thedance said:

you are wrong. make it "after 1995" instead of 1990.

(with a few exceptions those Prince albums since Gold Exp. are really weak).

thedance, may I ask, why do you make such a clear distinction with anything P did before and after WB?

SpiritOtter said:

The Rainbow Children contains some of Prince's most intense socio-cultural ideas, within a beautifully complex and masterful album of serious musical highlights; it is unparalleled even within Prince's own discography.

I confess I don't quite get yet TRC, I thought it was exprimental, creative, it has many surprising twists, I was kind of annoyed by the robotic Darth Vadder long-ass narrations, haven't looked yet for the controversial lyrics (which I`m afraid may shock me), but only two songs really enchanted me right away: ballads Muse 2 the Pharao and She Loves Me For Me. I dug 1+1+1 is 3 too. The rest of the songs and the album as a whole I still don't know what I can conclude. But I agree with you already when you say TRC sounds NOTHING like anything he's ever did before, it's certainly a creative turning point. That put, it can't be said creativity was absent from his 00s output completely as many claim. I would also add that with its progressive and psychedelic rock incursions, its Cream and Jimi Hendrix tones, Lotus Flower proved once again and more recently, in 2009, that sheer creativity is still in the game for Prince. This last one is also a creative point that stands unparalleled with his other work.

_______

I looooved Beginning Endlessly too! Got addicted to it. It sounds like 1999 (the album) with it's powerful keyboard driven sounds, yet has a modern contemporary (no, Im not talking contemporary pop hits) edge to it.

TRC is a great album if, like Prince, you pretend feminism, post-modernism, and post-medieval theology never happened.

SpiritOtter said:

It is a fact, and not my opinion, that your pantyhose is showing, PurpleKnight.

The Rainbow Children contains some of Prince's most intense socio-cultural ideas, within a beautifully complex and masterful album of serious musical highlights; it is unparalleled even within Prince's own discography. Similarly, NEWS and Xpectation are wonderfully vibrant examples of the type of funk-soul-jazz workouts Prince has always enjoyed committing to tape, but not necessarily releasing. You may want to cast your mind back to the genius of Once Upon A Time, eventually released on Eric Leed's Times Squared album, for the type of masterpiece that Prince creates and produces, which often remain unreleased. Luckily for us, he released these two efforts completely, unlike The Flesh sessions which it would be fair to say many afficionados are salivating at the likely prospect of an unofficial release. Questlove?

As an independent musician, it is quite a complex, confounding and infuriating industry to be in, even for the brightest of business minds or performing talents. It is clear that Prince has grown since his emancipation in not only his attempts to produce albums of a different nature to the aforementioned (i.e. less experimental and more mainstream), it is also clear he has become more disenfranchised with the gatekeepers of the industry, as well as his difficulties gaining success/acclaim. That said, I still find plenty of musical flashes of brilliance within his last few albums to keep me satisfied (Somewhere Here On Earth, The Word, Boom, Lion of Judah, Dreamer, No More Candy For You, Beginning Endlessly, Old School Company, Future Soul Song, Reflection). Nonetheless, for the few of us remaining with the patience and tenacity to still find his obscure musical offerings, I would conclude that we are still rather fortunate enough that he hasn't retired yet, for he has already more than catered for a lifetime's worth of pleasurable listening experiences.

Even within the past two years, where he has all but retired from publicly releasing his studio work, we are still fortunate enough to be gifted the beyond exemplorary Prince production on Superconductor, which comfortably rivals all past protege albums and, dare I say it, many of his own. And for the die hards amongst us, we have even given snippets of his unknown work from behind the scenes, too, with quite phenomenal old school funk and jazz reworkings (Old Friends For Sale, Mutiny, The Dance Electric, Days of Wild and Dark, to name but a few). And I won't even begin to tell you how good the new Prince album is sounding to my ears, especially with its depth of lyrical storytelling, fluidity in musical experimentation and maturity in production, because you would more than likely disregard that piece of information. Anyway, I would describe it as a mix between Sign O The Times (as a serious artistic statement), Camille or The Gold Experience (in terms of the burning attitude/'fire in his belly'/rebellion), Madhouse/N.E.W.S. (as a quite beautiful experiment) and Once Upon A Time/8 (in terms of production values and aesthetics). It's brilliant and nothing like Rock and Roll Love Affair, which is more like Superconductor in terms of its simplicity.

Perhaps, we should all be as successful navigating the artistic, musical and business divide.

love,

Spirit

.

[Edited 12/11/12 13:51pm]

well said.....well written and articulate!

jonylawson said:

SpiritOtter said:

It is a fact, and not my opinion, that your pantyhose is showing, PurpleKnight.

The Rainbow Children contains some of Prince's most intense socio-cultural ideas, within a beautifully complex and masterful album of serious musical highlights; it is unparalleled even within Prince's own discography. Similarly, NEWS and Xpectation are wonderfully vibrant examples of the type of funk-soul-jazz workouts Prince has always enjoyed committing to tape, but not necessarily releasing. You may want to cast your mind back to the genius of Once Upon A Time, eventually released on Eric Leed's Times Squared album, for the type of masterpiece that Prince creates and produces, which often remain unreleased. Luckily for us, he released these two efforts completely, unlike The Flesh sessions which it would be fair to say many afficionados are salivating at the likely prospect of an unofficial release. Questlove?

