2elijah said:

1725topp said:

I agree and really like your last sentence.

Thanks, but it doesn't go without saying that I always find your posts extremely interesting, in-depth, and leads to good dialogue.

Thank you, and the same applies for me in the enjoyment of your ideas and writing.

1725topp said:

SuperFurryAnimal said: Many of his fans are agnostic, atheist etc. Was his early work more Christian or just Spiritual? Worlds of difference between Spiritual Christians and Social Christians.

*

Yes, I agree with both points. My perspective, which, of course, may be different from others, is that even with the early songs Prince is working within the Christian framework. “Annie Christian,” “The Second Coming,” “Temptation,” and other songs are all rooted in the Christian ideology or framework, even if Prince is infusing his own spin or interpretation. And while I like his creative approach, I guess where I differ from some of the fans is that I never saw Prince being anti-Christian or trying to denounce Christianity. It seemed even then that he was having an open and honest conversation about Christianity from the standpoint of ‘hey, I dig some of what this ideology has to offer but some of it—some of the principles and behavior of those who consider themselves Christians—cause me to have some concerns, and it would be best if we discuss it all’. Of course, that’s just my interpretation of what he was doing. Yet, based on my understanding of what he was doing, I was not shocked when he released The Rainbow Children because I understood based on what he was saying early in his career that it was a great possibility that the position that he takes with The Rainbow Children was one of the roads that he could travel or one of the positions that he could embrace. It’s like someone on this site once asked “Why is Prince doing boring, traditional R&B when that is something that he was destroying in the eighties.” My response to that was that while Prince was infusing R&B with his own style, it was not his goal to destroy R&B or soul music. Songs, like “Do, Me Baby,” “International Lover,” and “Adore” do not seek to destroy the legacy of R&B or soul music but to explore and, ultimately, celebrate that legacy. And, so, it is not surprising that even today he continues to write R&B and soul songs. Similarly, Prince, when questioning and engaging Christian principles earlier in his career, was not trying to destroy that ideology so it was no surprise to me that he found a way to embrace Christianity in a way that it works (makes sense and gives him peace) for him. Thus, my goal is not to belittle fans who are frustrated, angry, or feel betrayed by Prince’s current Christian position. I just don’t understand how they couldn’t fathom or see the possibility of him developing his current religious ideology just like I can fathom Prince one day saying, “hey, I tried to live by the Christian principles, but they don’t or no longer work for me.’ I wouldn’t be surprised or feel betrayed if he embraced this position because, again, he has always presented himself as someone on his own journey in search of his own answers even while working within the Christian ideology or framework. Sometimes his position agrees with the majority, and sometimes his position agrees with the minority, and, whether I agree with him or not, I am rarely surprised or feel betrayed. Finally, Prince, like most African Americans (not to say that most races don’t do this but the Civil Rights Movement forced this intersection for many African Americans), has always blended spiritual and social Christianity, such as using gospel music with socio-political lyrics in “Free” in the vein of Freedom Songs and using biblical imagery to make socio-political commentary as in “U Will Be Move” and even the beginning of “1999,” which is the religious apocalypse of Revelations. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember reading any analysis of “1999,” including in Rolling Stone or in Dave Hill’s Prince: A Pop Life, that did not take for granted or that didn’t assert that Prince is working within the Christian narrative or framework.

The majority of time I noticed celebs will take heat when they come out and actually say they are of a certain religion. Prince has labelled himself a Jehovah's Witness. For worse people have a tendancy to pick on celebs that identify with a religion. Prince in the 80's never told people he was christian, protestant, catholic or baptist, etc, he was view as spiritual. Once he starts saying things like "all power to Jehovah God" or whatever, he identified with a specific religion and a lot of people like to make fun of Jehovah's because they knock on your door when your trying to listen to Sam Kinison and stuff. Prince was the furthest from someone with a true Christian message like someone like Stryper, those guys took a lot of shit but I bet if they just had some music with some Jesus/God stuff and were Christians but were not so gung ho on the faith they would have been more accepted, even metal heads would let that slide. BTW, most Christians would be appauled by the amount of overt sexuality in P's music with a Christian message just like many Jehovah's consider joke.

As for certain declines in his music. If you follow the history of most musicians they will have some decline in standard of output. It happened to the best of the best. That's why when someone dies at 27 club and at that point they recorded and are on top of the world they just become legends and can do no wrong but would they record classic albums forever?? I don't think so. The belief is on how great they could have been but that's all a dream. Even if ones music doesn't decline, people will move on because people are trendy. Once something happens and its cool its over for bandwagoners.

Excellent thread!! I took the time to read it and was really inspired to think about some things after reading. I have checked, and have not really witness articles talking about his faith in detail. I love healthy dialogue and a positive framework given so clarity is reached!

Much love to all of you guys!

Marrk said:

You won't find many if any. Main reason for that is his supposed decline started way before he became a JW.

Peaks and valleys. That's Prince's career.

People should accept not everything is going to be awesome and stop moaning.

.

[Edited 9/5/12 3:40am]

Thank you! Aerosmith, KISS, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, if you are a musician or singer, you are not always entitled to having a hit song in this music business...give the Kid a break. It has nothing to do with his faith, plus, Prince isn't some 20 year old. He has grown and matured. I hate when critics try to lock him in the 1980s. Been there and done that...we are still talking about Prince because he has survived, even with the peaks and valleys.

SuperFurryAnimal said: Prince was the furthest from someone with a true Christian message like someone…BTW, most Christians would be appauled by the amount of overt sexuality in P's music with a Christian message just like many Jehovah's consider joke.

*

I never said that Prince was a Christian in the eighties, though he would probably beg to differ. I said that he was working within a Christian framework or ideology. That is—he was using the Christian narrative, ideology, and imagery to make socio-political comment. And who or what is a “true Christian”? Many Catholics view Protestants as wrong. Many Protestants view Catholics as wrong. Many Baptists do not think highly of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Jehovah’s Witness think that anyone who is not a Jehovah’s Witness is not a Christian and is going to hell. So, when you say “a true Christian message,” exactly which one do you mean? However, Prince’s religious/spiritual language, lyrics, and imagery comes directly from the Christian Bible which is my point. Prince, based on the language and lyrics that he used, was basing his ideology or rooting his ideology in the Christian Bible. That can’t be disputed. The fact that any group of Christians may find fault with what he was or is doing does not make him a special case, and it does not negate that he was working within the framework of the Christian text, narrative, and ideology.

*

SuperFurryAnimal said: As for certain declines in his music. If you follow the history of most musicians they will have some decline in standard of output. It happened to the best of the best. That's why when someone dies at 27 club and at that point they recorded and are on top of the world they just become legends and can do no wrong but would they record classic albums forever?? I don't think so. The belief is on how great they could have been but that's all a dream. Even if ones music doesn't decline, people will move on because people are trendy. Once something happens and its cool its over for bandwagoners.

*

I agree with this point, and I never said that Prince’s decline is related to his becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. However, I am baffled that people keep feeling a need to tell me this when I never connected his decline to becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.

Jamzone333 said:

Marrk said:

You won't find many if any. Main reason for that is his supposed decline started way before he became a JW.

Peaks and valleys. That's Prince's career.

People should accept not everything is going to be awesome and stop moaning.

.

[Edited 9/5/12 3:40am]

Thank you! Aerosmith, KISS, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, if you are a musician or singer, you are not always entitled to having a hit song in this music business...give the Kid a break. It has nothing to do with his faith, plus, Prince isn't some 20 year old. He has grown and matured. I hate when critics try to lock him in the 1980s. Been there and done that...we are still talking about Prince because he has survived, even with the peaks and valleys.

Marrk said: You won't find many if any. Main reason for that is his supposed decline started way before he became a JW.

That's what I've always said, but many on this site have argued or proposed that becoming a JW has been the death nail in Prince's creativity, and I just want to see if there have been published articles that assert this.

Marrk said: Peaks and valleys. That's Prince's career. People should accept not everything is going to be awesome and stop moaning.

I also agree, but, again, my point of this thread is to find research. (And, so far, I have found five articles that connect Prince's decline to becoming a Jehovah's Witness; They are listed above in a previous post.)

1725topp said:

SuperFurryAnimal said: Prince was the furthest from someone with a true Christian message like someone…BTW, most Christians would be appauled by the amount of overt sexuality in P's music with a Christian message just like many Jehovah's consider joke.

