NDRU said:

You have to try pretty damn hard to create an album like that and do it mostly by yourself!

I listen to it sometimes and just wonder how many hours go into things like vocal, keyboard, & guitar overdubs. To choose the sounds (I get why he gave the programming duties to Kirk) and blend them effectively. He works on a scale that us fairly unmatched outside of Mahler & Wagner

I get why people don't like it, and it is not as exciting as, say, Gold. But for what it is, it's incredibly even and cohesive. It's a little bland, but it does not grind on my nerves the way 3 hours of Chaos & Disorder might. I can actually listen to the whole thing.

It might not have been what I hoped it would be, but it's still quite remarkable.

Despite the album's shortcomings, I've always felt it had a confident vibe. Same with Lovesexy too even though I'm not that thrilled about it.

Harlepolis said:

NDRU said:

You have to try pretty damn hard to create an album like that and do it mostly by yourself!

I listen to it sometimes and just wonder how many hours go into things like vocal, keyboard, & guitar overdubs. To choose the sounds (I get why he gave the programming duties to Kirk) and blend them effectively. He works on a scale that us fairly unmatched outside of Mahler & Wagner

I get why people don't like it, and it is not as exciting as, say, Gold. But for what it is, it's incredibly even and cohesive. It's a little bland, but it does not grind on my nerves the way 3 hours of Chaos & Disorder might. I can actually listen to the whole thing.

It might not have been what I hoped it would be, but it's still quite remarkable.

Despite the album's shortcomings, I've always felt it had a confident vibe. Same with Lovesexy too even though I'm not that thrilled about it.

All the previous ones--Chaos, Gold, Come, , and D&P--all feel like he is trying very hard to get attention, and Emancipation has a quiet confidence.

NDRU said:

You have to try pretty damn hard to create an album like that and do it mostly by yourself!

I listen to it sometimes and just wonder how many hours go into things like vocal, keyboard, & guitar overdubs. To choose the sounds (I get why he gave the programming duties to Kirk) and blend them effectively. He works on a scale that us fairly unmatched outside of Mahler & Wagner

I get why people don't like it, and it is not as exciting as, say, Gold. But for what it is, it's incredibly even and cohesive. It's a little bland, but it does not grind on my nerves the way 3 hours of Chaos & Disorder might. I can actually listen to the whole thing.

It might not have been what I hoped it would be, but it's still quite remarkable.

Emancipation is the album that Prince was born 2 make. It went double platinum & made him millions. It must have made Mayte proud, 2 b his first wife & mother of his first child & have a whole cd dedicated 2 her, during this period of celebrating his exit from the WB .

But destiny had other plans, Which Larry helped him through by introducing him 2 Jehovah & being instrumental in putting Prince finally @ peace with himself & his past life. .

[img:$uid]http://pic80.picturetrail.com/VOL2084/9118410/23710928/395436822.jpg[/img:$uid]

Easily his worse album!

ozone14 said:

Easily his worse album!

Do you consider The Chocolate Invasion and The Slaughterhouse to be proper albums? If so, are you saying they are better than Emancipation? For You is better than Emancipation?

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

NDRU said:

You have to try pretty damn hard to create an album like that and do it mostly by yourself!

I listen to it sometimes and just wonder how many hours go into things like vocal, keyboard, & guitar overdubs. To choose the sounds (I get why he gave the programming duties to Kirk) and blend them effectively. He works on a scale that us fairly unmatched outside of Mahler & Wagner

I get why people don't like it, and it is not as exciting as, say, Gold. But for what it is, it's incredibly even and cohesive. It's a little bland, but it does not grind on my nerves the way 3 hours of Chaos & Disorder might. I can actually listen to the whole thing.

It might not have been what I hoped it would be, but it's still quite remarkable.

Emancipation is the album that Prince was born 2 make. It went double platinum & made him millions. It must have made Mayte proud, 2 b his first wife & mother of his first child & have a whole cd dedicated 2 her, during this period of celebrating his exit from the WB .

But destiny had other plans, Which Larry helped him through by introducing him 2 Jehovah & being instrumental in putting Prince finally @ peace with himself & his past life. .

[img:$uid]http://pic80.picturetrail.com/VOL2084/9118410/23710928/395436822.jpg[/img:$uid]

rialb said:

ozone14 said:

Easily his worse album!

For You is better than Emancipation?

hell yes!!

i wanna refer to this album as 'constipation'.. it's hard to work out.. like an overload of shit

but there are some magnificent nuggets such as

love we make & dreamin about u

holy river

friend lover sister & my computer... all the rest i'd be happy to dump!!!

rialb said:

ozone14 said:

Easily his worse album!

For You is better than Emancipation?

By a yard long shot.

I know I'm probably taking things too literally here, but still I have to object to the concept of "trying too hard".

