and hey, I said DISAPPOINTING (not necessarily bad or the worst he has ever released), I'm talkin' bout a P album that left you cold, puzzled, confused, embittered, in other words, an album you WANTED TO LIKE but you couldn't...

for me, it's EMANCIPATION, hands down, I was only a 90s kid when it came out, but even then I could feel that something was not right about that album. The artwork, the song order, the singles, the production (ugh!), the lyrics, etc. everything was meant to be perfect and epic but the actual results were very poor, overall...damn, even the cds/booklet smell weird...

Prince was NOT meant to release a triple-cd of original material, more like a double, during his 80s peak...

discuss

Well expectations ran real high throughout the 1980's: I'd have to say DP: purely because it was a mainstream release devoid of most of Prince's stylistic intricacies.

But MOST disappointing: tie between MPLSound (thankfully we also has Lotusflow3r)/ and 20TEN. Thankfully Prince has had a break.

80spfantwp said:

But MOST disappointing: tie between MPLSound (thankfully we also has Lotusflow3r)/ and 20TEN. Thankfully Prince has had a break.

Yeah, his last few have been stinkers, 20ten being the crap cherry on top of the poop sunday

3-Way Tie between MPLSoUND, New Power Soul, and IMO the worst Prince album ever made, 20 FUCKIN TEN

fellas! FELLAS! I said disappointing! not the "worst"

JoeTyler said:

fellas! FELLAS! I said disappointing! not the "worst"

Exactly. I had high expectations for those three albums

-People were talking about how "back to basics" MPLSound was. I remember one reviewer calling it "Controversey : The Saga Continues". Nowadays, I can only stomach U're Gonna C Me and Here.

-Prince went into full hype gear with New Power Soul, saying that it was "one of the maddest and funkiest records" he's ever made. The result :

-After the fantastic LOtUSFLOW3R album, I was expecting something along those lines with the next album. What I got was 20TEN : his most boring, bland, and tired funk "jams" he's ever put on record. The only good thing about this album is that it makes for a good coaster and frisbee.

[Edited 9/16/12 16:31pm]

20Ten. Everytime I decide to listen that album, I skip every damn song after few seconds, and it takes overall about 8 minutes to finish listening the whole thing.

Overall MplsSound is much better than LotusShit, and Emancipation is far underrated by everyone. It's one of my top albums.

You all need to re-listen to Emancipation, there is something severly wrong with your deaf ears!!!

OzlemUcucu said:

20Ten. Everytime I decide to listen that album, I skip every damn song after few seconds, and it takes overall about 8 minutes to finish listening the whole thing.

Overall MplsSound is much better than LotusShit, and Emancipation is far underrated by everyone. It's one of my top albums.

You all need to re-listen to Emancipation, there is something severly wrong with your deaf ears!!!

This. Once you cut out the filler, it's a solid double disc album.

Disc 1:
Jam Of The Year (6:09)
Right Back Here In My Arms (4:42)
Somebody's Somebody (4:43) 1
Get Yo Groove On (6:31)
Courtin' Time (2:46)
Face Down (3:16)
Joint 2 Joint (6:52)
White Mansion (4:47)
I Can't Make U Love Me (6:37) 3
Mr. Happy (4:46) 4
Sleep Around (7:41) 8
In This Bed I Scream (5:40)

Disc 2:
Sex In The Summer (5:56)
Soul Sanctuary (4:41) 5
Slave (4:51)
New World (3:42)
Curious Child/Dreamin' About U (7:53)
The Holy River (6:55)
Let's Have A Baby (4:07)
My Computer (4:36)
One Of Us (5:19) 9
The Love We Make (4:38)
Emancipation (4:12)
Goodbye (4:35)

[Edited 9/16/12 16:35pm]

[Edited 9/16/12 16:35pm]

Yeah, and also the love Lotusshit gets here is incomprehensible. MplsSound is where the sound is, he promoted it with Ol'Skool and yet everyone is talking about the other crap. It's same as 20Ten to me, anyway. I have to yet listen to that without skipping every song, Lotus that is.