*

I never said that Prince was a Christian in the eighties, though he would probably beg to differ. I said that he was working within a Christian framework or ideology. That is—he was using the Christian narrative, ideology, and imagery to make socio-political comment. And who or what is a “true Christian”? Many Catholics view Protestants as wrong. Many Protestants view Catholics as wrong. Many Baptists do not think highly of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Jehovah’s Witness think that anyone who is not a Jehovah’s Witness is not a Christian and is going to hell. So, when you say “a true Christian message,” exactly which one do you mean? However, Prince’s religious/spiritual language, lyrics, and imagery comes directly from the Christian Bible which is my point. Prince, based on the language and lyrics that he used, was basing his ideology or rooting his ideology in the Christian Bible. That can’t be disputed. The fact that any group of Christians may find fault with what he was or is doing does not make him a special case, and it does not negate that he was working within the framework of the Christian text, narrative, and ideology.

If he would beg to differ many of the sects would beg to differ. What I mean by "true Christian message" take songs like SexyMF, Gett Off, Darling Nikki on and on. etc, etc, etc, etc to any of those religous sects and it would not gel. I mean he had a side of him that was spiritual (following his own path), lyrics such as "I sincerely wanna fuck the taste out of your mouth!" and "Here's a church, here's a steeple Here's a muthafucka that I gotta blow away!" Not very kosher with any of the preachers/churches/christians I encountered. So if he was trying to portray a "religious" message (as in relation to any christian religious sect, the main divisions of Christianity being Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Christianity) it was going to be muddled by what else was going down and in the end would be considered spiritual. As a matter of fact it would be seen for the most part by religious sects as down right blasphemous, unfortuntaley.

1725topp said:

I agree with this point, and I never said that Prince’s decline is related to his becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. However, I am baffled that people keep feeling a need to tell me this when I never connected his decline to becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.

religion vs. spirituality:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mistic/mistic_10.htm

I think this vitriol at Prince's choice of religious beliefs is coming because the world today generally has a more critical eye of religion than it did back in the 70s and 80s...at least in America. Back then, the controversy came more from the fact that people thought his music was sacrilegious and too wild, not because he mentioned religion in a positive context.

Like an earlier poster said, it's like a lot of Prince fans never really paid attention to anything Prince was really singing about. Maybe the groove was too funky and his outfits too flashy for people to really get that most of his songs--particularly if they're nasty--have some reference to religion, by way of backmasking, making an obscure Biblical reference, comparing the feeling of sex/love/intimacy to a relationship with God, or whatever. It almost seems like Prince felt bad for being so sexual in his songs and wanted to make up for it by adding a religious tinge to it to soften the blow, so to speak.

I really think people should listen to his material a little more closely and if they don't like what he's saying, then don't listen and just leave it alone. It's a really douche move to belittle someone's art and person just because they are religious. Most of Prince's lyrics are about love of some sort and it's really odd that someone who tries to sow love and peace in the world receives so much hatred.

I'm really interested in reading the OP's finished product. Good luck!

[Edited 9/8/12 19:28pm]

SuperFurryAnimal said:

If he would beg to differ many of the sects would beg to differ. What I mean by "true Christian message" take songs like SexyMF, Gett Off, Darling Nikki on and on. etc, etc, etc, etc to any of those religous sects and it would not gel. I mean he had a side of him that was spiritual (following his own path), lyrics such as "I sincerely wanna fuck the taste out of your mouth!" and "Here's a church, here's a steeple Here's a muthafucka that I gotta blow away!" Not very kosher with any of the preachers/churches/christians I encountered. So if he was trying to portray a "religious" message (as in relation to any christian religious sect, the main divisions of Christianity being Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Christianity) it was going to be muddled by what else was going down and in the end would be considered spiritual. As a matter of fact it would be seen for the most part by religious sects as down right blasphemous, unfortuntaley.

Okay, so it seems we are at an impasse, which is caused by our inability to agree on certain "terms" or "terminology," which is not unusual because many disagreements are caused by two people who have differing views or understanding of terms. First, the fact that the Prince of the 1980s would beg to differ about how traditional Christian view him and that traditional Christians would beg to differ about Prince's Christianity does not negate the fact that Prince was working within and using the text, language, and imagery of the Christian Bible to make his points about what life should be. As a person who has been raised my entire life within Baptist teachings and who has read the entire Bible twice (along with the Quran/Koran, The Holy Book of Tao, and Confucius' Analects) and who has continued to study the Bible, it doesn't matter how "not very kosher" certain preachers/churches/Christians think Prince's work is; anyone who knows the narrative, language, and imagery of the Bible understands that Prince is working within the framework or ideology of the Christian Bible no matter how they feel about him using that text. Even if they feel that he is corrupting their text, narrative, imagery, and principles, they can't deny that he is using their text, narrative, imagery and principles. Now, I have said this twice and tried to present brief examples, and you have disagreed twice. So all we can do is agree to disagree as to what are the root and/or origin of the narrative, language, and imagery of Prince's early religious/spiritual work. Highly reputable scholars disagree all the time and maintain their integrity.

*

Secondly, I disagree with the narrow definition of spirituality as simply "following one's own path," and I disagree with most of the definitions of "spirituality" and "religion" presented on the website you provided. (Maybe if the site presents some etymology with those definitions, I might be inclined to accept them, but just on their face they read merely like someone else's opinion. And as a believer in the existence of a God, I am not minimizing or marginalizing someone else's opinion, but I have no reason to accept that site's notions of "religion" and "spirituality" over what I have studied from various sources.) For instance, "Religion is fed fear." That has never happened to me, and I have communed with organized churches most of my life. So, again, we have different notions or definitions of "spirituality" and "religion," which will make it difficult for us to come to any type of consensus. At this point, you have not provided anything that will make me change my position that Prince was working within the Christian framework or ideology, and I have not presented anything to change your position so we leave each other as we met each other.

*

Now, reconnecting our discussion to the original request of the thread, my article simply seeks to show how Prince is similar to Einstein and Newton in the way that all three were criticized for embracing religion as the driving force for their ontological study of the universe, and how this similarity is another point that can be used to show how the artist and the scientist have similar traits in their journey toward philosopher.

*

By the way, the word "blaspheme" and or the act of "blasphemy" means to deny the existence and power of the Holy Spirit after one has experienced or been witness to the existence or power of the Holy Spirit. I only add this "edit" to my response to show how meaningless it is to say that the so-call authorities would cite Prince's mixture of secular and Christian musings as "blasphemous" because most of the people who use this world or make this assertion do not actually know what it means, just as many of the people who claim to be authorities on Bible text, narrative, and imagery don’t have a clue. Don’t even get me started on how entire sects are based on the “Trinity,” even though the word “trinity” never appears in the Bible.

[Edited 9/8/12 20:40pm]

artist76 said:

I am not understanding how you plan to use Prince as an example in an article about Einstein and Newton. Einstein and Newton were scientists; Prince is as musician, an artist. Whether his creations are "in decline" or not is a matter of taste, aesthetics. Whether scientists are clouded in their profession by religious faith, now that I can see as a legitimate debate. Their profession is about uncovering how the physical universe operates and why, which may clash with official religious teachings. An artist's profession is to, well, make art that hopefully pleases some people. Many highly regarded artists were religious, and created religious art that inspires and pleases. It would be pretty impossible (or ridiculous, as databank said) to link the artist's "religiousness" with his/her success or decline in the endeavor of art. At most, you may find articles that note that Prince music is less explicit and salacious since JW.

What you are saying makes no sense at all. First you say analyzing decline of Science cause of Religion is possible as opposed to Art, that is impossible. At the same time you admit art and highly regarded artists were religious. So if they were, why is an analysis of religious decline in Art not possible? People used to express their religion with art way before they knew of the existence of Science. Aesthetics is not subjective to the viewer/listener. It's reality.

Maybe, I don't quite understand what you meant to say!!!

[Edited 9/9/12 0:02am]

1725topp said:

I am writing an article discussing how Einstein and Newton's peers and later scientists criticized them for the amount of time they spent, especially in their later years, engaging religion, and I'd like to use Prince as an example, but I can't find any published articles where writers attribute the decline in Prince's musical and lyrical ability/productivity to his conversion to the Jehovah's Witness faith. I know that a lot of people on this site have asserted this, and I would love to use those assertions, but for this article I must quote published articles. Any assistance provided will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Umm..I kinda think the Org is not very resourceful for finding quotable articles on this subject, since you are not writing on fandom. You'll need a search engine for press articles online or a library, that has an archive for that kinda thing, a music library maybe?

OzlemUcucu said:

Umm..I kinda think the Org is not very resourceful for finding quotable articles on this subject, since you are not writing on fandom. You'll need a search engine for press articles online or a library, that has an archive for that kinda thing, a music library maybe?

Thanks for the advice; along with one lead from an org member, I have found four other articles using seach engines and electronic data base archives. I knew I would not find many articles, but I just wanted to make sure that I left no stone unturned. These articles give me the language I need, but I'm going to search for a few more days just to see what else I can find. Thanks again.