For us to be able to determine whether Prince was "trying too hard" or not, there are at least two things we need to know:

1. What exactly was the musical result he wanted to accomplish?

2. How much effort did he put into achieving this result?

Only when we know the answer to these questions, does it make sense to have an opinion about it (and even then, I doubt if it's really necessary).

It bothers me that people always try to justify their disapproval of an artist's work by claiming there's something wrong with it. That's like considering pineapple a genetic failure, just because I personally don't like the taste.

RealMusician said:

rialb said:

For You is better than Emancipation?

What?!... Of course it is!

erik319 said:

RealMusician said:

I know I'm probably taking things too literally here, but still I have to object to the concept of "trying too hard".

It bothers me that people always try to justify their disapproval of an artist's work by claiming there's something wrong with it. That's like considering pineapple a genetic failure, just because I personally don't like the taste.

For me, it's more an issue of buying delicious pineapple from a trusted greengrocer for many years, only to find your latest purchase is over-ripe, too sugary to the point of putrification and fairly indegestible.

.... and the label said "WORLD'S JUICIEST PINEAPPLE! YOU'LL KILL YOUR FAMILY FOR JUST ONE BITE OF THAT SWEET, DELICIOUS TASTE!"

[Edited 6/21/11 8:41am]

For me Emancipation made me appreciate Prince EVEN MORE...plus I hooked a few more folks with just the ballads off of that album.....chile please...trying to hard....

erik319 said:

RealMusician said:

I know I'm probably taking things too literally here, but still I have to object to the concept of "trying too hard".

It bothers me that people always try to justify their disapproval of an artist's work by claiming there's something wrong with it. That's like considering pineapple a genetic failure, just because I personally don't like the taste.

For me, it's more an issue of buying delicious pineapple from a trusted greengrocer for many years, only to find your latest purchase is over-ripe, too sugary to the point of putrification and fairly indegestible.

Well, that's exactly the problem - the consumer expects the product to taste a certain way, based on his/her experience with previous products from the same source. But any new album from Prince (or anybody) should in fact be treated as a new, entirely different fruit. If you don't like the taste, fine. But you can't complain about it not being similar enough to whatever came before - no one said it would be.

Artists don't cater, artists create.

You guys are nuts! The nine "worst" songs on Emancipation are better than For You.

eireboy34 said:

I think that very often P's songs "come alive" live ( as has been suggested on this thread).

Look at SOTT or Lovesexy...even the Gold Experience or why not some songs off RC.

If he had played ( or even played now) some songs off Emancipation I think we'd discover them in a new way.

After all, this was supposedly the album that Prince "was born to make".

Agreed, the songs played live would bring life to the music. Emancipation suffers from production. Use the same songs and produce it as if it were sign o the times or Parade, how would Emancipation sound then? Emancipation has some real good songs on it.

RealMusician said:

erik319 said:

RealMusician said: For me, it's more an issue of buying delicious pineapple from a trusted greengrocer for many years, only to find your latest purchase is over-ripe, too sugary to the point of putrification and fairly indegestible.

Well, that's exactly the problem - the consumer expects the product to taste a certain way, based on his/her experience with previous products from the same source. But any new album from Prince (or anybody) should in fact be treated as a new, entirely different fruit. If you don't like the taste, fine. But you can't complain about it not being similar enough to whatever came before - no one said it would be.

Artists don't cater, artists create.

Artists also reach a point (if successful in their own lifetimes, i'm thinking Picasso & Andy Warhol), that they feel invincible & know they can release any old shite and their gullible fans will lap it up in an 'Emperor's New Clothes' kind of way.

Going back to the fruit analogy that you started, I love the fact that Prince used to give us different fruits of different flavours. The more the merrier, for me! But to me, and quite a few others by the sound of it, When Emancipation was released, it was already past its sell-by date.

NouveauDance said:

Emancipation was much more polished and conventional R&B-pop.

It's Prince going for that R. Kelly money. And failing massively.

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

NDRU said:

You have to try pretty damn hard to create an album like that and do it mostly by yourself!

I listen to it sometimes and just wonder how many hours go into things like vocal, keyboard, & guitar overdubs. To choose the sounds (I get why he gave the programming duties to Kirk) and blend them effectively. He works on a scale that us fairly unmatched outside of Mahler & Wagner

I get why people don't like it, and it is not as exciting as, say, Gold. But for what it is, it's incredibly even and cohesive. It's a little bland, but it does not grind on my nerves the way 3 hours of Chaos & Disorder might. I can actually listen to the whole thing.

It might not have been what I hoped it would be, but it's still quite remarkable.

Emancipation is the album that Prince was born 2 make. It went double platinum & made him millions. It must have made Mayte proud, 2 b his first wife & mother of his first child & have a whole cd dedicated 2 her, during this period of celebrating his exit from the WB .