80spfantwp said:

Well expectations ran real high throughout the 1980's: I'd have to say DP: purely because it was a mainstream release devoid of most of Prince's stylistic intricacies.

But MOST disappointing: tie between MPLSound (thankfully we also has Lotusflow3r)/ and 20TEN. Thankfully Prince has had a break.

And this is true! I can barely listen to any on that except Insatiable once in a while. Plus it has the worst song ever - Cream!

Emancipation by a long shot. critical time for him, finally "free" and able to put out a triple disc, and BEHOLD, it has enough filler for 8 CHEESEcakes. i'd waited to cop it, found it used and still felt jipped

There's been a few.

I was disappointed with Diamonds, Rave, MPLS/Lotus and Chaos. Out of those four i would have to say that Rave was the one that left me with the most intense WTH feeling. My expectations were high with that album. It was Prince's first album on a major label in a while and it was going to be released in 1999 so i was stoked. I was sure it was going to be a funk fest but boy was i wrong. I was so underwhelmed with Rave that i sold the cassette back to the store that i brought it from. In my opinion the album didn't live up to the pre release hype. Over the years I've come to appreciate Rave and most of the albums i mentioned(except MPLS/ Lotus). I just think it was the wrong album at the wrong time.

[Edited 9/16/12 17:11pm]

PurpleMedley122 said:

OzlemUcucu said:

20Ten. Everytime I decide to listen that album, I skip every damn song after few seconds, and it takes overall about 8 minutes to finish listening the whole thing.

Overall MplsSound is much better than LotusShit, and Emancipation is far underrated by everyone. It's one of my top albums.

You all need to re-listen to Emancipation, there is something severly wrong with your deaf ears!!!

This. Once you cut out the filler, it's a solid double disc album.

folks, we're talkin about the album the WAY IT IS, of course without the filler is a decent single disc album

but as a triple magnum opus it was just a mess

Diamonds & Pearls

My fan level at that time was still fanatical, and despite the rather boring Batman album, Prince was still putting out really interesting stuff.

So, after the media blitz and hoopla surrounding D&P, and the leading video and single "Get Off", I was really expecting so much more.

The Batman album would be the second most dissapointing album for me. I can't remember which music critic said it, but he said something like this: "It's not that Batman is a bad album. It's just that with Prince, you expect so much more." And, that was my view on it.

These days, I don't really get that dissapointed because my expectations are so low, and my fan level is a bit different now.

JoeTyler said:

PurpleMedley122 said:

This. Once you cut out the filler, it's a solid double disc album.

folks, we're talkin about the album the WAY IT IS, of course without the filler is a decent single disc album

but as a triple magnum opus it was just a mess

Whatever! At least he was going through some notion with Emancipation. These days he's not going throught ANYTHING at all, and his output is less interesting than cat poo mashed with Alolotion voice. I am a people pleaser, yeah right!? More likely I'M a poo pleaser!

That current output is like a sleeping pill!

[Edited 9/16/12 17:14pm]

imago said:

Diamonds & Pearls

My fan level at that time was still fanatical, and despite the rather boring Batman album, Prince was still putting out really interesting stuff.

So, after the media blitz and hoopla surrounding D&P, and the leading video and single "Get Off", I was really expecting so much more.

The Batman album would be the second most dissapointing album for me. I can't remember which music critic said it, but he said something like this: "It's not that Batman is a bad album. It's just that with Prince, you expect so much more." And, that was my view on it.

These days, I don't really get that dissapointed because my expectations are so low, and my fan level is a bit different now.

Expectations are below low level. In fact I don't expect anything at all. I'm happy if there is one song at least that I can go mad about on an album, but that may be already high expectation.

20ten. I haven't been a Prince fan very long so this is the only album since I've been a fan I could call disappointing. I love Planet Earth and LotusFlo3r (2 Of my favorites by him) and MPLSound was alright. 20ten was just decently produced, poorly written and performed crap with a great song shoved in between.

I really hate when people talk about condensing Emancipation. As far as we know we could have had all the shitty songs had he condensed it down.