1725topp said:

OzlemUcucu said:

Umm..I kinda think the Org is not very resourceful for finding quotable articles on this subject, since you are not writing on fandom. You'll need a search engine for press articles online or a library, that has an archive for that kinda thing, a music library maybe?

Thanks for the advice; along with one lead from an org member, I have found four other articles using seach engines and electronic data base archives. I knew I would not find many articles, but I just wanted to make sure that I left no stone unturned. These articles give me the language I need, but I'm going to search for a few more days just to see what else I can find. Thanks again.

Please share the articles. Thanks

Many people who are "spiritual" use religion to a degree in beliefs. But they are also not living but the strict rules of the church/religion. Maybe you could email Denise Matthews(Vanity) on the subject.

1725topp said:

Secondly, I disagree with the narrow definition of spirituality as simply "following one's own path," and I disagree with most of the definitions of "spirituality" and "religion" presented on the website you provided. (Maybe if the site presents some etymology with those definitions, I might be inclined to accept them, but just on their face they read merely like someone else's opinion. And as a believer in the existence of a God, I am not minimizing or marginalizing someone else's opinion, but I have no reason to accept that site's notions of "religion" and "spirituality" over what I have studied from various sources.) For instance, "Religion is fed fear." That has never happened to me, and I have communed with organized churches most of my life. So, again, we have different notions or definitions of "spirituality" and "religion," which will make it difficult for us to come to any type of consensus. At this point, you have not provided anything that will make me change my position that Prince was working within the Christian framework or ideology, and I have not presented anything to change your position so we leave each other as we met each other.

RoseDuchess12 said:

I think this vitriol at Prince's choice of religious beliefs is coming because the world today generally has a more critical eye of religion than it did back in the 70s and 80s...at least in America. Back then, the controversy came more from the fact that people thought his music was sacrilegious and too wild, not because he mentioned religion in a positive context.

Like an earlier poster said, it's like a lot of Prince fans never really paid attention to anything Prince was really singing about. Maybe the groove was too funky and his outfits too flashy for people to really get that most of his songs--particularly if they're nasty--have some reference to religion, by way of backmasking, making an obscure Biblical reference, comparing the feeling of sex/love/intimacy to a relationship with God, or whatever. It almost seems like Prince felt bad for being so sexual in his songs and wanted to make up for it by adding a religious tinge to it to soften the blow, so to speak.

Screw them people. Actually, a lot of people "got it" and I doubt I even would have popped a squat about GOD, Spirituality and seeking the truth without Prince. The key is to never live by another Preachers rule. All they do is beg for $$$ on Sunday.

SuperFurryAnimal said:

RoseDuchess12 said:

I think this vitriol at Prince's choice of religious beliefs is coming because the world today generally has a more critical eye of religion than it did back in the 70s and 80s...at least in America. Back then, the controversy came more from the fact that people thought his music was sacrilegious and too wild, not because he mentioned religion in a positive context.

Like an earlier poster said, it's like a lot of Prince fans never really paid attention to anything Prince was really singing about. Maybe the groove was too funky and his outfits too flashy for people to really get that most of his songs--particularly if they're nasty--have some reference to religion, by way of backmasking, making an obscure Biblical reference, comparing the feeling of sex/love/intimacy to a relationship with God, or whatever. It almost seems like Prince felt bad for being so sexual in his songs and wanted to make up for it by adding a religious tinge to it to soften the blow, so to speak.

Screw them people. Actually, a lot of people "got it" and I doubt I even would have popped a squat about GOD, Spirituality and seeking the truth without Prince. The key is to never live by another Preachers rule. All they do is beg for $$$ on Sunday.

Wawk? Is that what you mean? Where da fu** is your b..??

SuperFurryAnimal said:

Many people who are "spiritual" use religion to a degree in beliefs. But they are also not living but the strict rules of the church/religion. Maybe you could email Denise Matthews(Vanity) on the subject.

Most people, I believe, navigate life as best we know, based on the intellectual, emotional, and psychological tools we have been given from birth. The one thing that I have noticed in reading the texts of a lot of religions is that all speak to the reader and demand that the reader first take responsibility for one's development and improvement before trying to help someone else develop and improve. Thus, the biggest enemy or hindrance to most religions are the people who confess to be of a certain faith or religion but never live as the text states. I can truly say that I've never had any haters. For one, no one beyond me has ever had the ability to stop me from doing what I want to do. Secondly, I realize that most, if not all, of my bad circumstances were caused in some way by me. So, my goal is to spend as much time as possible improving my flaws. So, as for Ms. Matthews, I would email her, but, as the Matthew 7:5 states, I don't have time to worry about the twig in her eye when I have a log in mine.

*

Below are some articles that in some way connect the failure of The Rainbow Children to Prince being a Jehovah's Witness. Currently, I'm trying to separate the articles that criticize the album for its poor execution of the idea from the articles that seem to infer that being a Jehovah's Witness has made Prince less creative as well as sexist, racist, and overly dogmatic. So, I’m trying to make sure that I don’t just lump all criticism of The Rainbow Children into one pot of the people who don’t like it because it is related to his faith but use only articles that state or infer that being a Jehovah’s Witness has made him less creative. Also I have placed in bold the most critical lines that make the connection of the failure to the faith.

===================================================

*

From Spin Cycle/CitySearch.com

“Prince: The Rainbow Children” by Justin Hartung

"The Rainbow Children"'s cover art--a swirling painting of a jam session--makes it clear that Prince has reinvented himself once again. He has ditched the stiff drum-machine pop of his recent work in favor of a live and ferociously versatile band, creating his most organic and consistently innovative music since his genius output of the late-'80s. The exuberant title track has a jazz-rock fusion vibe that manages to do justice to both genres. Elsewhere, the band works it out James Brown-style, takes it to the couch with slow-jams, then heads into church for some lively, Vegas-infused gospel. Unfortunately, the record is burdened by a pretentious, overarching narrative about "the Wise One" and his struggle with "the Banished Ones." More disturbing is Prince's new attitude toward women, who are to be "in subjection" to the Wise One. Apparently, the good grace he feels towards his "rainbow children" has its limits.”

*

From Entertainment Weekly

“The Rainbow Children: Music Review” by Marc Weingarten

23 Nov 2001, p.82

Prince's worldview has always been a muddled conflation of one-world utopianism, Christianity, and paganism. This concept album, called The Rainbow Children, finds him trying to work through that tangled belief system with an epic rock-musical/morality play in which God's chosen, the rainbow children of the title, are anointed to deliver the Good Word about ''The Everlasting Now.'' Bible-thumping sincerity doesn't suit Prince well; the album's light jazz-funk grooves sink under the weight of his sanctimony. In a career marked by interesting failures, never has Prince sounded so prosaic. C+

*

From E! Online

“The experiments sometimes work, but the album is mainly weighted down by cryptic religious ramblings that sap the pop life right out of it.”

*

From The Onion A.V. Club

“Prince: The Rainbow Children” by Keith Phipps

The problem with labeling artists as geniuses is that sometimes they take the tag seriously, using it as a license to indulge every whim. After all, who's to question a genius? Prince lived up to the label for a long time, but his badge of genius began to weigh heavily on him as his commercial fortunes slipped in the early '90s, and subsequent efforts have found him alternating between courting the mainstream (1999's Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic) and delving ever deeper into the rabbit hole of a private mythology. The new The Rainbow Children falls squarely in the latter category. A mystical-striving conceptual piece along the lines of 1992's glyph-titled album, but without the Kirstie Alley spoken-word interludes or the catchy songs, Rainbow presents a genre-mixing musical account of some sort of apocalyptic/ utopian event. This seems mostly to involve a struggle between The Rainbow Children and The Banished Ones, characters such as The Muse and The Pharaoh, the destruction of something known as The Digital Garden, narration from a computer-distorted Prince, and a lot of the aimless smooth-jazz that's become a staple of his recent concerts. Much of Prince's genius used to lie in his ability to snare listeners into his genuinely avant-garde work, weird pop constructed from the outer reaches of R&B, funk, rock, and whatever else occurred to him. Here he mostly harnesses bits and pieces of the past -- James Brown on "The Work, Pt.1," Sly Stone on "The Everlasting Now," fusion-era Miles Davis most everywhere else -- in the service of a vision that makes sense only to him. The Rainbow Children contains one good song, a ballad called "She Loves Me 4 Me," buried beneath layers of spiritual horseshittery. On the albums that first earned Prince the label of genius, it was always the other way around.

