Just wanted to reiterate, this song is incredibly funky. Love it.

love the shit out of this

and then it's mostly downhill from there....

errant said:

love the shit out of this

and then it's mostly downhill from there....

errant said:

love the shit out of this

and then it's mostly downhill from there....

i kind of like the rest of the album too, there's some nice stuff on there

but that title track kind of stole the thunder from all the rest of the disc.

Damn shame the album became another poorly promoted great Prince album. Musicology was a very good Prince album with a fantastic tour. 3121 was much better, but the tour was basically the shows in Vegas. Some were awesome, and some were just a bunch of cover songs. Most of the songs were never played live, and he went back to his 1996-2000 habit of editing songs to the point of some just being the opening verse and chorus with no real structure.

Had he given half of a damn about the album, and about live performances, I can imagine a tour setlist like this (all songs performed in full length, no lengthy crowd chants to watered down grooves)

3121

Fury

I Like It There

Witness 4 The Prosecution

Black Sweat

Love

Sign O The Times

Play In The Sunshine

The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

If I Was Your Girlfriend

U Got The Look

Kiss

When Doves Cry

Let's Go Crazy

Lovesexy

The Dance

Te Amo Corazon

Uptown

Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?

Endorphinmachine

Data Bank

Strange Relationship/6

The Beautiful Ones

Encore:

Purple Rain

Anna Stesia

But, just another pipe dream for me. A setlist like this with full length performances without some crazy crowd hype or shortened songs is not something Prince is capable of now, or back in 2006.

God, please let 2013 be like 1980-89, 2002, or 2004....Prince's best touring years.

stillwaiting said:

errant said:

I find 3121 to be his weakest album of the last 10 years (aside from 20ten maybe). There are a few real gems on here, but I find it to sound so overproduced that the life is nearly sucked out of the entire thing.

For met that title goes to Musicology.

errant said:

I find 3121 to be his weakest album of the last 10 years (aside from 20ten maybe). There are a few real gems on here, but I find it to sound so overproduced that the life is nearly sucked out of the entire thing.

On a few songs, sure, nice point. Overall, a very strong album to me. I also have an odd opinion on Fury: Where Endorphinmachine went from a strong rock song to an over-produced keyboard hell on Gold, Fury actually sounds great to me with all the keyboards.

Of course, where I differ from the average orger is this: I love nearly all his studio albums, and really enjoy all of the albums from 2002 on, save for MPLSound, which I just think was ok....I think it's his live performances that have suffered with ever changing band members despite always being called the NPG, watered down arrangements, cringe worthy moments dating back to Tony M & the Star Trek Next Generation outfits, up to taking a great singer like Shelby and turning her into a laughable crowd flunky.

General org consensus: Later albums suck, but he's still the best live

My opinion: Later albums mostly awesome, but he's weak live, and on occasion, he can be the best there is live...but he likes to go through the motions too much for my tastes with covers, and the previous points I made.

TheEnglishGent said:

errant said:

For met that title goes to Musicology.

for me too. although i agree that the 3121 album sounds overproduced, it had no songs that

i absolutely cannot stand (well, it did: the dance and the last half of lolita)

musicology on the other hand has a handfull of amazing songs and the other half of the disc

is filled with songs that i probably care the least for out of all his recorded material. however

the production on musicology is a lot better. the songs get a bit of room at least.

to an extend the 3 albums between TRC and Lotus all had some amazing moments on them

and have a few songs that i consider genuine prince classics, but they are weighed down by

either too many so-so songs or total stinkers, or let down by their production.

i thought that at least with Lotus he was on the right track again. that album finally felt like a

cohesive album again, which is probably why so many people love it. it's an experience, it's

an actual album instead of something that feels like a mix tape of songs.

20Ten went right back into the whole musicology/3121/planetearth modus where he had the

great stuff stuck onto a disc with songs that didn't fit the flow or where just not good enough.

the production is ok on that album imo.

I'll just talk about 3121 the song, since that's what the OP specified: I absolutely adore it. The first time I heard it, I couldn't stop grinning for days. I'm only slighly exaggerating, too. I still love this song, SO MUCH, and I can't understand why it hasn't become a live staple. He should play this at every single show.

My favorite live version (that I've heard, and there have only been a few) would have to be the one that was (I think) released on the 3121 website. The horns on this (and I tend to agree that sometimes the horns get overwhelming) are killer, and I want it to never end.

I also liked the live version on the BET awards show (I think that's where it was ... with the weird Japanese fan things).

theblueangel said:

I'll just talk about 3121 the song, since that's what the OP specified: I absolutely adore it. The first time I heard it, I couldn't stop grinning for days. I'm only slighly exaggerating, too. I still love this song, SO MUCH, and I can't understand why it hasn't become a live staple. He should play this at every single show.

My favorite live version (that I've heard, and there have only been a few) would have to be the one that was (I think) released on the 3121 website. The horns on this (and I tend to agree that sometimes the horns get overwhelming) are killer, and I want it to never end.

I also liked the live version on the BET awards show (I think that's where it was ... with the weird Japanese fan things).