OzlemUcucu said:

20Ten. Everytime I decide to listen that album, I skip every damn song after few seconds, and it takes overall about 8 minutes to finish listening the whole thing.

Overall MplsSound is much better than LotusShit,

Ha ha ha ha ha, I do this exact same thing with 20ten. Sometimes I'll go back and listen to the Peach and Black Podcast and they totally cream their pants about this one, then I 'listen' to it again (which takes about 8 minutes) and I decide I can no longer trust Peach and Black lol

And to your second point, I can never, have never, will never understand this strange org love for LotusFailur3. It's Prince doing Musak santna-lite riffs and turning the autotune up so he sounds like he's under water. WTF? MPLSound is a turkey in my book, but it's a HUGE step up from Lotus.

And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that while it's no masterpiece, any Prince fan worth his salt has a soft spot for New Power Soul

aardvark15 said:

20ten. I haven't been a Prince fan very long so this is the only album since I've been a fan I could call disappointing. I love Planet Earth and LotusFlo3r (2 Of my favorites by him) and MPLSound was alright. 20ten was just decently produced, poorly written and performed crap with a great song shoved in between.

Curious...

what is this great song you speak of?

I think it's rock vs. funk with Lotusshit and mplssound. If you don't dig rock ever, you won't like it!

It's nostalgia rock, and goes well with some fanatics, but P promoted mpls to begin with and not lotus.

Wildboy said:

OzlemUcucu said:

20Ten. Everytime I decide to listen that album, I skip every damn song after few seconds, and it takes overall about 8 minutes to finish listening the whole thing.

Overall MplsSound is much better than LotusShit,

Ha ha ha ha ha, I do this exact same thing with 20ten. Sometimes I'll go back and listen to the Peach and Black Podcast and they totally cream their pants about this one, then I 'listen' to it again (which takes about 8 minutes) and I decide I can no longer trust Peach and Black lol

And to your second point, I can never, have never, will never understand this strange org love for LotusFailur3. It's Prince doing Musak santna-lite riffs and turning the autotune up so he sounds like he's under water. WTF? MPLSound is a turkey in my book, but it's a HUGE step up from Lotus.

And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that while it's no masterpiece, any Prince fan worth his salt has a soft spot for New Power Soul

^ I can see that, but I usually enjoy Prince's Rock and Funk. I just felt that MPLS was stronger (still probably a 3 or 4 out of 10 though)

Wildboy said:

^ I can see that, but I usually enjoy Prince's Rock and Funk. I just felt that MPLS was stronger (still probably a 3 or 4 out of 10 though)

If it is just 3-4 you need to clean your ears, there are about 3-4 good sons on the album. Lotus has 2-3 songs on the album that are listnable every two years.

Overall all albums were shit tho, allolotion mashed with cat poo will rescue the world....as it seems!

[Edited 9/16/12 18:35pm]

I mean the album was a 4 out of ten, not that there were for good songs.

"The Vault" or "Chaos and Disorder".

Actually "Emancipation" after all the hype was probably the most disappointing.

The first 4 tracks of "20ten" are better than Most anything on Emancipation outside of "Slave". Emancipation sounds bland and generic to me outside of that one song.

Wildboy said:

Wildboy said:

And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that while it's no masterpiece, any Prince fan worth his salt has a soft spot for New Power Soul

Emancipation was my most disappointing Prince album and I think it is one of the most underrated Prince albums. I think the albulm would be stronger if he produced it in more of a Prince vibe sound, than the contemporary R&B sound that he produced it to be.

I think Emancipation is a strong work it just suffers from the production choices.

I also have disappointment in 20Ten do to the lack of great lyrics and the lack of the catchy hit single song that should be on any of Prince albums.

Indigo Nights not enough Prince and the sound is kind of like a bad bootleg.

Raveuntothejoyfantastic trying to hard to sound current and would have been better sounding more in the Prince sound more so than the current radio sound.

Just one?

I had no problem with D&P at Prince being all Pop and what not.

Maybe Musicology, cricitally prasied & hyped by everyone to be his big comeback to mainstream music, yet it was a snoozefest for me.