Many people consider these 2006, 2007, and 2009 releases to be a "trio" of sorts. While these albums are no doubt linked, it is my opinion that the past several years have been a very prolific era for Prince's music, very similar to the Crystal Ball / Dream Factory / Sign of the Times era. There have been lots of threads discussing these albums, and many people have their own sort of playlist based on material from these three albums (5 albums if you count MPLSOUND and Elixer as separate albums) - This is intended to be a "megathread" of sorts, a place where all thoughts and ideas relating to these albums can come together in a collaborative effort to piece together this particularly interesting phase in Prince history.



3121 2006

3121
Lolita
Te Amo Corazón
Black Sweat
Incense and Candles
Love
Satisfied
Fury
The Word
Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" (Prince, Támar)
The Dance
Get On the Boat

Planet Earth 2007

Planet Earth
Guitar
Somewhere Here on Earth
The One U Wanna C
Future Baby Mama
Mr. Goodnight
All the Midnights in the World
Chelsea Rodgers
Lion of Judah
Resolution


LOtUSFLOW3R 2009

From the Lotus...
Boom
Crimson and Clover
The Morning After
4Ever
Colonized Mind
Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful
Love Like Jazz
77 Beverly Park
Wall of Berlin
$
Dreamer
...Back to the Lotus

MPLSoUND 2009

(There'll Never B) Another Like Me
Chocolate Box (featuring Q-Tip)
Dance 4 Me
U're Gonna C Me
Here
Valentina
Better with Time
Ol' Skool Company
No More Candy 4 U


Elixer 2009

Here Eye Come
All This Love
Home
Something U Already Know
Everytime
2Nite
Another Boy
Kept Woman
Immersion
Elixer




3121 was released on 3-21-2006 with a seemingly huge marketing machine behind it. It was a sensible, safe pop album for Prince, with several very mainstream hit-esque songs. This album was praised as a grab-bag of all the sort of songs you loved Prince for. It had the electronica of Black Sweat, the screamin rock guitars of Fury, the latin jazzy elements in Te Amo Corazon and The Dance, the JB funk of Get on the Boat, 80's synthpop of Lolita, and the holiness that is "new Prince" of The Word. Basically, we got everything from this album that we wanted.

But we also had no idea what direction Prince's music was going in. This album sonically confused us, threw us off the scent. Was he into rock now? The performance of Fury on SNL certainly made it seem that way. Had he returned to his classic 80's sound? "Just listen to Black Sweat!" people said. "The Linn is back!"

A while after the release of 3121, and seemingly in an effort to continue in the electronica-pop driven direction of the standout tracks on 3121, Prince released a new song called "Guitar" on his website at the time, 3121.com



The song was a paid download, making it seem as though it may be a single from an upcoming project. In fact, it was widely considered to be a digital single, as it was even promoted as being "The new song from Prince". The song was a straightforward electro pop number, performed with minimal acoustic sounds. Prince's voice had a heavy tremolo effect causing it to shift quickly from left to right in the speakers. With this new song, it was becoming more and more clear that Prince was starting to get back to his original sound.



And then we got Planet Earth.





2007's follow-up to 3121, Planet Earth was yet another grab-bag of musical styles, but this time it was more focused. The album has much more of a "live-band" feel to it than 3121, with more focus on the acoustic instruments and less on slick drumbeats and glossy synths. It had a very slight psychedelic feeling to it, but mostly just because it was almost hippie-esque. There was nothing trippy about it, just kinda "Prince has gone green".

It did have some songs on it that sounded as if they were 3121 throwaways, Future Baby Mama and Mr. Goodnight being prime examples. In fact, the latter even had several lyrical references to 3121. Of the songs that sounded like they were cohesive, Planet Earth, Lion of Judah, and All The Midnights all had a certain sound to them that was "new", meaning, seemingly not from the 3121 era. I think at this time, we were unaware of the true source of all this material, which will be addressed later in this post, and we assumed that anything that sounded poppy was from the 3121 sessions, and anything that had that live rock feeling was the new material.


Fans were polarized by this album. There were those who wanted another Black Sweat. There were those who loved the songs with the classic rock feeling to them. One peculiar thing about this album was that the song "Guitar", which Prince had released a year prior on his website as a paid download had been re-recorded and sold to us a second time. This caused many to assume that the first version was a demo recording of the song, and some were angry that they had been charged to download a demo. However, this incarnation of "Guitar" was quite different from the first. Whereas the 2006 version had a very heavy electronic feeling to it, employing drum machines and sparse synth sounds, the 2007 revamp was done in full rockband fashion with real drums, wailing guitars, and much stronger vocals from Prince.

