I have worn this cd out in while riding in my car (since last summer). My car has a great sound system. Tonight I have come to the conclusion that Beginning Endlessly, Future Soul Song & Sticky Like Glue are solid classics. No matter if they are on radio or whatever. Prince is still an amazing musical genius. I am still blown away by his talent. More fabulous music in the pipeline I'm sure...

Life is Good... and Prince is Alive and still making Fabulous music!

buttcheeks said:

Life is Good

Indeed it is.

sticky like glue would probably make my list of 50 favourite prince songs, not sure about the others.

Endlessly Beginning

Future Soul Song

Sea of Everything

[Edited 1/9/11 20:49pm]

My top 3 from 2010 would be;

1) Laydown

2) Begenning endlessly

3) Sticky like glue

Definitely 4 me

Walk In Sand

Sea of Everything

Everybody Loves Me (4 the kicks! lol)

Give me the empty cuts before Laydown.

They are by far the best of the album.

I agree

20Ten sounds like the logical sequel to 3121, but I love the "alternative-pseudo cheap" feel of the album: dirty, freaky and inspired...

Yea I still love this music to. Beginning Endlessly is one of the best songs of the past ten years to me. 2010, Musicology, Lotus/Mpls, trc, and pe are my favorite of the past ten years.

it's got a decent amount of good songs. beginning endlessly, future soul song, etc etc,

but i just listen to his new albums and go 'oh that's nice, hmmm, meh' and forget they

were released at all.

just an hour ago "billy jack bitch" came up on shuffle in my car and i was just funkin'

out massively, enjoying every single note of every single instrument.

that's not to say that billy jack bitch is one of his best song or anything, it's just cool,

but it somehow indicates the problem with his recent (post 2002) output. the songs are

still ok or good but they lack something. not just the '80s magic' that people keep on

droning on and on about. right now they even lack the 90s urgency or hint of magic.

they seem like they no longer add up to anything more than just the sum of their parts,

which is still good and solid, but which is no longer astounding or even arresting.

i find that sad and almost impossible to pin point. you hear it, but i wouldn't be able to

explain how or why. it's not like his new songs are crap, they're largely still good and

solid compositions (given that there is a lot more middle of the road stuff these days).

it can't be that the songs are too full of ideas, because they aren't and even when he

put everything he could find in the studio into his mixes (around the world in a day or

parts of parade and even the gold experience) it still sounded amazing. and it can't be

that he's stripped his songs down more and taken multiple layers out of them because

he was always a master at that and some of his best ever songs sound quite 'empty'.

i just don't know

to somehow reach back to your original question, they aren't classics imo, for the rather

laboriously erratic explanation as to why, see the above rant, but these are my favs on

it:

beginning endlessly

future soul song

IstenSzek said:

it's got a decent amount of good songs. beginning endlessly, future soul song, etc etc,

but i just listen to his new albums and go 'oh that's nice, hmmm, meh' and forget they

were released at all.

just an hour ago "billy jack bitch" came up on shuffle in my car and i was just funkin'

out massively, enjoying every single note of every single instrument.

that's not to say that billy jack bitch is one of his best song or anything, it's just cool,

but it somehow indicates the problem with his recent (post 2002) output. the songs are

still ok or good but they lack something. not just the '80s magic' that people keep on

droning on and on about. right now they even lack the 90s urgency or hint of magic.

they seem like they no longer add up to anything more than just the sum of their parts,

which is still good and solid, but which is no longer astounding or even arresting.

i find that sad and almost impossible to pin point. you hear it, but i wouldn't be able to

explain how or why. it's not like his new songs are crap, they're largely still good and

solid compositions (given that there is a lot more middle of the road stuff these days).

it can't be that the songs are too full of ideas, because they aren't and even when he

put everything he could find in the studio into his mixes (around the world in a day or

parts of parade and even the gold experience) it still sounded amazing. and it can't be

that he's stripped his songs down more and taken multiple layers out of them because

he was always a master at that and some of his best ever songs sound quite 'empty'.

i just don't know

to somehow reach back to your original question, they aren't classics imo, for the rather

laboriously erratic explanation as to why, see the above rant, but these are my favs on

it:

beginning endlessly

future soul song

I know what you're saying, but I do think that a few of the songs on LF had "it": Colonized Mind, No More Candy even Crimson and clover (arguably).

Stick Like Glue and Laydown has a little of "it" (if it's possible to have a little) and so does, perhaps Future Soul Song.

A lot of his newer stuff, though, especially on 20Ten feels like a quote rather than an original, even if it's Prince quoting himself.

I like the first four tracks, and they qualify as gems to me.