*

From Slant Magazine

“Prince: The Rainbow Children, 2 of 5 Stars”

by Sal Cinquemani

November 21, 2001

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review/prince-the-rainbow-children/156

It's not until four minutes into Prince's latest offering, The Rainbow Children, that one can even recognize his Royal Purpleness's voice. Plagued by oddly distorted narratives and off-kilter jazz (is this the same genius who crafted the R&B/nü-jazz fusion of "Sexy M.F."?), the album's

concept consists of a string of failed, ultimately hollow parables (the Rainbow Children vs. the Banished Ones, "who just wanted this love to cease"). It's all very very far from the mystical and comparably fluid allegory of 1992's "7." "The Sensual Everafter" plays out more like an improv by Phish than Prince while the album's sole sexual reference sounds strangely out of place amid the artist's Christian anthems ("Wet circles round the toy/While you bring yourself to joy"). The album's saving graces are few and far between (the smooth-jazzy "She Loves Me 4 Me" and the retro-infused "1+1+1 is 3"); the electric guitar-driven "Family Name" is notable if only for its history-spewing futuristic intro: "Welcome. You have just accessed the Akashic Records Genetic Information Division." In the end, the autobiographical "Everlasting Now" sums up the painfully pedantic Rainbow pretty accurately: "This is funky but I just wish he'd play like he used to."

*

From Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Prince, 'The Rainbow Children”

by Jon Bream

Published Nov 23 2001

He's finally changed his tune. Prince has given up on making booty funk for horny 14-year-olds. Sonically, this 14-track disc is his most sophisticated and jazziest -- yet it's still typically experimental. For instance, the opening title track sounds like Steely Dan with a more soulful, contemporary vibe, punctuated by warm and eventually wacked out guitar and bent by a bit of narration by a robotic voice (reminiscent of Bob George from Prince's infamous ''Black Album''). Overall, the tempos here are mellow, the sound often mesmerizing and uplifting without being over-the-top. Throughout this P-Funk-goes-jazzy disc, Prince sparkles on guitar and keyboards.

While the music intrigues, the lyrics challenge. ''Rainbow Children'' is a concept album about God, spirituality and a world in which people of all colors get along. The vision and philosophizing are pure Prince -- cosmic, complex, confusing and, of course, coital (in polite, almost poetic euphemisms). It is not particularly controversial, despite what the sticker on the cover says. This is more cult-like.

*

From Express.co.uk

“The Pop Star Prince of Daftness”

by Anna Pukas

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/209460/The-popstar-Prince-of-daftness

November 4, 2010

HE'S become a door-knocking Jehovah's Witness who paints all his rooms purple and wears high heels. So let's hope the X Factor finalists who he's set to star with don't turn out like him.

Forget the cast-iron contracts, the manipulation of our emotions and the total control he exerts over every aspect of his vast and growing empire in the manner of a latter day Kubla Khan. For incontrovertible proof of the power of Simon Cowell we need only look ahead to December and the final of The X Factor.

It was reported yesterday that ­Cowell has lined up Prince as the headline guest star. If the diminutive rock enigma does indeed grace The X Factor stage in seven weeks’ time it will be a true testament to Cowell’s uncommon powers of persuasion in bringing the famously eccentric superstar together with what he ­professes to despise most about the music industry.

It was Prince, after all, who appeared in public with “slave” scrawled on his face to protest about what he saw as the unreasonable demands of his record company and the submission of creativity to the corporate creed. Yet the music business does not get more corporate than The X Factor with its choreographed hysteria.

More recently Prince bemoaned the derivative character of the ­current music scene. “All this Eighties dance revival stuff. All so plain, so simple, so obvious. The same old synthesisers, the same old chords.” Yet there is no bigger platform for safe music, no place less experimental than the ­Saturday night talent show broadcast at peak viewing time.

But then Prince has always been a mass of intrigue and contradictions. He has released records with sexually explicit lyrics, even touching on the ultimate taboo of incest, yet says he is a born-again prude since becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. Not only does he claim to have been celibate for a ­decade but he has also been known to visit lap-dancing clubs and offer the girls double their night’s wages if they stop working.

His singing voice is high but his speaking voice is a manly baritone. Now 52 he has racked up nearly 30 years of global superstardom and umpteen awards and appears on Time magazine’s most influential people list. Yet apart from a brief period of residence in Los Angeles four years ago he prefers to live in Minneapolis, his home town in the unpretentious American Mid West.

He used to throw after-show parties which were open to anyone who was on the mailing list of his fan club, yet he has given only three interviews in the past 10 years and is notoriously unforthcoming about his past or personal life. We know little about his two marriages, except that both ended in divorce – the first in the most tragic circumstances after the death of his son in 1997. Baby Gregory was born with Pfeiffer’s syndrome, a condition in which the bones of the skull fuse together and lived only for a week.

Even what we see of Prince the public persona is subject to conjecture. Is he black or mixed race? Is he gay or merely camp? His unusual Christian name is the one his parents gave him but he even dispensed with that for a period in favour of a squiggle roughly resembling the male and female symbols woven together. This meant hapless announcers were forced to refer to him by the clumsy ­soubriquet “the artist formerly known as Prince”. (The less reverential shortened it to TAFKAP.)

Paisley Park, his home and studio complex in Minneapolis, is awash with purple, his signature colour. Access is strictly limited to those in his inner circle. Tape recorders and cameras are banned and he is not too comfortable with notebooks either, yet Prince is not above ­carrying out his religious obligations by going door to door with copies of The Watchtower. He has the diva’s self-absorption and apparent indifference to anything outside his art. Yet his mind snaps into action like a steel trap when discussing ticket sales or the ­bottom line.

In the Nineties he pioneered the releasing of music via the internet, selling CDs from his own website in 1998 and via a download shop as early as 2001. Now he declares the internet is “done for” and says he prefers to communicate face to face with actual human beings. He has shut down his websites and you will not find any of Prince’s music on YouTube or iTunes.

“The internet is over,” he says. “I do not need to discuss my opinions with the whole world. I do not learn anything if I sit in front of a flat screen. I only learn from real people.”

As recently as July Prince told an interviewer, “I’m not part of the music industry any more.” Yet when he flies over to Britain to perform in The X Factor he will be steeped in that bread-and-butter activity of the music business, touring. So what is the real story of Prince? First he is an authentic ­musical prodigy who can play 25 instruments. Born in June 1958, his father John Nelson was a pianist and songwriter while his Italian-American mother Mattie was a singer. His father named him Prince Rogers after his jazz band, the Prince Roger Trio. John and Mattie split up a few years later and Prince went to live with his father. By the age of five he was touring with him. John Nelson was a Seventh Day Adventist which means he took a dim view when he caught his 12-year-old son in bed with a girl and threw him out. By then young Prince was already musically active in school bands and was signed up by Warner Brothers straight out of high school.

He wrote and sang all the songs and played all the instruments on his debut album For You but the big breakthrough came in 1982 with the album 1999, which sold three ­million copies. Two years later ­Purple Rain sold 13 million copies and made him an international star. The single When Doves Cry stayed at Number 1 for six weeks.

Second Prince is and always has been genuinely odd, as well as blessed with remarkable self-belief. Purple Rain was actually the ­soundtrack to a self-aggrandising film based on his life when he was still a relative newcomer to fame.

The squiggle years began in 1993 on June 7, his birthday. Prince announced he was shedding his name because his record label had divested him of his identity “in perpetuity”. It took him another three years to break away and form his own label, New Power Generation. Throughout the Eighties and early Nineties the diminutive star (he is only 5ft 2in) was linked to a string of glamorous women, including the actresses Kim Basinger and Sherilyn Fenn and the Scottish singer Sheena Easton.

But on Valentine’s Day 1996 he married Mayte Garcia, one of his backing group. However the ­marriage could not withstand the trauma of their baby’s death. Prince threw himself into touring while Mayte retreated to Minneapolis and the couple divorced in 1999. His next marriage in 2001 was to a Mayte lookalike named Manuela Testolini who worked for Prince’s charity Love4OneAnother. Five years later that was over too.

The guitarist Larry Graham, former bass player with Sly And The Family Stone, is credited with ­introducing Prince to the Jehovah’s Witness faith.

Securing Prince’s services for The X Factor is undoubtedly another feather in Simon Cowell’s cap. He had just better not bring a notebook with him.

RoseDuchess12 said:

I think this vitriol at Prince's choice of religious beliefs is coming because the world today generally has a more critical eye of religion than it did back in the 70s and 80s...at least in America. Back then, the controversy came more from the fact that people thought his music was sacrilegious and too wild, not because he mentioned religion in a positive context.

