimes great, music! Just hope he tours/does an in-residence performance some time soon in the U.S.!

Stop listening to the radio and start looking for good stuff on your own. It's still created today.

herrherr said:

Well, I can't speak for Handcuffs, but I don't listen to the radio. And I do keep and ear out for good new artists who don't get airplay, and they do exist! But Prince is still putting out good music after thirty years and I'm here to tell ya...he can still deliver!

herrherr said:

Hell polka music sounds better than the bullshit by other artists but that still doesn't mean I want to listen to it.

herrherr said:

I don't liten to the radio often or listen to the music channels that much but I am aware of the music out there.

Hero0101 said:

Tori amos and marylin manson are suicidal music for me. don't get me wrong they are both talented artist. nelly furtado is way to overrated and adam lamberet never heard of.

I all depends on what you are in to. However threads like this basically break down into one thing:

We'd all like Prince to have one last Smash hit album like Diamonds and Pearls. While 3121 charted ok, it didn't have the type of mainstream impact and social relevance of even Lady Gagas album (totally over rated). If you played someone "Black Sweat" they probably won't have heard it before, if you played a lot of people "American Boy" by Estelle they may not like it but they'd say they heard it before.

If we just want to hear Prince doing his own thing, that's pretty much what he's been doing since after Rave. However, when we as fans start with the "it's better than all this crap out today" stuff, we have to take into account the fact that we are such huge Prince geeks we spend a good amount of our day logged into his unofficial forum.

If you took your average person and had them listen to Lotus Flower/MPLSound, they would think it is laughably bad. Their mind wouldn't be changed by the awesome Linn programming or the bad ass guitar playing. Listen, NO ONE is a bigger Prince nut hugger than me, but a lot of the tracks on his last two albums are unlistenalbe unless you are a hard core fan.

To look at things from an un-biased stance, when listening to a new Prince album I try to imagine that it isn't Prince and it's some new band I've never heard of. If I was listening to a band I'd never heard of and the songs 'Valentina' and 'Wall of Berlin' came on, I would think they were the worst band ever!

It's not that LF MPLS aren't without some decent tracks, it's just that there's a lot of songs in there that are just plain awful. As usual I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and say that Prince could have one more smash album, but it would take him doing 3 things:

1) Have someone else produce the album. Prince isn't cranking out the modern sound like he used to. A lot of his synths (and other instruments) sound like they came out of a cassio keyboard someone gave him for Xmas, and his songs would be better if someone changed the synth to guitar or vice versa.

2) Quit talking about god. Ol Skool is an ok Prince track till he starts preaching to you about Jahovah. When Prince used to sing about god it was a friendly, up beat, all loving and accepting god who liked nudity and dancing. Now Prince only sings about a god who's judgmental and mean.

3) Make a shorter album and quit giving good songs away to one shot proteges. This comes into the old Quality versus Quantity debate. Prince has almost always done better with shorter albums. And as for handing out his tracks, I was down when Prince was giving songs to the likes of Sheila E and the Time, but Tamar and Bria are going to have one album and never be heard from again (those two are practically interchangeable), Prince isn't producing enough top shelf material to give away stuff like Elixir (his version was 1000 times better than Bria's anyway).

That's my rant....sorry
[Edited 3/16/10 6:58am]

2) Quit talking about god. Ol Skool is an ok Prince track till he starts preaching to you about Jahovah. When Prince used to sing about god it was a friendly, up beat, all loving and accepting god who liked nudity and dancing. Now Prince only sings about a god who's judgmental and mean.

Totally agree with you on this point. I find prince to be very hypercritical
when he starts preaching.It has affected his music but nevertheless I still find some of his music amazing. He needs to relax!

I find that prince has always been afraid of the afterlife even when he was the imp of the perverse because he has always had that aspect of the after life in him.

Sometimes I believe it's the lack of inspiration out there because there isn't much quality in music. I personally believe prince should do extended songs like the way he use to. I am just listening to the song controversy and it's just sounds brilliant. raw dirty and funk1

Handcuffs said:

I know, how great was Erykah's album. Meshell has been putting out consistently brilliant stuff too.

Handcuffs said:

I disagree with you. I think Lotusflower/Mplsound is better than all the garbage that's out there now

Handcuffs said:

How is Prince hypacritical?

Wildboy said:

Does he really talk about Jehovah in Ol School? I'm not saying he doesn't I just never noticed

Not better but diffenrent.