Compassion

Beginning Endlessly

Future Soul Song

Sticky Like Glue

For example on Purple Rain my personal gems are:

Let's Go Crazy

Darling Niki

When Doves Cry

I Would Die 4 U

Purple Rain

or on Parade:

New Position

Under the Cherry Moon

Girls and Boys

Mountains

Kiss

On Around the World in a Day:

Around the World in a Day

Paisley Park

Condition of the Heart

Tambourine

Pop Life

SOTT:

Sign o' the Times

Housequake

Ballad of Dorothy Parker

Starfish and Coffee

If I was Your Girlfriend

Strange Relationship

It's Gonna be a Beautiful Night

Adore

Black Album

Le Grind

Dead On It

Bob George

Superfunkycalifragisexi

Rockhard in a Funky Place

hey, I like this... I need to finally put some tracks on my iphone and use it like an ipod.

wasitgood4u said:

IstenSzek said:

it's got a decent amount of good songs. beginning endlessly, future soul song, etc etc,

but i just listen to his new albums and go 'oh that's nice, hmmm, meh' and forget they

were released at all.

just an hour ago "billy jack bitch" came up on shuffle in my car and i was just funkin'

out massively, enjoying every single note of every single instrument.

that's not to say that billy jack bitch is one of his best song or anything, it's just cool,

but it somehow indicates the problem with his recent (post 2002) output. the songs are

still ok or good but they lack something. not just the '80s magic' that people keep on

droning on and on about. right now they even lack the 90s urgency or hint of magic.

they seem like they no longer add up to anything more than just the sum of their parts,

which is still good and solid, but which is no longer astounding or even arresting.

i find that sad and almost impossible to pin point. you hear it, but i wouldn't be able to

explain how or why. it's not like his new songs are crap, they're largely still good and

solid compositions (given that there is a lot more middle of the road stuff these days).

it can't be that the songs are too full of ideas, because they aren't and even when he

put everything he could find in the studio into his mixes (around the world in a day or

parts of parade and even the gold experience) it still sounded amazing. and it can't be

that he's stripped his songs down more and taken multiple layers out of them because

he was always a master at that and some of his best ever songs sound quite 'empty'.

i just don't know

to somehow reach back to your original question, they aren't classics imo, for the rather

laboriously erratic explanation as to why, see the above rant, but these are my favs on

it:

beginning endlessly

future soul song

I know what you're saying, but I do think that a few of the songs on LF had "it": Colonized Mind, No More Candy even Crimson and clover (arguably).

Stick Like Glue and Laydown has a little of "it" (if it's possible to have a little) and so does, perhaps Future Soul Song.

A lot of his newer stuff, though, especially on 20Ten feels like a quote rather than an original, even if it's Prince quoting himself.

you're right. lotusflower has a few of those moments, well quite a lot of them honestly

IstenSzek said:

it's got a decent amount of good songs. beginning endlessly, future soul song, etc etc,

but i just listen to his new albums and go 'oh that's nice, hmmm, meh' and forget they

were released at all.

just an hour ago "billy jack bitch" came up on shuffle in my car and i was just funkin'

out massively, enjoying every single note of every single instrument.

that's not to say that billy jack bitch is one of his best song or anything, it's just cool,

but it somehow indicates the problem with his recent (post 2002) output. the songs are

still ok or good but they lack something. not just the '80s magic' that people keep on

droning on and on about. right now they even lack the 90s urgency or hint of magic.

they seem like they no longer add up to anything more than just the sum of their parts,

which is still good and solid, but which is no longer astounding or even arresting.

i find that sad and almost impossible to pin point. you hear it, but i wouldn't be able to

explain how or why. it's not like his new songs are crap, they're largely still good and

solid compositions (given that there is a lot more middle of the road stuff these days).

it can't be that the songs are too full of ideas, because they aren't and even when he

put everything he could find in the studio into his mixes (around the world in a day or

parts of parade and even the gold experience) it still sounded amazing. and it can't be

that he's stripped his songs down more and taken multiple layers out of them because

he was always a master at that and some of his best ever songs sound quite 'empty'.

i just don't know

to somehow reach back to your original question, they aren't classics imo, for the rather

laboriously erratic explanation as to why, see the above rant, but these are my favs on

it:

beginning endlessly

future soul song

I love that you always seem to take time to make insightful observations, even when these threads go off on a tangent. Kudos to you for that.

One point that I would like to make...perhaps it's that the new music is still too new for our ears.

It'll grow on you thru the years. I'm sure you didn't enjoy BJB that much when it first came out. Revisiting classics later on is an underappreciated feeling.

Prince music is still on point.

Revolution said:

IstenSzek said:

it's got a decent amount of good songs. beginning endlessly, future soul song, etc etc,

but i just listen to his new albums and go 'oh that's nice, hmmm, meh' and forget they

were released at all.

just an hour ago "billy jack bitch" came up on shuffle in my car and i was just funkin'

out massively, enjoying every single note of every single instrument.

that's not to say that billy jack bitch is one of his best song or anything, it's just cool,

but it somehow indicates the problem with his recent (post 2002) output. the songs are

still ok or good but they lack something. not just the '80s magic' that people keep on

droning on and on about. right now they even lack the 90s urgency or hint of magic.

they seem like they no longer add up to anything more than just the sum of their parts,

which is still good and solid, but which is no longer astounding or even arresting.

i find that sad and almost impossible to pin point. you hear it, but i wouldn't be able to

explain how or why. it's not like his new songs are crap, they're largely still good and

solid compositions (given that there is a lot more middle of the road stuff these days).

it can't be that the songs are too full of ideas, because they aren't and even when he

put everything he could find in the studio into his mixes (around the world in a day or

parts of parade and even the gold experience) it still sounded amazing. and it can't be

that he's stripped his songs down more and taken multiple layers out of them because

he was always a master at that and some of his best ever songs sound quite 'empty'.

i just don't know

to somehow reach back to your original question, they aren't classics imo, for the rather

laboriously erratic explanation as to why, see the above rant, but these are my favs on

it:

beginning endlessly

future soul song

I love that you always seem to take time to make insightful observations, even when these threads go off on a tangent. Kudos to you for that.