Like an earlier poster said, it's like a lot of Prince fans never really paid attention to anything Prince was really singing about. Maybe the groove was too funky and his outfits too flashy for people to really get that most of his songs--particularly if they're nasty--have some reference to religion, by way of backmasking, making an obscure Biblical reference, comparing the feeling of sex/love/intimacy to a relationship with God, or whatever. It almost seems like Prince felt bad for being so sexual in his songs and wanted to make up for it by adding a religious tinge to it to soften the blow, so to speak.

I really think people should listen to his material a little more closely and if they don't like what he's saying, then don't listen and just leave it alone. It's a really douche move to belittle someone's art and person just because they are religious. Most of Prince's lyrics are about love of some sort and it's really odd that someone who tries to sow love and peace in the world receives so much hatred.

I'm really interested in reading the OP's finished product. Good luck!

[Edited 9/8/12 19:28pm]

Prince was and is no different than the people he grew up a fan of like Marvin Gaye, Little Richard and Al Green, both of whom seriously struggled with the spirit and the flesh. Marvin never quite figured it out and got consumed by it at the end; Al and Richard have integrated their secular music with their sacred ministry without being overly judgmental or preachy. Prince is still struggling with how to piece both worlds together. When he goes secular, it's too much (at times) and when he goes sacred, it's too much (at times). Prince always bordered on the extreme no matter what it was.

There are two reasons why you should put your pen down and think about another topic for your Journal.

Prince always made music about his faith, particularly at his peak. During purple rain days he made a song called GOD, he mentioned that the Lord is coming during Darling Nikki, his faith has always been one of his driving factors.

The other reason is that Prince is still alive and kicking, he could hake a massive number 1 album next year, his last few albums (maybe not his best) but can hardly be considered a huge decline - not many artists can maintain the success of Purple Rain and sign of the times. Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Elton John, Madonna, etc you could say they are in "decline" too but you can hardly blame religion.

Therefore you have nothing to write about, find another comparitive.

1725topp said:

SuperFurryAnimal said:

Many people who are "spiritual" use religion to a degree in beliefs. But they are also not living but the strict rules of the church/religion. Maybe you could email Denise Matthews(Vanity) on the subject.

Most people, I believe, navigate life as best we know, based on the intellectual, emotional, and psychological tools we have been given from birth. The one thing that I have noticed in reading the texts of a lot of religions is that all speak to the reader and demand that the reader first take responsibility for one's development and improvement before trying to help someone else develop and improve. Thus, the biggest enemy or hindrance to most religions are the people who confess to be of a certain faith or religion but never live as the text states. I can truly say that I've never had any haters. For one, no one beyond me has ever had the ability to stop me from doing what I want to do. Secondly, I realize that most, if not all, of my bad circumstances were caused in some way by me. So, my goal is to spend as much time as possible improving my flaws. So, as for Ms. Matthews, I would email her, but, as the Matthew 7:5 states, I don't have time to worry about the twig in her eye when I have a log in mine.

*

Below are some articles that in some way connect the failure of The Rainbow Children to Prince being a Jehovah's Witness. Currently, I'm trying to separate the articles that criticize the album for its poor execution of the idea from the articles that seem to infer that being a Jehovah's Witness has made Prince less creative as well as sexist, racist, and overly dogmatic. So, I’m trying to make sure that I don’t just lump all criticism of The Rainbow Children into one pot of the people who don’t like it because it is related to his faith but use only articles that state or infer that being a Jehovah’s Witness has made him less creative. Also I have placed in bold the most critical lines that make the connection of the failure to the faith.

===================================================

*

From Spin Cycle/CitySearch.com

“Prince: The Rainbow Children” by Justin Hartung

"The Rainbow Children"'s cover art--a swirling painting of a jam session--makes it clear that Prince has reinvented himself once again. He has ditched the stiff drum-machine pop of his recent work in favor of a live and ferociously versatile band, creating his most organic and consistently innovative music since his genius output of the late-'80s. The exuberant title track has a jazz-rock fusion vibe that manages to do justice to both genres. Elsewhere, the band works it out James Brown-style, takes it to the couch with slow-jams, then heads into church for some lively, Vegas-infused gospel. Unfortunately, the record is burdened by a pretentious, overarching narrative about "the Wise One" and his struggle with "the Banished Ones." More disturbing is Prince's new attitude toward women, who are to be "in subjection" to the Wise One. Apparently, the good grace he feels towards his "rainbow children" has its limits.”

*

From Entertainment Weekly

“The Rainbow Children: Music Review” by Marc Weingarten

23 Nov 2001, p.82

Prince's worldview has always been a muddled conflation of one-world utopianism, Christianity, and paganism. This concept album, called The Rainbow Children, finds him trying to work through that tangled belief system with an epic rock-musical/morality play in which God's chosen, the rainbow children of the title, are anointed to deliver the Good Word about ''The Everlasting Now.'' Bible-thumping sincerity doesn't suit Prince well; the album's light jazz-funk grooves sink under the weight of his sanctimony. In a career marked by interesting failures, never has Prince sounded so prosaic. C+

*

From E! Online

“The experiments sometimes work, but the album is mainly weighted down by cryptic religious ramblings that sap the pop life right out of it.”

*

From The Onion A.V. Club

“Prince: The Rainbow Children” by Keith Phipps

The problem with labeling artists as geniuses is that sometimes they take the tag seriously, using it as a license to indulge every whim. After all, who's to question a genius? Prince lived up to the label for a long time, but his badge of genius began to weigh heavily on him as his commercial fortunes slipped in the early '90s, and subsequent efforts have found him alternating between courting the mainstream (1999's Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic) and delving ever deeper into the rabbit hole of a private mythology. The new The Rainbow Children falls squarely in the latter category. A mystical-striving conceptual piece along the lines of 1992's glyph-titled album, but without the Kirstie Alley spoken-word interludes or the catchy songs, Rainbow presents a genre-mixing musical account of some sort of apocalyptic/ utopian event. This seems mostly to involve a struggle between The Rainbow Children and The Banished Ones, characters such as The Muse and The Pharaoh, the destruction of something known as The Digital Garden, narration from a computer-distorted Prince, and a lot of the aimless smooth-jazz that's become a staple of his recent concerts. Much of Prince's genius used to lie in his ability to snare listeners into his genuinely avant-garde work, weird pop constructed from the outer reaches of R&B, funk, rock, and whatever else occurred to him. Here he mostly harnesses bits and pieces of the past -- James Brown on "The Work, Pt.1," Sly Stone on "The Everlasting Now," fusion-era Miles Davis most everywhere else -- in the service of a vision that makes sense only to him. The Rainbow Children contains one good song, a ballad called "She Loves Me 4 Me," buried beneath layers of spiritual horseshittery. On the albums that first earned Prince the label of genius, it was always the other way around.

*

From Slant Magazine

“Prince: The Rainbow Children, 2 of 5 Stars”

by Sal Cinquemani

November 21, 2001

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review/prince-the-rainbow-children/156

It's not until four minutes into Prince's latest offering, The Rainbow Children, that one can even recognize his Royal Purpleness's voice. Plagued by oddly distorted narratives and off-kilter jazz (is this the same genius who crafted the R&B/nü-jazz fusion of "Sexy M.F."?), the album's

concept consists of a string of failed, ultimately hollow parables (the Rainbow Children vs. the Banished Ones, "who just wanted this love to cease"). It's all very very far from the mystical and comparably fluid allegory of 1992's "7." "The Sensual Everafter" plays out more like an improv by Phish than Prince while the album's sole sexual reference sounds strangely out of place amid the artist's Christian anthems ("Wet circles round the toy/While you bring yourself to joy"). The album's saving graces are few and far between (the smooth-jazzy "She Loves Me 4 Me" and the retro-infused "1+1+1 is 3"); the electric guitar-driven "Family Name" is notable if only for its history-spewing futuristic intro: "Welcome. You have just accessed the Akashic Records Genetic Information Division." In the end, the autobiographical "Everlasting Now" sums up the painfully pedantic Rainbow pretty accurately: "This is funky but I just wish he'd play like he used to."

*

From Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Prince, 'The Rainbow Children”

by Jon Bream

Published Nov 23 2001

He's finally changed his tune. Prince has given up on making booty funk for horny 14-year-olds. Sonically, this 14-track disc is his most sophisticated and jazziest -- yet it's still typically experimental. For instance, the opening title track sounds like Steely Dan with a more soulful, contemporary vibe, punctuated by warm and eventually wacked out guitar and bent by a bit of narration by a robotic voice (reminiscent of Bob George from Prince's infamous ''Black Album''). Overall, the tempos here are mellow, the sound often mesmerizing and uplifting without being over-the-top. Throughout this P-Funk-goes-jazzy disc, Prince sparkles on guitar and keyboards.

