Efan said:

See, now this is what's interesting to me, and it is actually what made me think about TRC as described above...
On Dirty Mind, we have Prince litterally saying "Incest is everything it's said to be", yet here you are stating that Prince is clearly not promoting incest... while at the same time, Prince puts his alledged controversial views in nothing but negative connotations on TRC (rubbing agenda into someone's hair has no positive interpretation in any ideological context, the jew-slave cocktail is a hot mess).
Are we really to believe that Prince is in fact so stupid that in his mind the best way of promoting ideas is to frame them in divisive wording?
So no, i've come to the conclusion that TRC is in fact not promoting any ideas whatsoever... it's is merely a vehicle to channel creative energy through.

TRC is the last album he had that actually had some feeling to it.
You can feel his spirit in so many cuts.....

NDRU said:

I don't think it's specifically an anti-incest song. I just firmly don't believe that it's a pro-incest song. I personally think it was just a rude song used to shock people when he recorded it. But whatever the case, it's clear that Prince (or the character he plays in the song) is not fond of the situation going on. That's my point.

NDRU said:

Camille is another very obvious example. There are more easy to define ones.

Efan said:

maybe. I do agree that he was just trying to be rude.

of course there was not much joy in his music back then, even in Partyup. He sounded desperate to have fun, but never seemed like he as actually having any. That may be why it appears like he does not like the situation.

m3taverse said:

Maybe we disagree about the interpretation of the line "incest is everything it's said to be." When is it ever said to be something good? It's always said to be bad, horrible, awful, traumatizing, etc. The rest of that song certainly bears that out (it makes him blue, "I just want to be your friend," etc.).

And I don't see his views on TRC being couched in negative connotations. Or I guess I should say, they are definitely negative connotations for me, but I don't think they are for Prince. The whole album, to me, makes it clear that he firmly believes there is only one path ("ain't no room for disagree") to the "everlasting now," and TRC is his attempt to encapsulate it.

m3taverse said:

It's very clear to me on the album and the videos. IN the 7 video the "prince" with chains on his face appears as one of the 7 that falls in the end.

Prince has played with the Gemini aspect of his personality, and literally played a character called Gemini. The symbol points to contrary aspects of his character.

His music is all about that struggle. Temptation is another example of Prince teaching Prince a lesson.

Efan said:

I do believe that Prince was expressing things that are quite close to him on TRC, i just don't accept that he is promoting them on this album.
Not a lot of people would listen to 1+1+1=3, and be like, wow Prince, when you're right you're right, imma tell my woman about her new place right now and get her to pick up a copy of the NWT on her way home from the supermarket.
He's plainly not selling us these concepts. And when you look at the lyrics that way, sometimes it's like he's doing quite the opposite. Try it

m3taverse said:

The very first lines of the album are this:



To me, that's crystal clear. And everything that comes later in the album supports it.

Efan said:[quote]

m3taverse said:

You may be right. Personally I hear that in the same way I would hear:

"Once upon a time there was a unicorn..."

But that's me, religion doesn't bother me as much as some people. I just ignore it for the most part as long as Prince is not bombing abortion clinics. I like the album and yet I don't make my woman subject to my understanding of god.

NDRU said:

I love the music on TRC and ignore the lyrics for the most part. There are several songs I really like--and I mean really, really like.

Nonetheless, the meaning of the album seems fairly clear to me. I also enjoy at least trying to figure out the intention of his songs because often they really speak to me.

When I listen to, say, "1+1+1=3," I think it's evident that the song is stating that there is no Holy Trinity--and that argument is kind of the crux of the whole album. But since I'm not religious, I don't really care. But I definitely think Prince cares (or cared at the time).

It has moments of brilliance in it.

And "Everywhere" is just about as joyous as anything on SOTT or LoveSexy.


I just think it's a bit long and tiresome, not to mention the Darth Vador narration being unnecessary. You shouldn't have to narrate a concept album, if you're clever about it.

Efan said:

that's how I listen, too. I know most of the words and I speak the darth vadar thing right along with him. I just don't care! There are a couple moments though where I feel what he says, like the last line of the album.

TheVoid said:

I do think the narration was a mistake if only because so many people who might otherwise love the album hate it simply because of the narration.