One point that I would like to make...perhaps it's that the new music is still too new for our ears.

It'll grow on you thru the years. I'm sure you didn't enjoy BJB that much when it first came out. Revisiting classics later on is an underappreciated feeling.

Prince music is still on point.

yes and no

i did appreciate "billy jack bitch" and other songs that were released between 1988 (when i first

became fascinated with prince's music) 1996.

i remember hearing "dolphin" for the first time on mtv when they premiered the video and i've

listened to it at least 3000 times since that day, lol. first i wore out the videotape, then i had my

brother transfer the video audio to a cassette tape. then i taped it from the radio one day and i

had sleepless nights over the whole gold experience release because all the song that kept on

popping up on radio/tv during 1993/1994 were just pure gold [come/gold/exodus].

those songs were almost all, instant classics that i love love loooooooooove till this very day.

i don't really have that with the new music. i truly wish i did. if only i could add more songs to

that already huge collection of prince tunes that seem to be enscribed into my musical dna for

ever and ever.

most of them do indeed grow on me over time, but they never stir me as deeply or completely

as his other material.

although sometimes he does connect, still. just finished listening to the "lotusflower" title disc

once more and i have to admit that it's a pretty damn classic prince album to me.

a few days ago, on the same shuffle player, "i wish u heaven [part 1, 2 and 3] came on and it

was just like, that beat, that simple, clean, minimal beat, it just pushed it's way up to the front

in favor of everything released since 2002. it just made everything that came after it, every

single thing released since, seem redundant and somehow just, less.

now that i'm writing this, i think that i've found why that is. it's probably because i've grown up

and am now 22 years older. music probably doesn't effect me the same way anymore as it did

when i was an early teen growing up and discovering prince for the first time. that's probably a

big part of it.

but who knows, maybe 15 years from now i'll be listening to "20Ten" on the crystal wave player

in my hover car and thinking to myself 'good god, prince made some brilliant tunes at the start

of the 21st century, absolutely stellar and classic'.

prince riuns sticky like glue with that pathetic rap....like sumthin from the Symbol album.....not like Pusssy Control!

IstenSzek said:

now that i'm writing this, i think that i've found why that is. it's probably because i've grown up

and am now 22 years older. music probably doesn't effect me the same way anymore as it did

when i was an early teen growing up and discovering prince for the first time. that's probably a

big part of it.

but who knows, maybe 15 years from now i'll be listening to "20Ten" on the crystal wave player

in my hover car and thinking to myself 'good god, prince made some brilliant tunes at the start

of the 21st century, absolutely stellar and classic'.

I agree with this... Many people cannot perceive the changes in themselves that effect their perception and taste. I had no respect for pop music back in the early 80's in comparion to how much I loved symphonic classical and soundtrack scores. I remember listening to Purple Rain and all the classic albums that are now so widely well regarded. I remember thinking how lame I thought certain tracks or b-sides were on each of those albums. I honestly don't think Prince's way of working or his degree of sonic creativity is diminished, it just shifts around to leave out certain reverbs, effects, or instrument sounds in favor of others.

Now his censoring of his lyrical content is a big shift, but at the same time, there was a review or two that made fun of him for still singing explicitly about sex in 1994's Come album.

I did however just give Around the World in a Day repeated listens in the car lately, and conceptually and lyrically this album is mighty (it's just not very commercial outside of the two singles)! I do suspect he panders a bit to his maybe more mainstream immediate friends at times. This might be the result of years upon years of criticism of his "weirdness" and dismisal of his "goofy" concept albums or songs. Cream magazine really made fun of him for Around the World in a Day. Is he trying to be more accessible now? I don't know.

The only thing I disagree with is the fact that Prince has more than 3 classics on 20Ten. But I agree, the album is amazing and a great notch in Prince's belt. I've come to realize that I love his music from this decade almost as much as I love the 80s..as a whole of course. There were many moments in the 80s that didn't impress me, for the most part I"ve been impressed in the millenium. I can honestly say I could say what Prince's best decade was...so many amazing songs that are on heavy rotation for me! Prince just rocks everything he does...simple as that! I'm glad that I'm able to enjoy a variety of genres and thereby appreciating all genres that Prince has experimented with.

Laydown, Beginning Endlessly, and Compassion are my favorites.

Laydown, Future Soul Song and Sticky Like Glue. I'll even add Beginning Endlessly to the mix.