lucas said:

I'm surprised how kind time has been to this album. When it came out I waited outside the store at 9AM, eager to get my hands on it. I'd recently gotten into bootlegs and knew about Endorphinemachine and all the new songs he was playing...but NONE of those were on it. There was no hit to rally around, no real promotion, and seemingly no interest from Prince himself. I wanted my 15 bucks back and felt (for the first time) ripped off by my favorite artist. In fact, I actually stopped listening to him for a while. Until Gold Experience brought me back a year later.

Now however, with a lot of hindsight and quite a huge stack of albums afterwards, I can see Come in a new light. Yes it was a contractual throw away, but I think it also has a better ratio of good tracks than some of the later albums that Prince has promoted much more.

A good, but not great, little album. And for whatever reason, I think time will continue to be friendly to this one, perhaps even more than some of the bigger releases from that decade. Turns out it just might have been worth that 15 bucks after all. Go figure.

Curious...what makes you think that?

[Edited 8/22/12 20:22pm]

Amazing piece of work. Highly underrated

happy birthday to you late! and also agreed with you like songs songs are, Loose, Papa, and Dark.

very nice!

our thinking is just like same in the matter of papa.

It's one of my top 5 Prince albums

Thank U and cool Tom Robot! I think that the music, somber as it is just blends so well with Prince's voice and the tone he was singing in. It just perfectly creates the entire mood of the song and just pulls you in. You kind of feel exactly what he was trying to convey. And Bill, do you wish to elaborate on that statement?

[Edited 8/23/12 4:26am]

motherfunka said:

lucas said:

I'm surprised how kind time has been to this album. When it came out I waited outside the store at 9AM, eager to get my hands on it. I'd recently gotten into bootlegs and knew about Endorphinemachine and all the new songs he was playing...but NONE of those were on it. There was no hit to rally around, no real promotion, and seemingly no interest from Prince himself. I wanted my 15 bucks back and felt (for the first time) ripped off by my favorite artist. In fact, I actually stopped listening to him for a while. Until Gold Experience brought me back a year later.

Now however, with a lot of hindsight and quite a huge stack of albums afterwards, I can see Come in a new light. Yes it was a contractual throw away, but I think it also has a better ratio of good tracks than some of the later albums that Prince has promoted much more.

A good, but not great, little album. And for whatever reason, I think time will continue to be friendly to this one, perhaps even more than some of the bigger releases from that decade. Turns out it just might have been worth that 15 bucks after all. Go figure.

Curious...what makes you think that?

[Edited 8/22/12 20:22pm]

It was released under the name Prince when he was going by o+>

I love the album, but I don't play it very often. I have to be in the mood.

This is my first Prince album I actually bought (it was a digital copy from Amazon that I ordered at the same time as Emancipation and NPS, yeah... I started with NPS...) and this is the first Prince album I listened to in one shot. It's short, which I LOVE and I always felt attached to how "dark" this album is. It's definitely one of his darker albums isn't it? My biggest complaint with the album is that the title track is just too damn long! Don't get me wrong its a great song and all, but it always bugged me that it wasn't a 4 minute edit of the song or something. I love the song, and the 10 minute version is nice at times, but it kinda drags for me :/

Skylightt said:

I'm kind of surprised by the things I've just read here. A lot of you seem to like the album which was more than I thought. I know it's been said that Come was too dark to sell but what about The Black Album? weren't a lot of people clamoring to get their hands on that or was that strictly the fan, fans not the casual ones?

I kind of feel that if Prince had promoted it more then the album could have been more sucessful. I wonder why he took the time to record/compile everything and then kind of just sat back and was like "Well, there you go. Do what you want with it." I find myself intrigued by the overall sound of the album and like you guys said the darkness of it. It seems to be almost supressed in some ways when you think about it.

The design of the album is interesting too, the gray and white tones and the lack of a lyric book and photos. Not to get all psychological but the way everything looms over Prince, the fence, the building catches my attention too.