Lotusflow3r seems to address both of your issues. Same type of album, but much more straightforward, and not quite as good IMO

NDRU said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to narration even though I think it's unnecessary.

But as you mentioned, my stance is if you're going to put narration in the mix, it shouldn't be distracting or detracting from the overall result.

Hell, if he had used Mavis Staples to narrate it the way she did in the beginning of "Melody Cool" from Graffiti Bridge, I could have stomached that.

Or if he had used fake News sound bytes, that might have been better.


But he chose some wierdass Darth Vador voice and every time he used it I wanted to bitchslap the CD----the topper was the voice being employed during the end of "Digital Garden"... gross.

erm, who the hell was that on the other Rainbow Children thread that said there was narration on Pink Floy's Dark Side of the Moon? What narration?

TheVoid said:

They must have had the Wizard of Oz on at the same time & heard Dorothy talking.

NDRU said:

Oh here it is:

Mindflux said:



What narration?
Wizard of Oz indeed.

TheVoid said:[quote]

NDRU said:

must be the voices in his head

NDRU said:

Dark Side of the Moon was deliberately more accessible than some of their other stuff per Water's plan, but even Waters wouldn't have been desperate enough to narrate the thing. That's like color-by-numbers for Pink Floyd at that stage in their career so you know that wasn't happening.

Mindflux said:

Dont pick and choose certain statements to make your point. Gold Experience was considered a commercial failure... but 500,000 US (and, I think, over a million worldwide) is a far cry from 200,000.
Princes fans started deserting him after the name change. So for Rainbow to sell less than half of what he was acustom to in the previous albums tells us something.. the album sucked to even his hardcore fanbase.
As far as the comparison with Britany. Ive made many points about that in the past. Prince hasnt had the "machine" behind him in a LONG time! Britany has. (hence the reason Gold Experience didnt go platinum but every album before it did.) If Prince can sell 500,000 copies without the machine backing him..I consider that a success.

Mindflux said:

Becuase this is a discussion about the album, and this is my input.

WetDream said:

Its contraversial because its not, and he stated it was. Unless you consider JW jibbirsh with jazz music contraversial. if so...then you really should get out more often.

TheVoid said:

If you don't understand that all the vocal samples, that were recordings of various members of staff at the studios providing responses to questions that Waters had written, are vehicles to provide a narrative for the album, then you need to get back to school!

ronnwinter said:

Now, don't jump out of your pram there ron!

I'll do as I see fit to make my points, thanks. Which includes throwing back at you what you said. You initially were making it clear that bad music equals poor sales, which isn't necessarily true. You are now effectively backtracking by talking about the corporate machine (which is in itself ironic, as others here had pointed out about the lack of promotion behind the likes of TRC and quite a few other post-warners albums). The same machine that manages to make crap music very successul - who'd have thought, eh?!

You also don't have your history straight. Prince's fanbase started dwindling after Purple Rain. It still wasn't bad, mainly 4 x platinum, but compared to the 14 x platinum of PR, that's one hell of a drop. It continued downwards until D&P and then went down again after that until Come barely scraped platinum (worldwide!). If the name-change was such a negative impact, why did the Symbol album outsell Graffiti Bridge and sell about the same as Lovesexy?

Also, Lovesexy didn't go platinum (in the US), neither did Graffiti Bridge, or Come (I think you'll find these all came before TGE!). You then say that "If Prince can sell 500,000 copies (of TGE) without the machine backing him..I consider that a success" sorry to point this out, but he was still with Warners at the time so had that "machine backing" - are you really keeping up with this?
[Edited 4/15/10 19:00pm]

Mindflux said:

Grasping at strings RESPONSE FAIL!


We could call the backward samples at the end of Darling Nikki narration then.


lawd

TheVoid said:

Like I said, back to school mate! One line does not make a narrative and particularly when its not furthering a story. Attempt at smartass response back - EPIC FAIL!

Mindflux said:

= MASSIVE FAIL




with dictionary.com you'd think these types of things wouldn't happen nowadays.



additional bla emoticon edit
[Edited 4/16/10 1:12am]

anyways, for those of you who do know what narration means, did you folks actually think the narration in the Rainbow Children was an asset to the album?

It was distracting and just plain awkward. It sounded silly in parts, really.

TheVoid said:

So, prove your point, instead of just giving plenty of

All you've said is its not, without explaining why.....