We were once again wondering which direction Prince was going to go, and these two released definitely had an interesting reaction on Prince's fan base. Due to the wildly different natures of 3121 and Planet Earth, fans tended to shift very strongly in one direction or the other. Like I said, these albums were extremely polarizing to fans. There were now two groups: Those who wanted Prince to get in the studio and sit on his computer and come up with some badass modern sounding music, and there were those who wanted to get Wendy, Lisa, Michael B and Sonny T, give them an array of crazy instruments, and start rockin. Some wanted their minds to be altered by slick vocal processing, futuristic sonic textures, and pounding bass - and some wanted to trip to psychedelic guitar, lush instrumentation, and live drumming. Fans argued and fought about this issue ad nauseum online, many desperate for Prince's next move to be favorable to their position.


Little did we know, we were about to get both.





Suddenly, now we were getting everything we wanted, all at once. The 2009 LOtUSFLOW3R set was announced, and everything in Prince world was good. The two groups were now getting their own discs, along with a bonus album from protege Bria Valente.

And suddenly, Prince wanted to talk about the music. Where with 3121 and Planet Earth, he kept quiet on the songs themselves, citing the "I let my music speak for itself, I don't intellectualize my music" often. All we knew about those albums was what we'd heard and decided on our own. But with the LOtUSFLOW3R set, Prince was very eager to talk all about his work.

He invited journalists to his home to preview the album.

“I don’t do drugs or I’d give you a joint. That’s what this record is.”, he had to say about the LOtUSFLOW3R disc.

“People ask me, ‘Why don’t you sound like you used to?’"

“I’m interested in the inner workings of music, the effect on the body,”, both comments on the electronic MPLSoUND disc.

It also came out that there were sessions in 2005/2006 that resulted in most of the songs from 3121 and Planet Earth that had that New Power Trio live rock sound to them. This includes the song "3121", which upon further inspection contains in a distorted voice the line "From the LOtUSFLOW3R, one mix" - This reveals to us that Prince was aware of the LOtUSFLOW3R concept even during the recording sessions for the 3121 album back in 06.

It has been said that Prince kept the best material from 3121 and Planet Earth to use on LOtUSFLOW3R. This is true, and I also believe that Prince has not only had an idea to release the psychedelic rock flavored LF, but has also been planning to release the MPLSoUND album for just as long. With this theory in mind, songs like Lolita and Black Sweat make a lot more sense. Even Incense and Candles wouldn't sound out of place followed by Valentina. The 3121 album was released purposely as a grab-bag of styles and genres to test the waters with the mainstream. He wanted to find out what elements of his music Joe Average wanted to listen to. Planet Earth was released as a test market to his fanbase. He knew PE would go under the radar to the masses, and whereas he included many of the MPLSoUND-concept pop songs on 3121, this time he released the psychedelic rock songs. He wanted to purposely polarize his fanbase to see which side would be stronger.

This also explains why the song Guitar was released twice. The first version was his MPLSoUND version, the second was his LOtUSFLOW3R version. The first one was released on his website and everyone discussed it because A. it was an update to his site, B. it was a new song, and C. we're always hungry for new material.

The second one was released as the lead single from Planet Earth, along with being featured in a commercial and as a download on the Verizon VCAST service. Because of this, once again fans took to the internet forums and heavily discussed the song.

“My audience is really big, though,” he said on the subject of the internet. “And they’re really easy to reach online. Everything has gone viral.”

Prince has also been hinting at Bria Valente since the days of 3121. On his now-defunct website, 3121.com, he posted images of her and a link to the song "Here Eye Come" . This suggests that Prince has been working on Elixer with her for a while, and has known about it since the 3121 era.

We were also given a hint on Planet Earth that we were going to be given a triple album. At the end of the song "Resolution", the last song of the album, it ends with three dramatic synth swells. I had always wondered what this meant and why they were there, because they didn't particularly go with the song, they just felt like a strange mysterious addition to end the album with. These three tones each represent one disc of the triple-album set.







[Edited 2/12/10 19:26pm]

I didn't know there was a previous "electronic" version of Guitar. Does anybody have any thoughts about it?

As far as this "era" in Prince history, I dig it overall. 3121 and Lotus Flower are my favorite discs out of the ones listed. I think it's an unfair comparison to the '86/'87 era however.

xpertluva said:

As usual with more recent Prince material, I think there are "gems" on every album that I like more than the other material. While the quality may be uneven, the quantity of material has provided several really good songs--the earmark of Prince's prolific output of music!

I see Musicology - 3121 and Planet Earth as a trio...

not including: Lotusflower/Mplsound...

imo.

Its strange, I never think of Planet Earth as a proper album, more like a b-sides collection, It personally believe that this is prince was album to date..

3121 was great but liek you stated, it really didn't flow as well..

LF is my favourite outta the 3, and I believe it has some of his best material since GE

I've always seen these 3 albums as a trio of sorts. Don't know what it is but they all seem related. 3121 seems to link them all together.

I don't really see the connection as a trio.

I'd say there are two strains of post-Millenium Prince music, the Musicology-3121-MPLSound strain that follows on logically from the late Post-Warner 90s/Rave/High era. And the more "organic" sounding strain that starts with 'The War' and TRC, and includes NEWS, Xpectation, Planet Earth and Lotusflow3r.

Broadly speaking, of course.

This is cool.....

