First off, I think that Musicology is an excellent album. I will admit the first time I listened to it, I was stoned, and after the first few songs I got so FREAKED OUT by the "strange groove" on this album, I had to turn it off. It sounded very disturbing and "otherworldly" to me.

There are a few songs on "Musicology" that - for some reason, to this DAY - I find particularly "unnerving" as if they have a VERY STRANGE "vibe" to them, and I am hoping that someone can articulate maybe an explanation of why this is, or maybe I will find some agreement with someone about these particular songs, someone who feels the same way.

The "disturbing" tracks I speak of are Track #1 (Musicology), Track #2 (Illusion coma pimp & circumstance), Track #4 (Life O the party) ..... and to a lesser extent, track 7 (What do u want me 2 do?).

I do NOT think these are "bad" tracks, they are probably amongst the strongest......but they also sound (to me) the strangest. WHY is it that I find these tracks so disturbing?

[Edited 7/2/11 19:01pm]

Who knows?

I can't help you there as it's a subjective experience.

Is it the beat, or the bassline? What do you feel? How strange!

...Yeah, I'm not sure what's disturbing about them either.

I could probably see what you were saying if you were talking about "The Marrying Kind" (my favorite song on there!) specifically - it's something about it that is vaguely dark, but I don't hear it in anything else on that disc at all.

[Edited 7/2/11 20:14pm]

mydrawers said:

First off, I think that Musicology is an excellent album. I will admit the first time I listened to it, I was stoned, and after the first few songs I got so FREAKED OUT by the "strange groove" on this album, I had to turn it off. It sounded very disturbing and "otherworldly" to me.

There are a few songs on "Musicology" that - for some reason, to this DAY - I find particularly "unnerving" as if they have a VERY STRANGE "vibe" to them, and I am hoping that someone can articulate maybe an explanation of why this is, or maybe I will find some agreement with someone about these particular songs, someone who feels the same way.

The "disturbing" tracks I speak of are Track #1 (Musicology), Track #2 (Illusion coma pimp & circumstance), Track #4 (Life O the party) ..... and to a lesser extent, track 7 (What do u want me 2 do?).

I do NOT think these are "bad" tracks, they are probably amongst the strongest......but they also sound (to me) the strangest. WHY is it that I find these tracks so disturbing?

[Edited 7/2/11 19:01pm]

Do other non-threatening, otherwise normal things disturb you? I don't think the problem is Musicology...

Innocuous things disturb you.

Do these oddly multicolored but equally harmless chicks disturb you?

This slightly large but definitely harmless olive branch -- does it disturb you, as well?

ufoclub said:

Is it the beat, or the bassline? What do you feel? How strange!

Yeah... it is the overall beat, bassline and "groove" of these particular songs. I dunno... maybe it's because they sound so UNLIKE anything else that Prince has done before. Would you guys agree that these songs are different musically from what Prince has done in the past?

The rest of the songs on the album are "standard" Prince fare as far as I can tell - nothing unusual about the rest of the album, just those songs I mentioned.

Again, it could just be that I was stoned the first time I heard those songs, and the "strangeness" factor just "stuck" with me, and I associate the songs with that upon repeated listenings. But I still think those songs sound vastly different from the rest of the album, and indeed the rest of the Prince catalog..

Those songs sound like a departure to you? To me they sound like typical Prince.

[Edited 7/2/11 20:38pm]

mydrawers said:

ufoclub said:

Is it the beat, or the bassline? What do you feel? How strange!

Yeah... it is the overall beat, bassline and "groove" of these particular songs. I dunno... maybe it's because they sound so UNLIKE anything else that Prince has done before. Would you guys agree that these songs are different musically from what Prince has done in the past?

The rest of the songs on the album are "standard" Prince fare as far as I can tell - nothing unusual about the rest of the album, just those songs I mentioned.

Again, it could just be that I was stoned the first time I heard those songs, and the "strangeness" factor just "stuck" with me, and I associate the songs with that upon repeated listenings. But I still think those songs sound vastly different from the rest of the album, and indeed the rest of the Prince catalog..

I thought "What Do You Want Me 2 Do" sounded so retro Prince is could have been pulled from the "old pile" in the vault.

ufoclub said:

mydrawers said:

Yeah... it is the overall beat, bassline and "groove" of these particular songs. I dunno... maybe it's because they sound so UNLIKE anything else that Prince has done before. Would you guys agree that these songs are different musically from what Prince has done in the past?