While the music intrigues, the lyrics challenge. ''Rainbow Children'' is a concept album about God, spirituality and a world in which people of all colors get along. The vision and philosophizing are pure Prince -- cosmic, complex, confusing and, of course, coital (in polite, almost poetic euphemisms). It is not particularly controversial, despite what the sticker on the cover says. This is more cult-like.

*

From Express.co.uk

“The Pop Star Prince of Daftness”

by Anna Pukas

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/209460/The-popstar-Prince-of-daftness

November 4, 2010

HE'S become a door-knocking Jehovah's Witness who paints all his rooms purple and wears high heels. So let's hope the X Factor finalists who he's set to star with don't turn out like him.

Forget the cast-iron contracts, the manipulation of our emotions and the total control he exerts over every aspect of his vast and growing empire in the manner of a latter day Kubla Khan. For incontrovertible proof of the power of Simon Cowell we need only look ahead to December and the final of The X Factor.

It was reported yesterday that ­Cowell has lined up Prince as the headline guest star. If the diminutive rock enigma does indeed grace The X Factor stage in seven weeks’ time it will be a true testament to Cowell’s uncommon powers of persuasion in bringing the famously eccentric superstar together with what he ­professes to despise most about the music industry.

It was Prince, after all, who appeared in public with “slave” scrawled on his face to protest about what he saw as the unreasonable demands of his record company and the submission of creativity to the corporate creed. Yet the music business does not get more corporate than The X Factor with its choreographed hysteria.

More recently Prince bemoaned the derivative character of the ­current music scene. “All this Eighties dance revival stuff. All so plain, so simple, so obvious. The same old synthesisers, the same old chords.” Yet there is no bigger platform for safe music, no place less experimental than the ­Saturday night talent show broadcast at peak viewing time.

But then Prince has always been a mass of intrigue and contradictions. He has released records with sexually explicit lyrics, even touching on the ultimate taboo of incest, yet says he is a born-again prude since becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. Not only does he claim to have been celibate for a ­decade but he has also been known to visit lap-dancing clubs and offer the girls double their night’s wages if they stop working.

His singing voice is high but his speaking voice is a manly baritone. Now 52 he has racked up nearly 30 years of global superstardom and umpteen awards and appears on Time magazine’s most influential people list. Yet apart from a brief period of residence in Los Angeles four years ago he prefers to live in Minneapolis, his home town in the unpretentious American Mid West.

He used to throw after-show parties which were open to anyone who was on the mailing list of his fan club, yet he has given only three interviews in the past 10 years and is notoriously unforthcoming about his past or personal life. We know little about his two marriages, except that both ended in divorce – the first in the most tragic circumstances after the death of his son in 1997. Baby Gregory was born with Pfeiffer’s syndrome, a condition in which the bones of the skull fuse together and lived only for a week.

Even what we see of Prince the public persona is subject to conjecture. Is he black or mixed race? Is he gay or merely camp? His unusual Christian name is the one his parents gave him but he even dispensed with that for a period in favour of a squiggle roughly resembling the male and female symbols woven together. This meant hapless announcers were forced to refer to him by the clumsy ­soubriquet “the artist formerly known as Prince”. (The less reverential shortened it to TAFKAP.)

Paisley Park, his home and studio complex in Minneapolis, is awash with purple, his signature colour. Access is strictly limited to those in his inner circle. Tape recorders and cameras are banned and he is not too comfortable with notebooks either, yet Prince is not above ­carrying out his religious obligations by going door to door with copies of The Watchtower. He has the diva’s self-absorption and apparent indifference to anything outside his art. Yet his mind snaps into action like a steel trap when discussing ticket sales or the ­bottom line.

In the Nineties he pioneered the releasing of music via the internet, selling CDs from his own website in 1998 and via a download shop as early as 2001. Now he declares the internet is “done for” and says he prefers to communicate face to face with actual human beings. He has shut down his websites and you will not find any of Prince’s music on YouTube or iTunes.

“The internet is over,” he says. “I do not need to discuss my opinions with the whole world. I do not learn anything if I sit in front of a flat screen. I only learn from real people.”

As recently as July Prince told an interviewer, “I’m not part of the music industry any more.” Yet when he flies over to Britain to perform in The X Factor he will be steeped in that bread-and-butter activity of the music business, touring. So what is the real story of Prince? First he is an authentic ­musical prodigy who can play 25 instruments. Born in June 1958, his father John Nelson was a pianist and songwriter while his Italian-American mother Mattie was a singer. His father named him Prince Rogers after his jazz band, the Prince Roger Trio. John and Mattie split up a few years later and Prince went to live with his father. By the age of five he was touring with him. John Nelson was a Seventh Day Adventist which means he took a dim view when he caught his 12-year-old son in bed with a girl and threw him out. By then young Prince was already musically active in school bands and was signed up by Warner Brothers straight out of high school.

He wrote and sang all the songs and played all the instruments on his debut album For You but the big breakthrough came in 1982 with the album 1999, which sold three ­million copies. Two years later ­Purple Rain sold 13 million copies and made him an international star. The single When Doves Cry stayed at Number 1 for six weeks.

Second Prince is and always has been genuinely odd, as well as blessed with remarkable self-belief. Purple Rain was actually the ­soundtrack to a self-aggrandising film based on his life when he was still a relative newcomer to fame.

The squiggle years began in 1993 on June 7, his birthday. Prince announced he was shedding his name because his record label had divested him of his identity “in perpetuity”. It took him another three years to break away and form his own label, New Power Generation. Throughout the Eighties and early Nineties the diminutive star (he is only 5ft 2in) was linked to a string of glamorous women, including the actresses Kim Basinger and Sherilyn Fenn and the Scottish singer Sheena Easton.

But on Valentine’s Day 1996 he married Mayte Garcia, one of his backing group. However the ­marriage could not withstand the trauma of their baby’s death. Prince threw himself into touring while Mayte retreated to Minneapolis and the couple divorced in 1999. His next marriage in 2001 was to a Mayte lookalike named Manuela Testolini who worked for Prince’s charity Love4OneAnother. Five years later that was over too.

The guitarist Larry Graham, former bass player with Sly And The Family Stone, is credited with ­introducing Prince to the Jehovah’s Witness faith.

Securing Prince’s services for The X Factor is undoubtedly another feather in Simon Cowell’s cap. He had just better not bring a notebook with him.

these are just reviews, merely opinions - this is not social science and cannot be used for legitimate research in any journal .

vinx98 said:

There are two reasons why you should put your pen down and think about another topic for your Journal.

Prince always made music about his faith, particularly at his peak. During purple rain days he made a song called GOD, he mentioned that the Lord is coming during Darling Nikki, his faith has always been one of his driving factors.

The other reason is that Prince is still alive and kicking, he could hake a massive number 1 album next year, his last few albums (maybe not his best) but can hardly be considered a huge decline - not many artists can maintain the success of Purple Rain and sign of the times. Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Elton John, Madonna, etc you could say they are in "decline" too but you can hardly blame religion.

Therefore you have nothing to write about, find another comparitive.

You do realize that my paper is not about Prince's artistic or commercial rise or decline, or did you just half read some points and decide to post? I am not analyzing or discussing whether or not Prince is in decline, and I am not taking a position on whether or not Prince’s decline is due to his religion. You would have realized these two points had you thoroughly read what I have written. I am comparing the artist and the scientist in their roles as philosopher, and one part of the paper, again one part of the paper, is comparing the manner in which both the artist and the scientist are usually criticized for an ontological engagement of the universe, especially when religion is the driving force of that ontological engagement of the universe and when that artist’s or scientist’s position runs counter to the norms of one’s peers or followers. To this point, Prince, Einstein, and Newton have all been criticized for this. That is a fact--an actual documented occurrence. As for the articles, yes, they are reviews/opinions, which is a component of most literary/artistic analysis found in any humanities journal, even though these articles are from popular trade magazines and not journals. Furthermore, these reviews/opinions that Prince's artistic/creative decline is due to his becoming a Jehovah's Witness shows/proves that Prince has experienced the same negative criticism for embracing religion as Newton and Einstein, and this particular criticism of Prince can be used to relate the artist to the similar treatment of the scientist, especially the occurrence of scientists having aesthetic conflicts with other scientists and not just empirical conflicts, and these aesthetic conflicts occur mostly when a scientist is engaging or exploring an ontological understanding of the universe. So, based on all of that and the fact that I have spent the past fifteen years being published in journals (poetry, fiction, literary theory, and social science), why should I listen to you about my topic?