As an independent musician, it is quite a complex, confounding and infuriating industry to be in, even for the brightest of business minds or performing talents. It is clear that Prince has grown since his emancipation in not only his attempts to produce albums of a different nature to the aforementioned (i.e. less experimental and more mainstream), it is also clear he has become more disenfranchised with the gatekeepers of the industry, as well as his difficulties gaining success/acclaim. That said, I still find plenty of musical flashes of brilliance within his last few albums to keep me satisfied (Somewhere Here On Earth, The Word, Boom, Lion of Judah, Dreamer, No More Candy For You, Beginning Endlessly, Old School Company, Future Soul Song, Reflection). Nonetheless, for the few of us remaining with the patience and tenacity to still find his obscure musical offerings, I would conclude that we are still rather fortunate enough that he hasn't retired yet, for he has already more than catered for a lifetime's worth of pleasurable listening experiences.

Even within the past two years, where he has all but retired from publicly releasing his studio work, we are still fortunate enough to be gifted the beyond exemplorary Prince production on Superconductor, which comfortably rivals all past protege albums and, dare I say it, many of his own. And for the die hards amongst us, we have even given snippets of his unknown work from behind the scenes, too, with quite phenomenal old school funk and jazz reworkings (Old Friends For Sale, Mutiny, The Dance Electric, Days of Wild and Dark, to name but a few). And I won't even begin to tell you how good the new Prince album is sounding to my ears, especially with its depth of lyrical storytelling, fluidity in musical experimentation and maturity in production, because you would more than likely disregard that piece of information. Anyway, I would describe it as a mix between Sign O The Times (as a serious artistic statement), Camille or The Gold Experience (in terms of the burning attitude/'fire in his belly'/rebellion), Madhouse/N.E.W.S. (as a quite beautiful experiment) and Once Upon A Time/8 (in terms of production values and aesthetics). It's brilliant and nothing like Rock and Roll Love Affair, which is more like Superconductor in terms of its simplicity.

Perhaps, we should all be as successful navigating the artistic, musical and business divide.

love,

Spirit

.

[Edited 12/11/12 13:51pm]

well said.....well written and articulate!

And a total straw person. I didn't even state in this thread that Prince new music is objectively bad. I simply was asking that, of the people who don't like his recent output, what are the top excuses they tend to express? I'm referring to a specific set of Prince fans who don't like the new music at all and yet refuse to give up the hope that he is still capable of making music that will impress them. If you simply like Prince's new output, that's another matter altogether. If you like the new music, go enjoy the new music, and by all means enjoy expressing your praise for it. That isn't what this thread is really about.

Also, to say my "pantyhose" is showing is a disgustingly sexist remark, and perhaps this explains why this person loves TRC in spite of its love of anti-semitism, patriarchy, and homogeneity.

PurpleKnight said:

TRC is a great album

indeed

I heard someone say Prince's legacy will always be 78-88. I agree with that to an extent. There is good to great music after that period for sure.

His ordinary sounding stuff is weighing in on his great stuff, that's the problem. Thank fuck for playlists and other people's music eh?

Of course it's great he's still out there doing his thing, his way.

[Edited 12/18/12 5:54am]

BrazilianOnRaspberryBeret said:

NDRU said:

Actually, Prince's songwriting has been questionable all along. He's always come up with some great stuff, naturally, and continues to, but I don't see the Black Album as being chock full o' pop standards. When 2 R in Love is a well crafted song, but the rest is more interesting for its arrangements & creativity & daring.

I think Cindy C is a fun awesome funk epic, one of his best funk songs imo. Great songwriting. I have a blast every time I listen to it.

I was listening to The Dream Factory, and Train and Last Heart are nothing to write home about, song-wise. And that was during his supposed creative peak. It's Prince that made them great. Can't really separate the songs from the man & musician, in many cases (exceptions apply!)

Yes, but in order to cite bad songwriting you had to reccur to two obscure unreleased songs. He was unstopable in good songwriting for most of the 80s, very hard to pick bad songwriting in that time.

[Edited 12/17/12 22:32pm]

Don't get me wrong. Prince has written more great songs than most. He does it all. But I would say songs like Le Grind and Cindy C and Bob George and Superfunky and 2 Nigs are not great from a songwriting point of view. They're great tracks. That's different.

Marrk said:

I heard someone say Prince's legacy will always be 78-88. I agree with that to an extent. There is good to great music after that period for sure.

His ordinary sounding stuff is weighing in on his great stuff, that's the problem. Thank fuck for playlists and other people's music eh?

Of course it's great he's still out there doing his thing, his way.

[Edited 12/18/12 5:54am]

You've hit on an interesting debate amongst Prince fans. For some, the newer music is simply good, solid music that faces the impossible task of living up to his classics. For others (like me), the new music is simply bad, objectionable music by almost any standard. When I listened to albums like Musicology, 3121, Planet Earth and 20Ten, I didn't hear good albums that couldn't match up to Purple Rain, Parade, SOTT, etc. I just heard bad pop music.