The rest of the songs on the album are "standard" Prince fare as far as I can tell - nothing unusual about the rest of the album, just those songs I mentioned.

Again, it could just be that I was stoned the first time I heard those songs, and the "strangeness" factor just "stuck" with me, and I associate the songs with that upon repeated listenings. But I still think those songs sound vastly different from the rest of the album, and indeed the rest of the Prince catalog..

I thought "What Do You Want Me 2 Do" sounded so retro Prince is could have been pulled from the "old pile" in the vault.

That's exactly how I felt.

Drawers, are you a new fan? How long have you been listening to Prince?

armpit said:

ufoclub said:

I thought "What Do You Want Me 2 Do" sounded so retro Prince is could have been pulled from the "old pile" in the vault.

That's exactly how I felt.

Drawers, are you a new fan? How long have you been listening to Prince?

I'm pretty "Old School". I started listening to Prince before the rest of the world "caught on". I was listening to Prince in 1983 during the 1999 period. I'd heard enough "rumblings" (in the "underground") about this mysterious figure called "Prince", and once I checked him out, I was hooked forever.

I loved "Purple Rain" (album and movie) when it first came out. "Around the world in a day" was a little weird, but it was pretty cool even though it took some getting used to.

I thought "Parade" was crap, and didn't listen to Prince for a long, long time after that. It was really fun to discover a decades worth of back catalog Prince albums when I finally did start to listen to Prince again in 1996. Fell in LOVE with Emancipation. Prince really earned my respect for putting out so much material.

mydrawers said:

armpit said:

That's exactly how I felt.

Drawers, are you a new fan? How long have you been listening to Prince?

I'm pretty "Old School". I started listening to Prince before the rest of the world "caught on". I was listening to Prince in 1983 during the 1999 period. I'd heard enough "rumblings" (in the "underground") about this mysterious figure called "Prince", and once I checked him out, I was hooked forever.

I loved "Purple Rain" (album and movie) when it first came out. "Around the world in a day" was a little weird, but it was pretty cool even though it took some getting used to.

I thought "Parade" was crap, and didn't listen to Prince for a long, long time after that. It was really fun to discover a decades worth of back catalog Prince albums when I finally did start to listen to Prince again in 1996. Fell in LOVE with Emancipation. Prince really earned my respect for putting out so much material.

...If you've been listening to Prince that long and know that much about his music, then how come you couldn't even tell that a lot of the stuff on Musicology is pretty similar in sound to some of his earlier work?

armpit said:

mydrawers said:

I'm pretty "Old School". I started listening to Prince before the rest of the world "caught on". I was listening to Prince in 1983 during the 1999 period. I'd heard enough "rumblings" (in the "underground") about this mysterious figure called "Prince", and once I checked him out, I was hooked forever.

I loved "Purple Rain" (album and movie) when it first came out. "Around the world in a day" was a little weird, but it was pretty cool even though it took some getting used to.

I thought "Parade" was crap, and didn't listen to Prince for a long, long time after that. It was really fun to discover a decades worth of back catalog Prince albums when I finally did start to listen to Prince again in 1996. Fell in LOVE with Emancipation. Prince really earned my respect for putting out so much material.

...If you've been listening to Prince that long and know that much about his music, then how come you couldn't even tell that a lot of the stuff on Musicology is pretty similar in sound to some of his earlier work?

I would LOVE to hear some examples of this. Certainly tracks 1, 2, 4 and 7 are NOT reminiscent of his earlier work from what I can tell, but if you have a different perspective, I'm all ears!!!!! Please tell me which songs on "Musicology" are similar to Prince songs of days gone by (and which songs those are in particular). I'd totally love to listen to "Musicology" having a new perspective!

those songs mentioned are actually the strongest songs on the album,

why would

Musicology,

Illusion Coma...,

What Do U Want Me 2 Do?

be disturbing?

those are my fave songs together with A Million Days, Call My Name.


Life O' The Party is 'disturbing' alright...

Maybe it's just the way they are produced and mixed? Musicology is a pretty dry album (not a lot of reverb). The drums sound sort of clanky and resonate in a weird way on some of the tracks.

The first time I heard "What Do U Want Me 2 Do?" was on the npgmusicclub website, you had to find the room where it was playing. It was a lounge in an upstairs section, I always felt that was such a lonely room the way it felt.

The Marrying Kind freaks me out. I admit it.

I usually have to skip that one. Not because it ain't good, but just because... it freaks me out.

I don't know about unnerving, but ICP&C and Life O' The Party certainly grate on my nerves.