*

Finally, you do know that social science and aesthetic/literary/artistic theory are often combined in humanities journals as well as science journals, depending on the topic, or have you somehow missed that development over the past one hundred years of publishing? As I guess you know, based on your tone, often ideas that begin in the public/popular/mass sphere/space (i.e. trade magazines) can migrate to a more scholarly space (journals) where those ideas are either affirmed or denounced. My job is merely to propose the idea, which I have done on numerous occasions, and that idea is either embraced or rejected based on paper’s acceptance or rejection by the journal. In this case, I am using/building information for one part/point of my paper, which does not include me asserting that Prince is in decline due to his becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. Next time, please read thoroughly to know what somebody is doing before you tell them not to do something. I don’t mean to appear flippant, but it does annoy me that you, taking some authoritative tone, felt that you could tell me what not to do when, clearly, you had/have no idea what I am doing.

Timmy84 said:

RoseDuchess12 said:

I think this vitriol at Prince's choice of religious beliefs is coming because the world today generally has a more critical eye of religion than it did back in the 70s and 80s...at least in America. Back then, the controversy came more from the fact that people thought his music was sacrilegious and too wild, not because he mentioned religion in a positive context.

Like an earlier poster said, it's like a lot of Prince fans never really paid attention to anything Prince was really singing about. Maybe the groove was too funky and his outfits too flashy for people to really get that most of his songs--particularly if they're nasty--have some reference to religion, by way of backmasking, making an obscure Biblical reference, comparing the feeling of sex/love/intimacy to a relationship with God, or whatever. It almost seems like Prince felt bad for being so sexual in his songs and wanted to make up for it by adding a religious tinge to it to soften the blow, so to speak.

I really think people should listen to his material a little more closely and if they don't like what he's saying, then don't listen and just leave it alone. It's a really douche move to belittle someone's art and person just because they are religious. Most of Prince's lyrics are about love of some sort and it's really odd that someone who tries to sow love and peace in the world receives so much hatred.

I'm really interested in reading the OP's finished product. Good luck!

[Edited 9/8/12 19:28pm]

Prince was and is no different than the people he grew up a fan of like Marvin Gaye, Little Richard and Al Green, both of whom seriously struggled with the spirit and the flesh. Marvin never quite figured it out and got consumed by it at the end; Al and Richard have integrated their secular music with their sacred ministry without being overly judgmental or preachy. Prince is still struggling with how to piece both worlds together. When he goes secular, it's too much (at times) and when he goes sacred, it's too much (at times). Prince always bordered on the extreme no matter what it was.

I agree with you. And Prince is Prince so I just accept all of it. I enjoy both extremes of his music. I believe that all of us have a bit of duality to our natures and Prince just really showcases his.

in my opinion .. lol .. it's not his faith that caused his decline but rather his lack of real friends and his effort to make friends thru his musical output

in any regard .. i think you will have better luck quoting prince own lyrics than to find articles or interviews .. considering prince interviews for the most part are minimal .. and he is so personal and revealing in his lyrics

for example .. i can count my friends on a peace sign .. one .. two ..

prince dumped the revolution .. those were his friends and probably his last true friends .. his best music was inspired or at least meant to impress certain individuals .. usually romantic .. sometimes just wendy and lisa .. but later we see him try to impress the tony m crew by throwing in mutherfuckers and raps .. he wants to be friends with renato and blackwell so he tries to write jazzier tunes .. and rainbow chillin is clearly an ode to larry graham .. his child hood hero that he desparately wants to be down with since he dumped all his old friends and is lonely

without true friends .. and with only cheap plastic friends like your tony m or larry to impress .. his music became ingenuine .. less artistic .. more of a conversation .. like .. hey look what i can do .. i can quote scripture and play jazz and rap and sound rich and like im a playa .. look at me .. be my friend .. i am just like you .. i get it .. i get jazz .. i get rap .. i get jw .. see i put it on my record .. look at me .. chuck d likes me .. ?estlove likes me .. will you be my friend?

his music became conversational .. likely because he had has no friends to have conversations with .. so we might get a conversation about family names or microchips or even something like reflection sounds more like a conversation than a song or poetry .. i think prince used to sit around bullshitting with friends and come away from that inspired to write poetry .. to sum it all up in some elequent phrase .. delicately decorated with words and mannerisms he picked up from his friends (think the time jams or even a title like susannahs pajamas or next time wipe the lipstick ...) .. during his 'decline' it became like he was preaching a sermon to strangers .. explaining every little thing and trying to sound convincing .. but its no longer an interaction with fans .. its more of prince telling his fans what is on his mind .. why .. not because of his faith .. but because of his loneliness .. he has no outlet for these conversations because he is insecurely trying to impress larry .. not just hang with him and make cool music ..

i think if he had real people in his life that really loved him, not his fame and money or business opportunity, he wouldn't be trying to converse with his fans thru his music .. his expression would be more pure, more of a overall pistache of his life and world than a lonely guy trying to fit in and make friends with his new age ideas ...

prince always had faith .. i think it was more pure in the 80's .. more real .. i don't think you can convincingly argue a "decline" TO his faith .. i think its his events in the real physical world that affected his decline far more than his faith

I wonder is this still something that Prince follows... "not writing from an angry place"

PRINCE TALKS

BY NEAL KARLEN

Rolling Stone Mag 1990

The change, he says, came soon after he finished the Black Album, in 1987. The reason the album was pulled from release had nothing to do with record-company pressure, he insists, or with the quality of the songs. Rather, Prince says, he aborted the project because of one particular dark night of the soul "when a lot of things happened all in a few hours." He won't get specific, saying only that he saw the word God. "And when I talk about God," he says, "I don't mean some dude in a cape and beard coming down to Earth. To me, he's in everything if you look at it that way.

"I was very angry a lot of the time back then," he continues, "and that was reflected in that album. I suddenly realized that we can die at any moment, and we'd be judged by the last thing we left behind. I didn't want that angry, bitter thing to be the last thing. I learned from that album, but I don't want to go back."

By the time of the album Lovesexy, Prince says, he was a certifiably nicer human being -- and a happier creator. "I feel good most of the time, and I like to express that by writing from joy," he says. "I still do write from anger sometimes, like 'Thieves in the Temple.' But I don't like to. It's not a place to live."

We all need to look into the dark side of our nature -that's where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we're busy denying.

-Sue Grafton

TrevorAyer said:

in my opinion .. lol .. it's not his faith that caused his decline but rather his lack of real friends and his effort to make friends thru his musical output

in any regard .. i think you will have better luck quoting prince own lyrics than to find articles or interviews .. considering prince interviews for the most part are minimal .. and he is so personal and revealing in his lyrics

Thanks for the insight, but, again, I think you, like a few others, misunderstand what I'm doing. It is not my position or goal to link Prince's decline with his becoming a Jehovah's Witness. For the record, I don't think that his creativity has declined. I am simply looking for articles, of which I have found six so far, that infer or connect Prince's decline to his religion so that I can show how Prince is similar to Einstein and Newton, in terms of being criticized for religion being the driving force of his ontological understanding and exploration of the universe, which relates to my larger discussion comparing the artist and the scientist in their role as philosopher.

OldFriends4Sale said:

I wonder is this still something that Prince follows... "not writing from an angry place"

PRINCE TALKS

BY NEAL KARLEN

Rolling Stone Mag 1990

The change, he says, came soon after he finished the Black Album, in 1987. The reason the album was pulled from release had nothing to do with record-company pressure, he insists, or with the quality of the songs. Rather, Prince says, he aborted the project because of one particular dark night of the soul "when a lot of things happened all in a few hours." He won't get specific, saying only that he saw the word God. "And when I talk about God," he says, "I don't mean some dude in a cape and beard coming down to Earth. To me, he's in everything if you look at it that way.

"I was very angry a lot of the time back then," he continues, "and that was reflected in that album. I suddenly realized that we can die at any moment, and we'd be judged by the last thing we left behind. I didn't want that angry, bitter thing to be the last thing. I learned from that album, but I don't want to go back."

By the time of the album Lovesexy, Prince says, he was a certifiably nicer human being -- and a happier creator. "I feel good most of the time, and I like to express that by writing from joy," he says. "I still do write from anger sometimes, like 'Thieves in the Temple.' But I don't like to. It's not a place to live."

We all need to look into the dark side of our nature -that's where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we're busy denying.

-Sue Grafton

One, I have always loved this article. Two, I always took Prince's last statement above not as he never again intends to write from anger or from an angry place but that he was learning to be more balanced from becoming more mature. "Billy Jack Bitch," for example, seems like a song that begins in anger or annoyance, but also seems to be written by a more mature writer who can balance that negative emotion by being introspective. "What if I called you silly names, just like the ones that you call me? What if I filled your eyes with tears, so many you could not see?" And even today, Prince, like all people, especially artists, may be moved or inspired by anger, but he seems to have matured and learned how to balance anger with introspection or inner peace.

