the album is so good because prince truly stopped listening to critics around this time in his life and just made an album that his heart told him to make. when prince tries to give the people what they want it usually doesnt turn out too well. everyone was excited when they heard about mplsound but that album was mediocre at best. TRC was a sound that he had never explored, it was fresh and new and not just trying to recreate the magic he had in the 80s, and it was good too.

ernestsewell said:

You're being much too kind. Light that shit on fire and kick off the Watchtower.

said:

Excellent post m3taverse.... When my son brought this CD 4 me, I could not wait 2 hear it, once I heard it I never played it again. I said 2 myself what’s going on with Prince. After joining this site all these threads regarding TRC kept popping up like now with discussions of this album. I said let me try it again. Nope didn’t like it at all, I tried a few more times and all of a sudden, it hit me and did it hit me hard. It is the most beautiful album from beginning 2 end. Indeed, it is a masterpiece. Musically it’s one of his best albums.

I totally love it and play it all the time. It makes me feel good. It is so uplifting. I will always keep this n my heart as one of my favorite albums by him.

I think in terms of musical/instrumental skill demonstration, it's a treat...but i dig it for other reasons as well.

vitriol said:

ronnwinter said:

Wow - way to contradict yourself!

He didn't sell more than 200k copies of TRC so it must be crap.
TGE was "an incredible album, but it was a commercial failure"!!!!

So, even great albums are commercial failures! Look, quality of music has NOTHING to do with commercial success. If that was true, then Britney Spears must be some kind of musical genius!

And, TRC being "crap" is not the opinion of "most" fans - that's just your perception.

ronnwinter said:

Actually all that proves is that it was hardcore Prince fans that bought TRC! Because it didn't get the general promotion that the other albums you compare it to did, this just meant that the genereal public were not aware of the album and so only those in the know, the "hardcore" fan base went and bought it. All you can actually conclude from those figures is that most people weren't aware of TRC's existence.

Again, sales figures do not in any way imply what the quality of the music is.

And, let's extend this for a moment - what does it matter to you? You clearly don't like TRC....nothing wrong with that. But why are you trying to prove to people that it must be crap because is sold poorly? Why is that important to you? If people enjoy it, whether or not you think its crap, let them enjoy it!

JoeTyler said:

LMAOOOOO

ronnwinter said:

The controversial album by Prince? A lie?

9 years on it's still a hot topic. 100 replies right here with just the album title as the topic title. Go start a Dirty Mind thread and see if it's as controversial.

It was exactly what it said on the tin.

It is a controversial album, yes.

Some don't see the problem in telling Jewish people to stop whining about the Holocaust because at least they know what their original surnames are.

People like this think the The Rainbow Children's OK.

Some people, like me, listen to lyrics, and we don't think that African slavery and the Jewish Holocaust are in competition, and we find The Rainbow Children really mean spirited, ugly and upsetting.

Apart from that, Prince drops hints that Jews might have been responsible for the slave trade in this album.

So it depends. If you listen to lyrics, and you think that Jews should stop whining about the death of 6,000,000 people in the gas chambers, then this is the album for you!
[Edited 4/15/10 8:33am]

In 1995 digital downloads and piracy were almost non-existing, Prince was still a major figure and record sales were still relatively healthy.
I will say it again, "The Gold Experience" is majorly overrated by some here, the consumer is not that dim not to avoid that goofball mess. There was a lot of great music in marketplace in '95-96 so i can understand why that album didn't sell.
So when people compare one mess with a hot stinking mess as some kind of prime example of ?, I know i have entered a hardcore alternate purple realm of ultra-fanatic-fandom that makes even some us org purple geeks feel like just casual fans. Its not just drinking the Kool-aid like some of us, its snorting that purple kool-aid right out of the packet.
[Edited 4/15/10 8:57am]

Splanknasty said:

That's your interpretation. But I'd love to see you justify it.

ernestsewell said:

When did album sales become a measure of whether an album is lyrically good or not? I happen to love this album as a masterpiece. But that's just my opinion, regardless of album sales.

Mindflux said:

Sure.

Where would you like me to start?

How about the lyrics to 'Family Name', where he drops a bunch of Jewish surnames, a different one for every verse, just as we get the point. Perlman. Rosenbloom. Goldstruck (yep, Jews sure are greedy for gold).

And then he says "you might say "what you mad about?"/But you still got your family name."

Right. I'm sorry, but the Atlantic slave trade was one of the greatest crimes ever committed by human beings, and all Americans of African ancestry have every right to be angry to this day, and to commemorate their losses.

But it is not in competition with the Holocaust. Not unless you have a particular point to make, with regard to Jews. What Prince's problem with Jews is between him and whatever conspiracy-theorist sat him down and fired his imagination before he wrote that tune.

The Rainbow Children is a hell of a good album, how people can hate it is beside me.
Nevermind the lyrical undertones, this album is musically "BRILLIANT"...and that surely is what it's all about

Christopher said:

I don't know how I do it but I can zone out the lyrics in most Prince songs and it's like not knowing the lyrics and just humming them or something. There are a few songs where I do know the lyrics from beginning to end but TRC's music is much stronger and more liked imho.

txlaw said:

Because if people don't like what the album has to say, they won't support it w/ their dollars.

