Today in Prince Music History: August 2nd

1990 – A 12" of Thieves In The Temple is released in the US

Album Released:

20 August, 1990 (UK)
21 August, 1990 (USA)

Love it, Hate it ... Any comments ???

(( photos provided by OF4S: http://prince.org/msg/7/352178 ))

Love it, if only for the fact that it represented a very prolific point in Prince's career.

The album is weird. There's some very good stuff on there that's originally from 1985/6ish (Joy In Repetition, Question of U), some stuff from the same period that he should have released unbuggered-up (We Can Funk, Can't Stop), some good new stuff (Thieves In The Temple) but a lot of rubbish. Take out the stuff from Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell and The Time and you get a decent single album - which could further be improved by removing the remaining rubbish, like the title track.

I enjoyed watching the film at the time, while knowing that it was actually extremely bad and that I was only watching it at all because it's a Prince film. I don't think I've seen it since then.

I love them both, the album was my first Prince album so has a special place in my heart (I'm sure we all love our first one that made us fall in love with the man).

And I think the film is very funky and light-hearted, not to be taken too seriously.

I love the variety in his work, PR is great but also quite heavy in places, so this is a fun break from that. I think the spiritual messages of better to love than hate is the positive message of the film.

[Edited 8/2/12 9:39am]

Love the album/cd, but the movie still sucks if it wasn't for the music scenes it would be total fuckery Oh yeah and seeing Prince in those black pants makes it all better

Lianachan said:

^ I agree, I LOVED Round & Round when I heard it in Graffitti Bridge (Movie.) And the album is one of my favorites also, I don't know why I love the movie when so many people dislike it but I don't think it's that bad. I've seen worse trust me. And I love Prince's look during this time, the long straight hair and just a hint of stubble. <3 He looked SO good.

I happen to like the movie. Would like to see it with all of the deleted scenes - which will probably never happen.

jackmitz said:

Lianachan said:

The album is weird. There's some very good stuff on there that's originally from 1985/6ish (Joy In Repetition, Question of U), some stuff from the same period that he should have released unbuggered-up (We Can Funk, Can't Stop), some good new stuff (Thieves In The Temple) but a lot of rubbish. Take out the stuff from Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell and The Time and you get a decent single album - which could further be improved by removing the remaining rubbish, like the title track.

I enjoyed watching the film at the time, while knowing that it was actually extremely bad and that I was only watching it at all because it's a Prince film. I don't think I've seen it since then.

Huh?! Tevin's 'Round and Round' was a CLASSIC summer jam. Great pop single.

Worst track on the album for me!

His best album! People who toe the party line of 'but you need to take out the associated artists' (as if he didn't write & perform those songs as well) should be excommunicated.

Film: let's not and say we did.

Pentacle said:

His best album! People who toe the party line of 'but you need to take out the associated artists' (as if he didn't write & perform those songs as well) should be excommunicated.

Film: let's not and say we did.

I'm not toeing any line - I don't like them, fair and square. Disliked them all from the first listen, back in 1990, along with some of the out-and-out Prince songs.

I loved his look and the dancing in the film was excellent...but it looked low budget. The bridge was rather obviously made of plastic for instance, or maybe polystyrene.

The title track is borderline embarrassing, a surprise at the time as he'd yet to really plumb the depths.

I remember at a One Night Alone soundcheck he asked for requests...everyone was shouting If I Was Your Girlfriend and such like... I was very close to shouting "Graffitti Bridge" to see what his reaction would have been and get a laugh out of the crowd.

Good to excellent, though underrated album.

Completely independent of that, the movie is not something which should be discussed in an "appreciation" thread. I heard it was used in Guantanamo, before that practice was stopped by the UN.

The album is pretty cool, but the movie....

Romeoblu said:

I've not seen the film in years. The album however is fantastic. It has 3 of my top ten Princesongs on it joy in rep, the question of u and my favourite elephants and flowers. I even love the associated artist stuff especially Love machine and melody cool. My favourite album of the 1990's. My top 5 Graffiti bridge Symbol Rave Diamonds and pearls Tge

I love the sound of his voice on "Elephants and Flowers."

I don't think that the associated artists tracks are bad at all.

Heck, I'll even defend the title track, at least a little. It is very saccharine but I do like the guitar in it.

Sill, this is not one of my favourites. There's some good-great material on it but as a whole I don't believe that it adds up to a great album. The sound of the album kind of bothers me, it is very clean and polished sounding. It was kind of disappointing to hear him jumping on the New Jack Swing bandwagon ("New Power Generation") and also hearing him really start to try to cash in on rap. For me this album really set the tone for how uneven he would be during the nineties. To a degree it was the start of him being a follower and not a leader.

ROLLING STONE (1990)

PRINCE TALKS

BY NEAL KARLEN

Originally, Graffiti Bridge was going to be a vehicle for the reborn Time, with Prince staying behind the camera. But Warner Bros. wouldn't go for it, so Prince wrote himself into a new movie. Later, visitors to Paisley Park saw a version of a script that was allegedly obtuse to the point of near gibberish. "That was just a real rough thirty-page treatment I wrote with Kim," Prince says. "Graffiti Bridge is an entirely different movie."

As in Purple Rain, the plot features Prince as a musician named the Kid. Willed half-ownership of a Seven Corners club named Glam Slam, the Kid must share control with Morris Day, once again playing a comic satyr combining Superfly smoothness and Buddy Love sincerity. It's a fight of good versus evil, and band versus band, for the soul of Glam Slam.

Then there's the unknown Ingrid Chavez, Prince's first female movie lead who doesn't look like she was ordered out of a catalog. Throw in the talents of Staples, the reborn Time, George Clinton, and the thirteen-year-old Quincy Jones protégé Tevin Campbell, and you've got, Prince says, "a different kind of movie. It's not violent. Nobody gets laid."

It's impossible to judge Graffiti Bridge from just a few selected scenes. Still, they were very good scenes. Prince fast-forwards to a sequence in which Day tries to seduce Chavez on the fairy-tale-looking Graffiti Bridge.

When Prince is amused, which is almost every time Morris Day comes on the screen, he slaps his hands, shakes his head and throws himself back in his seat. "I hope Morris steals this movie," he says, recalling the charge made after Purple Rain. "The man still thinks he can whup me!"

Prince pushes rewind, searching for a scene with the Time. Waiting, he reminisces about the old days, when he oversaw the band. For a tutorial on the proper onstage attitude, Prince remembers, he showed the Time videos of Muhammed Ali trouncing, and then taunting, the old champ Sonny Liston. "To this day," he says, "they're the only band I've ever been afraid of."

At first it seems strange for to hear Prince talking in such fond and nostalgic terms about Day and the band. Day left the Minneapolis fold right after Purple Rain, with some nasty words about the boss's supposedly dictatorial ways. Now, Prince says, "I honestly don't remember how we got it together again."