Does anyone really like Solo? So far no ones really talked about that one.

The Black album isn't that dark...there is a lot of party music, fun stuff and jokes on it and it's mostly about a sexual explosion. That will sell.

There isn't much party stuff on Come and to me the sex on Come is way more depressive. I mean Cindy c or le Grind would be totally out of place on Come.

[Edited 8/23/12 9:35am]

I love this cd. There are many great songs on it and the title track is totally Prince

motherfunka said:

lucas said:

I'm surprised how kind time has been to this album. When it came out I waited outside the store at 9AM, eager to get my hands on it. I'd recently gotten into bootlegs and knew about Endorphinemachine and all the new songs he was playing...but NONE of those were on it. There was no hit to rally around, no real promotion, and seemingly no interest from Prince himself. I wanted my 15 bucks back and felt (for the first time) ripped off by my favorite artist. In fact, I actually stopped listening to him for a while. Until Gold Experience brought me back a year later.

Now however, with a lot of hindsight and quite a huge stack of albums afterwards, I can see Come in a new light. Yes it was a contractual throw away, but I think it also has a better ratio of good tracks than some of the later albums that Prince has promoted much more.

A good, but not great, little album. And for whatever reason, I think time will continue to be friendly to this one, perhaps even more than some of the bigger releases from that decade. Turns out it just might have been worth that 15 bucks after all. Go figure.

Curious...what makes you think that?

[Edited 8/22/12 20:22pm]

I think that because of the style in which it was done - it has a dark jazzy rock flavor that I don't think has dated quite as much as some other work which featured rap or the sounds of the day. Not saying it's great, just think it might last longer than some others from the 90's. A dark horse of sorts.

I just love it, several variations of moods, inviting, dark, sensual

Introvert

I also like some remixes of the song "COME"

I wish also he had remix "LETIGO"

I often listen to Space very early in the morning, when driving.. a real invitation to a journey..

Papa makes me think of my own father ..

I find myself in that album

Orgasm is the absolute pinnacle, as the inner scream one's scream in the mind..as to exhale wellness

ganesh said:

I just love it, several variations of moods, inviting, dark, sensual

Introvert

I also like some remixes of the song "COME"

I wish also he had remix "LETIGO"

I often listen to Space very early in the morning, when driving.. a real invitation to a journey..

Papa makes me think of my own father ..

I find myself in that album

Orgasm is the absolute pinnacle, as the inner scream one's scream in the mind..as to exhale wellness

There are several remixes of that song out there.

Cant believe all the love thjis sleeper album gets. I thought the songs were uninspired and throwaways when it came out. Only over time do I really kind of appreciate it. I remember the album cover being plastered on Billboard magazine with a few words from WB stating a vieled mockery of Princes recent shenannegins regarding dying, names, and contracts. I have that poster of the cover in not paper but a hard plastic type of material some record store gave to me after display event ended.I think this was the first album where I felt that Prince wasnt really trying anymore. Im shocked to find that its NIN influenced but it makes sense now.

Hate to be a killjoy but it's one of the worst albums he ever put out. After hearing classics like "Dirty Mind", "Parade" and "S.O.T.T" I was really let down by it. I enjoyed the "Graffitti Bridge"

soundtrack better than "Come".

..but I understood even back then that it was a "throwaway-give anything to WB" type thing so I wasn't too mad. He made up for it later with "T.G.E".

It's not a bad album and I actually like most of the tracks on it. It's just a shame that it was only half the album it was intended to be and somewhat of a victim of the fall out with WB. If it hadn't been stripped back down to the bare minimum it could have been a really strong album.

My favorite album by him. Perfect from start to finish. Some of his best lyrics too. Very dark and atmospheric.

BorisFishpaw said:

It's not a bad album and I actually like most of the tracks on it. It's just a shame that it was only half the album it was intended to be and somewhat of a victim of the fall out with WB. If it hadn't been stripped back down to the bare minimum it could have been a really strong album.