Splanknasty said:

I'm not sure it's about telling Jews to stop whining about the holocaust, it seems more to be explaining why African Americans are mad.

Of course, I have heard people compare the holocaust to slavery, and I think it's silly to have a "which is worse" contest when they're both about as bad as it gets.

I don't clearly get that he's making that comparison, but Prince doesn't always choose his words wisely, so maybe he is. Still I think it's more about black people, and simply happens to be using Jewish names as an example. Of course, many Jews don't have their family names but changed them on immigration.

I think Prince's message is pretty incoherent, actually, and that's why I can't get mad about it. How am I going to get outraged about something that makes no sense?

But one thing that is pretty clear is the end of the album "we need to come together as one"

Prince may go to some ugly places, but I don't believe his ultimate message is one of division & banishment. He does it on the album, Gold, and Purple Rain, too. The journey may be rough, but the end is positive.

NDRU said:

Really nice post.

Bohemian67 said:

why thank you!

Splanknasty said:

Over the years i found that fundamental to Prince's creative genius is his ability to invent different personas through which he performs his songs.
He's always had them actually, at least since Dirty Mind, where we get to meet a guy proclaiming to be a "Rude Boy".

These personas aren't real to Prince, they are not Prince. And most of us are aware of this, at least on a sub conscious level. Unless of course you really believe that Prince was screwing his sister at the time.
Over the years these personas got more elaborate. They had their own outfits, their own sound, frequently a voice that was entirely their own and often they had their own unique message.

I first started thinking about this when Prince introduced us to a persona called ... Prince, on an album so insignificant i can't right now even remember its name. His name was Prince, and he was funky. When it came to funk, he was a junky... Prince made a caricature of a rock star called Prince, and then attempted to emulate the hit sound that such an artist would bring forth.

This is when, in the early 90's, i started to lose interest. Still bought the albums, still went to the shows, no longer believed that Prince couldn't help but produce strictly brilliant music.
For Prince, being a rock star became a cognitive process. You need ingredient X, Y and Z to make a Prince album. Rinse & repeat.

It took nearly a decade for Mr. Nelson to invent a completely new persona. One that was, once again, profoundly original and deeply inspired.
As TRC starts off with its 10 minute, unlike anything we've ever heard before, title track, and the dark voice greets us for the first time, it's immediately clear : here are no welcoming arms inviting us into a warm familiar bath, this musician is fierce and uncompromising.
And yes, the TRC persona was invented to be controversial from its inception, unless of course you believe that Prince really felt that the world needed to hear about some awkwardly formulated racial issue, and that females take second place.



So yeah, this is like saying that if you enjoy screwing your sister, then Dirty Mind is the album for you.

m3taverse said:

No offense, but this logic makes very little sense.

Efan said:

Can you explain?

m3taverse said:

I don't think you can diminish The Rainbow Children to being, essentially, played by a character. For better or worse, his conversion was real to him and it played out--and continues to play out--in his music. I don't think every word of every song Prince has ever written is literally true in his life, but in the case of TRC, it's clear he was making some very personal statements.

Beyond that, the comparison to Dirty Mind falls short for me. I disagree on several levels, but even if your premise were true, the conclusion ("if you enjoy screwing your sister then Dirty Mind is the album for you") is completely wrong. Nowhere in "Sister" does Prince promote incest (just the opposite: "Incest is everything it's said to be," which is horrible, awful, etc.). Not that I take "Sister" to be literally true. I'm just saying you can't use it to make the same argument as with TRC. In TRC, he's promoting ideas of--in my mind, at least--sexism and anti-Semitism. In "Sister," he's speaking against incest. They're not parallel.

It's odd and special... this coming from a JW... and not an album that I feel like listening to all the time... but when I do, I really enjoy it.

When I first heard that Prince was coming out with an album about preaching and the like, my first feeling was not excitement, but embarrassment. Then I had to find out what was going on... so I ended up here, for the first time.

Then I ended up writing a Masters paper about it, but that's a whole notha story.

pennylover said:

TRC is almost 10 years old now, and I can still get goosebumps from Everywhere. This is beautiful music.

m3taverse said:

That one is really inspiring. It sounds like everyone should come out dancing in the streets to it.

m3taverse said:

I agree with much of what you say. I've always felt that My Name is Prince was a "character"

There are a lot of songs that say things I find questionable "yeah do that baby just like a dog" "ohh baby you're so good, aw shut up!" "close your eyes I'm gonna cover your ass with this sheet" "incest is everything it's meant to be" "U take her to your crib and you tie her to a chair and you make funny faces and they get real scared"

But I think sometimes they're just characters to tell a story or express a feeling--this is most obvious in a song like Bob George, which literally is played as another character. We've all expressed feelings at times that were not representative of our best sides. Prince just doesn't shy away from the feeling if it's real--he seems to love the theme of conflict & resolution.

I find it hard to believe that he doesn't give a shit about the holocaust.

Efan said:

I think you're making an assumption that Sister is speaking against incest. There's really nothing to indicate that.

Personally I have always thought it wasn't about incest at all, though, but about a "sister" and that the incest part is just wordplay.