Very interesting post. I would love to see Prince focus his sound into a smaller range over the next few albums. They could even be internet only albums if he so desired. I love the song 3121 and consider it a classic cut already. A whole album of Prince completely in that vein would be classic to me. Prince talent is so vast and wide that he may have trouble going "deep" in any one sound because to him there are always competing ideas at to him.

No.

Very thoughtful post. I'm going to listen to the five albums back to back and then, I hope to have something to add.

NouveauDance said:

I tend to agree. But I think it's also worth pointing out that Musicology is probably the only album out of those you listed that managed to bridge both the 'post-Millennium' (ICP&C, What do u want me 2 do) and the more organic (Musicology, Dear Mr Man, Reflection) whilst still sounding like a single cohesive album.

Jakeasaurus said:

There was a lot of laughably unfounded BS in this post but this was by far the funniest piece.

tricky99 said:

The title track is the only song on the album I don't like.

I Love all three albums...All of them offer great music and preety love songs.

"3121," is my favorite of these three.

I like most of it, I cant take MPLSound i think its possibly one of his least artistic albums, its near the bottom for me of his records, cant even go back to it at this point, and it was played off as a return to the "sound" please,,,stay away from the "sound" if thats what its going to be. As for the rest, i like most of 3121 and still go back to it more than most, I like alot of Planet Earth BUT hate "Future Baby Mama" its right up there with Jughead for me, just a really bad song, typical throw away Prince sex jam. Love most of Lotus, i would say its his strongest guitar work in a while a long while, i rather Prince when he goes with a theme on a record, he just cant seem to carry it through a whole record anymore however. Planet Earth had this rock/pop theme then he tosses in some lazy Rb flava of the day to get "played" shit and ruins the flow.

is prince considered prolific if the whole decade of his songs sucked? no ... dreamfactory was prolific because everything on it was undeniably great .. this run is just prince on auto pilot nothing more.

thedance said:

same here

TrevorAyer said:

Not that I disagree on the quality of Prince's music these days, but you clearly have no idea what prolific means.

TwiliteKid said:

I just want to say that overall 3121 was Prince best album since GE, and easily his best mainstream pop/R&B/dance/rock album since Diamonds and Pearls. Yeah, you got that right: it's a near classic, a four star album (out of five)...

Planet earth was a decent but unremarkable collection of pop/rock songs that sounded too polished and happy for their own good...nevertheless PE as a whole has more hooks than the bulk of Musicology...

BUT LOTUSFLOWER/MPLSOUND is the BIGGEST PIECE OF SHIT THAT PRINCE HAS EVER RELEASED, a bland and uninspired collection of pop songs and unfocused electro-jams WITHOUT ANY SONG OF VALUE. My god, I still think that Emancipation was overproduced and messy but compared to Lotus/Sound is a masterpiece. PRINCE: STOP RELEASING THREE-DIC ALBUMS IF THE 80% OF THE SONGS SUCK. Thank you...

i know what prolific means i just think if you say prince is prolific because he writes a lot of music then the MUSIC that defines prince as prolific should be music not rehashed tony m lyrics dragged out over a preprogrammed drum beat .. i mean anyone can be prolific if you consider making up any old whatever as music ... the quality of what is produced undermines the definition of prolific. to say prince is as prolific now as he was is a joke and perhaps needs redefining ... yes prince is prolific in writing crap music ... prince was prolific in writing good music .. how about prince used to write a lot of good music and was prolific now he doesnt he is no longer prolific just overly redundant and stale

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

TrevorAyer said:

You're not making any sense.

Gohi said:

Yes he is. He knows what prolific means, and he explained why he used the word in this context.

TrevorAyer said:

well, if u substitute 'prolific' with 'Proficient' I'd actually go along with your argument.

I love the title track Planet Earth. It has that same feel as Gold, Strays of the world, Last December. I think these four with Purple Rain would be a great way to end a show. Blacksweat and Lolita are new Prince classics. Everyone I know who are not even big fans love these songs. I don't get the SOTT comparison with 3121. It may be kind of like Dream Factory or Crystal Ball but 3121 was not as political as the track SOTT. Songs like Same December and Right the Wrong sound closer to the vibe of SOTT than anything on 3121 to me.3121 was more like an abandon to trouble whereas SOTT was more concious.Lotus Flower and MPLS Sound are amazing. I still listen to these two cd's a lot. Elixir I can do without. I would probably like it more if Prince did the vocals. Lion of Judah sounds like it could have been a b-side to the cross to me. Anyway I love all his music and thats why I buy each cd the day they come out. Still hes the best. God Bless!

xpertluva said:

I did not like the studio version, that song was menat to have live instruments on it. It premired on his website before Planet Earth came out.

lastdecember said:

You crazy, I heard that song on the radio here in Mpls (KMOJ), AND it was nominated for best male vocal performance so.....you alone in my opinion.

Thanks for all the orgnotes telling me what a good post this is! It's just a shame it hasn't garnered many replies. I guess these days a quality post doesn't get you very far here