But destiny had other plans, Which Larry helped him through by introducing him 2 Jehovah & being instrumental in putting Prince finally @ peace with himself & his past life. .

[img:$uid]http://pic80.picturetrail.com/VOL2084/9118410/23710928/395436822.jpg[/img:$uid]

Nice photo ...

Yes.

rialb said:

For You is better than Emancipation?

Hell yes. Plus the dude who made For You is just starting, the dude who did Emancipation should know better, not in the least because he'd released an album merely a year earlier which included a scathing rebuke of his work of the years before.

And here he is in late 1996, releasing a gimmicky album full of copycat R&B and third-rate uptempo songs pacaged in hideous artwork, timed to coincide with the birth of his first child and the kind of media onslaught he couldn't be arsed to do while at WB.

And what's his first single? A frikking cover. "The album I was born to make!" he claims, and the first single is a cover.

BartVanHemelen said:

rialb said:

For You is better than Emancipation?

Hell yes. Plus the dude who made For You is just starting, the dude who did Emancipation should know better, not in the least because he'd released an album merely a year earlier which included a scathing rebuke of his work of the years before.

And here he is in late 1996, releasing a gimmicky album full of copycat R&B and third-rate uptempo songs pacaged in hideous artwork, timed to coincide with the birth of his first child and the kind of media onslaught he couldn't be arsed to do while at WB.

And what's his first single? A frikking cover. "The album I was born to make!" he claims, and the first single is a cover.

I won't argue with your assessment of the album, though just to address the OP's question, your answer seems to be "no he is not trying too hard"

BartVanHemelen said:

rialb said:

For You is better than Emancipation?

Hell yes. Plus the dude who made For You is just starting, the dude who did Emancipation should know better, not in the least because he'd released an album merely a year earlier which included a scathing rebuke of his work of the years before.

And here he is in late 1996, releasing a gimmicky album full of copycat R&B and third-rate uptempo songs pacaged in hideous artwork, timed to coincide with the birth of his first child and the kind of media onslaught he couldn't be arsed to do while at WB.

And what's his first single? A frikking cover. "The album I was born to make!" he claims, and the first single is a cover.

There's really no way for me to prove my opinion but for me the overall quality of the songs on Emancipation is much better than on For You.

WoW! I was truly was grateful for this album after years of NPG bullshit and contractual bullshit i finally got a CD with more than 3 songs that I liked. The opinions of everyone on here is subject to when they jumped on the Prince train. I got on board at Dirty Mind and got off the train in the early 90's (that shitty rap stuff) though I still bought every CD I liked fewer and fewer songs on the CD's. So when the Emancipation 'train" pulled up I was glad to get on board. I considered this album to be a comeback.Cuz he definitely was gone toooo long.

rialb said:

You guys are nuts! The nine "worst" songs on Emancipation are better than For You.

Emancipation89 said:

rialb said:

You guys are nuts! The nine "worst" songs on Emancipation are better than For You.

agreed.

rialb said:

You guys are nuts! The nine "worst" songs on Emancipation are better than For You.

I would not agree with that. I feel like I could make a pretty terrible mix of Emancipation

Right Back Here In My Arms

We Gets Up

Damned if Eye Do

Dreaming About You

Betcha By Golly

Style

Da Da Da

The Plan

Emancipation

granted I don't hate all these songs, but as a standalone album?

Maybe the 9 best songs could take For You, though

[Edited 6/21/11 13:11pm]

rialb said:

You guys are nuts! The nine "worst" songs on Emancipation are better than For You.

The fact that there ARE nine "worst" songs pretty much proves the argument that he was trying too hard. Why release those songs? Why force those songs on to an album at all? Emancipation could have been a GREAT 10-14, single disc release. If it sold well he would then have a ton of songs ready for a new release soon after. Songs that he could have spent a bit more time on/with.

Also, I TOTALLY agree with the comments about the album art. It was always a turnoff for me.

Cerebus said:

The fact that there ARE nine "worst" songs pretty much proves the argument that he was trying too hard. Why release those songs? Why force those songs on to an album at all? Emancipation could have been a GREAT 10-14, single disc release. If it sold well he would then have a ton of songs ready for a new release soon after. Songs that he could have spent a bit more time on/with.

Also, I TOTALLY agree with the comments about the album art. It was always a turnoff for me.

The art, album title, and hype all seemed contrary to the music inside.

I like the music just fine, but it does not feel like a dramatic breaking of chains, it just feels like lots of music. It's a pretty quiet album.

Gold sounds more like an "emancipation" though I am not a huge champion of that album. It does sound like a guy trying to break free. Maybe that is it, Gold is a guy trying to break free and Emancipation is a guy who is free?