*

And while I appreciate the discussion, I am not sure how it relates to my question/request, unless you are responding to another poster. But, thanks, nonetheless, for reminding me of one of my favorite articles.

RoseDuchess12 said:

Timmy84 said:

Prince was and is no different than the people he grew up a fan of like Marvin Gaye, Little Richard and Al Green, both of whom seriously struggled with the spirit and the flesh. Marvin never quite figured it out and got consumed by it at the end; Al and Richard have integrated their secular music with their sacred ministry without being overly judgmental or preachy. Prince is still struggling with how to piece both worlds together. When he goes secular, it's too much (at times) and when he goes sacred, it's too much (at times). Prince always bordered on the extreme no matter what it was.

I agree with you. And Prince is Prince so I just accept all of it. I enjoy both extremes of his music. I believe that all of us have a bit of duality to our natures and Prince just really showcases his.

Yes, indeed! ^^^

TrevorAyer said:

in my opinion .. lol .. it's not his faith that caused his decline but rather his lack of real friends and his effort to make friends thru his musical output

in any regard .. i think you will have better luck quoting prince own lyrics than to find articles or interviews .. considering prince interviews for the most part are minimal .. and he is so personal and revealing in his lyrics

for example .. i can count my friends on a peace sign .. one .. two ..

prince dumped the revolution .. those were his friends and probably his last true friends .. his best music was inspired or at least meant to impress certain individuals .. usually romantic .. sometimes just wendy and lisa .. but later we see him try to impress the tony m crew by throwing in mutherfuckers and raps .. he wants to be friends with renato and blackwell so he tries to write jazzier tunes .. and rainbow chillin is clearly an ode to larry graham .. his child hood hero that he desparately wants to be down with since he dumped all his old friends and is lonely

without true friends .. and with only cheap plastic friends like your tony m or larry to impress .. his music became ingenuine .. less artistic .. more of a conversation .. like .. hey look what i can do .. i can quote scripture and play jazz and rap and sound rich and like im a playa .. look at me .. be my friend .. i am just like you .. i get it .. i get jazz .. i get rap .. i get jw .. see i put it on my record .. look at me .. chuck d likes me .. ?estlove likes me .. will you be my friend?

.. l

his music became conversational likely because he had has no friends to have conversations with .. so we might get a conversation about family names or microchips or even something like reflection sounds more like a conversation than a song or poetry .. i think prince used to sit around bullshitting with friends and come away from that inspired to write poetry .. to sum it all up in some elequent phrase .. delicately decorated with words and mannerisms he picked up from his friends (think the time jams or even a title like susannahs pajamas or next time wipe the lipstick ...) .. during his 'decline' it became like he was preaching a sermon to strangers .. explaining every little thing and trying to sound convincing .. but its no longer an interaction with fans .. its more of prince telling his fans what is on his mind .. why .. not because of his faith .. but because of his loneliness .. he has no outlet for these conversations because he is insecurely trying to impress larry .. not just hang with him and make cool music ..

i think if he had real people in his life that really loved him, not his fame and money or business opportunity, he wouldn't be trying to converse with his fans thru his music .. his expression would be more pure, more of a overall pistache of his life and world than a lonely guy trying to fit in and make friends with his new age ideas ...

prince always had faith .. i think it was more pure in the 80's .. more real .. i don't think you can convincingly argue a "decline" TO his faith .. i think its his events in the real physical world that affected his decline far more than his faith

You can't be serious, because how can you say he doesn't have people in his life that love him, unless you know him personally? That's a bit reaching to say the least. Many musicians/artists have conversations with their listeners/fans through their music, that's not something unusual. Especially with socio-political songs.

As far as creativity, if the creative skills arent there for any musician/artist in the first place, then it would never had been there at all, regardless of whom they collaborate with during their music career.

I don’t believe Prince's creative skills declined at all, what I do believe is what took place is a decline in the music industry in seeking real talent, and their lost of interest in the creativity of many artists, and the fact that the music industry has changed drastically. Prince is basically one of the last musicians/artists of his era, to revolutionize music, by his introduction of a sound that was unfamiliar to many. There hasn’t been another musician/artist since he introduced that sound, along with the groups he created, which were extensions of his creative vision.

Let’s go back a bit. Once rap/hip-hop started to dominate the music industry in the mid to late 80s, by the time the 90s rolled around, it basically surrendered to the demands of rap/hip-hop, which took over the industry full force . This is the same thing that happened when ‘Disco’ took over the mid 70s, and dominated the music industry, throwing a lot of major r&b artists/bands, as well as, popular, rock artists/bands to the curb, and many finding themselves out of the loop, struggling to survive, and some surrendering to the demands of disco, to survive/stay relevant to their fan base.

When a specific ‘sound’ so-to-speak is in demand, the music industry will supply, and that is what they did. They saw the high interest from the young generations of that time, and focused more on finding various rap/hip-hop artists, which they knew would bring in fast, money, and many rap/hip-hop artists did well, mainly those who stayed on top of their game.

This was a time period, where ‘swearing/sexually-explicit lyrics' was very much a part of many rap artist’s game, as well as using sexually-suggestive body movements, and scantily-clad females on stage to grasp their audiences’ attention. Any of that sound familiar? Well, there you go. Is that not the same thing Prince did in his music/performances that attracted and shocked many of his fans, and kept them mesmerized? The difference is, he used instruments, real music by real musicians to back that up. So now while those later artists started doing what Prince already did…who else was there for him to compete with but himself?

There was nothing else to shock and awe in that way, because everybody else started doing what he already did. Real music in the industry had died during much of that time period that rap dominated it, because not only was there so much sampling of the music of real musicians, by so-called rap artists, but the music industry lacked seeking creative, non-rap-hip-hop artists for quite sometime now.There are a handful, but no guarantee, they will be able to achieve a 30-year plus career with classics. So no, I wouldn’t say his creativity declined, I would say the music industry’s lack of interest in non-rap/hip-hop artists, after the late 90s is what declined.

What I see now, with whatever rap artists are left from the late 90s to early 2000s, are many of them collaborating with with 'pop' artists, to stay relevant, which the sound of what you hear on much of the radio today, sounds like 'electronica-hip-pop (yes, I said 'hip-pop' because that is exactly what it all sounds like--nothing creative about it whatsoever.

'Punctuation/a few spelling edits'

[Edited 9/11/12 16:57pm]

1725topp said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

I wonder is this still something that Prince follows... "not writing from an angry place"

PRINCE TALKS

BY NEAL KARLEN

Rolling Stone Mag 1990

The change, he says, came soon after he finished the Black Album, in 1987. The reason the album was pulled from release had nothing to do with record-company pressure, he insists, or with the quality of the songs. Rather, Prince says, he aborted the project because of one particular dark night of the soul "when a lot of things happened all in a few hours." He won't get specific, saying only that he saw the word God. "And when I talk about God," he says, "I don't mean some dude in a cape and beard coming down to Earth. To me, he's in everything if you look at it that way.

"I was very angry a lot of the time back then," he continues, "and that was reflected in that album. I suddenly realized that we can die at any moment, and we'd be judged by the last thing we left behind. I didn't want that angry, bitter thing to be the last thing. I learned from that album, but I don't want to go back."

By the time of the album Lovesexy, Prince says, he was a certifiably nicer human being -- and a happier creator. "I feel good most of the time, and I like to express that by writing from joy," he says. "I still do write from anger sometimes, like 'Thieves in the Temple.' But I don't like to. It's not a place to live."

We all need to look into the dark side of our nature -that's where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we're busy denying.

-Sue Grafton

One, I have always loved this article. Two, I always took Prince's last statement above not as he never again intends to write from anger or from an angry place but that he was learning to be more balanced from becoming more mature. "Billy Jack Bitch," for example, seems like a song that begins in anger or annoyance, but also seems to be written by a more mature writer who can balance that negative emotion by being introspective. "What if I called you silly names, just like the ones that you call me? What if I filled your eyes with tears, so many you could not see?" And even today, Prince, like all people, especially artists, may be moved or inspired by anger, but he seems to have matured and learned how to balance anger with introspection or inner peace.

*

And while I appreciate the discussion, I am not sure how it relates to my question/request, unless you are responding to another poster. But, thanks, nonetheless, for reminding me of one of my favorite articles.

That interview showed a delusional side of Prince (saying the Time broke up because they ran out of things to sing about etc)

I post this because, in those pieces he's comparing the darker & "God experience" to changes in albums music song writing. If he possibly is writting from a 'quenched' life experience ... does it cause a decline in his stardom or creative fullness

Sometimes you gotta feel it to let it out