Boris,

But, surely, the stripped down nature of the album is EXACTLY why it is so tight, carefree (from over emphasising its greatness, unlike Emancipation), and certifiably sizzles non-stop (much like his earlier works, like Prince, Dirty Mind or Controversy).

It is for this reason now when I listen to Come, Chaos & Disorder and The Vault: Old Friend 4 Sale, I tend to love them so much, although perhaps like your good self, at the time I was expecting 'more' from each release. Ironically, I think the less is more addage has served as their saving graces, for those of us who still give these often overlooked records in the Prince canon the time of day.

That said, nothing rivals The Dawn.

love,

Spirit

Kind of surprised by all the people saying this album was a throwaway. I guess I would consider a throwaway an album that Prince released and hardly played any songs from it live. I do agree that by the time it was released in 1994, that he was over the project. However, up until then he played some of those songs live a lot (especially Race...if I had to suffer through another 10 minute version of that song...well you get the point).

how do i feel about it???? how's that??

It's definitely my favorite post-Graffiti Bridge album - really dig the dark and uncertain vibe, the production and the track sequencing (the transition from the ending of Come to the intro of Space is sublime).

Its best moments for me are Come, Space, Dark and Letitgo, but I pretty much enjoy all of it. Papa is just wierd but hyphotic.

The album seems to enjoy a pretty positive reputation here on the Org, which is cool, considering the album's reception at the time (and in the years following) seemed muted at best.

Doesn't get the attention or respect it deserves, as you can tell I'm sure. Even though it was used as a filler for his Warners contract, to me - the tracks are FAR from it.

The only song that I have a slight disdain towards is 'Race' but I can't say it won't grow on me

I also don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't have 'Pheromone' in my life, that song is just .. asdfghjkl

naffi said:

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else's iPhone/iPod play the songs out of sequence, no I don't have it on random?

Nope. Plays fine on iPod & in iTunes.

Skylightt said:

I LOVE the Papa song. Considering that its a pretty sad song I feel like there might be a little something wrong with me for playing it at least fifteen times in the past couple of days, multiple times a day. But I can relate. But the entire sound of it, the tone and everything I just love.

I like the edgy sound of Loose, and the kind of nostalgic, wounded sound of Dark. Love the horns in that song too.

The rest of it I haven't really listened to, aside from Solo. Does anyone want to elaborate on the theme of this album? And do you guys like it? I know a lot of you seem to kinda prefer his 80's work but I'm curious to hear your reflections on it.

I can imagine that it's easy to get stuck on a song that just strikes a chord. Space did that to me, and I can't count how many times I had it on repeat.

Theme wise it's a sexy album. Title gives it away and don't really like it, but without it, you'd still hear it in the music. The dark twist with Solo & Dark makes it all the more interesting. Yeah, I like the album. CD artwork is nice too. Ratings?

1. Come 7/10 goes on too long and not catchy enough for me or too repetitive
2. Space 10/10 pure blis
3. Pheromone 8/10 took a while to get into this one but its catchy once you do
4. Loose! - 5/10 don't really know it so should listen more but obviously didn't catch me.
5. Papa 10/10 Dark but excellent work
6. Race - wish I liked this one but don't 5/10
7. Dark 10/10 great track
8. Solo 10/10 Perfect for what it is - a special mood/imagination
9. Letitgo 6/10 it's okay a litte repetitive after a while
10. Orgasm this I suppose is called filler.

The only tragedy being that he chose the wrong version of the title track. The original's stanky bass and trademark Michael B drums blow any other version out of the water. Frankly, I think it'd have gone better with the rest of the album esp Race, Papa, and Dark.

I loved this album from the get go. I couldn't believe all the hate is was receiving at the time of release. I thought it to be a very urban contemporary sounding record and enjoyed the beats and horns and lyrics it was putting out. I think it took a while for it to be really appreciated but by looking at some of these posts I wasn't alone in loving it.