It's really more of a studio song. I think BET performance was really good. After TRC, he really didn't put much effort into promoting any of his new albums or songs. I really like the Camille voice coming in, and the guitar coming out of nowhere at the end(Sure, he calls for the guitar, but it was unexpected for me on my first listen).

I bought the album day of release as always, and the title track was a big strong point. I thought some of the more recent albums had only average opening tracks (Emancipation, New Power Soul, Rave, TRC) and Musicology's was weak in my opinion.(Yeah, even a Pirnce studio album lover like me thought Musicology was one of his weaker James Brown rip off songs). To me, 3121 and Planet Earth were both awesome songs to lead the album with.

IstenSzek said:

TheEnglishGent said:

For met that title goes to Musicology.

for me too. although i agree that the 3121 album sounds overproduced, it had no songs that

i absolutely cannot stand (well, it did: the dance and the last half of lolita)

musicology on the other hand has a handfull of amazing songs and the other half of the disc

is filled with songs that i probably care the least for out of all his recorded material. however

the production on musicology is a lot better. the songs get a bit of room at least.

to an extend the 3 albums between TRC and Lotus all had some amazing moments on them

and have a few songs that i consider genuine prince classics, but they are weighed down by

either too many so-so songs or total stinkers, or let down by their production.

i thought that at least with Lotus he was on the right track again. that album finally felt like a

cohesive album again, which is probably why so many people love it. it's an experience, it's

an actual album instead of something that feels like a mix tape of songs.

20Ten went right back into the whole musicology/3121/planetearth modus where he had the

great stuff stuck onto a disc with songs that didn't fit the flow or where just not good enough.

the production is ok on that album imo.

It still baffles me how different opinions can be. I feel The Dance is one of his best songs. Not quite where I would rank The Beautiful Ones, but probably in my Top 15 of the last 15 years easy. I agree that Lolita loses steam halfway through with the chants.

I still am amazed that on the Musicology Tour, that most of my Prince friends and I were pretty much in agreement that A Million Days, Call My Name, and Reflection were the best 3 songs, but he continued to hammer away at Life O The Party, Musicology, and On The Couch. He even played the very bland Dear Mr Man in full. I was lucky to catch one of the few, if not only performances of A Million Days, though it was in the acoustic set, and very short.

Back to 3121: The song was strong enough to lead off an entire tour...much more so than Musicology. Prince just didn't tour in 2006. He did that meandering club thing in Vegas, with one off shows here and there. Waste of a great song and great album.

stillwaiting said:

IstenSzek said:

for me too. although i agree that the 3121 album sounds overproduced, it had no songs that

i absolutely cannot stand (well, it did: the dance and the last half of lolita)

musicology on the other hand has a handfull of amazing songs and the other half of the disc

is filled with songs that i probably care the least for out of all his recorded material. however

the production on musicology is a lot better. the songs get a bit of room at least.

to an extend the 3 albums between TRC and Lotus all had some amazing moments on them

and have a few songs that i consider genuine prince classics, but they are weighed down by

either too many so-so songs or total stinkers, or let down by their production.

i thought that at least with Lotus he was on the right track again. that album finally felt like a

cohesive album again, which is probably why so many people love it. it's an experience, it's

an actual album instead of something that feels like a mix tape of songs.

20Ten went right back into the whole musicology/3121/planetearth modus where he had the

great stuff stuck onto a disc with songs that didn't fit the flow or where just not good enough.

the production is ok on that album imo.

It still baffles me how different opinions can be. I feel The Dance is one of his best songs. Not quite where I would rank The Beautiful Ones, but probably in my Top 15 of the last 15 years easy. I agree that Lolita loses steam halfway through with the chants.

I still am amazed that on the Musicology Tour, that most of my Prince friends and I were pretty much in agreement that A Million Days, Call My Name, and Reflection were the best 3 songs, but he continued to hammer away at Life O The Party, Musicology, and On The Couch. He even played the very bland Dear Mr Man in full. I was lucky to catch one of the few, if not only performances of A Million Days, though it was in the acoustic set, and very short.

Back to 3121: The song was strong enough to lead off an entire tour...much more so than Musicology. Prince just didn't tour in 2006. He did that meandering club thing in Vegas, with one off shows here and there. Waste of a great song and great album.

well, i don't really hate "the dance", i actually think it's a very pretty ballad. but just not the version

on the 3121 album. it just turns into this melo dramatic scream fest that doesn't feel genuine to me

at all. the early version of this songs on "the chocolate invasion" is infinitely more interesting to me.

as for the bolded part of your reply, i completely agree with everything there. although i can see

how musicology actually worked quite well in his shows, i thought that life of the party was just a

blemish on his output and on the couch never really went anywhere. he even re-wrote it, better,

as "satisfied", lol.

3121 remains a great song and it worked well in concert too. they did many different versions and

most of them kept going for 8 minutes without becoming boring. imo it should have remained on

his setlist until today. it has great energy and a monstrous groove that keeps the momentum of a

show going.

"3121" is great Prince song. Innovative arrangement, creative structure, and a sound like no other.

"Money don't Matter 2night", (brought up on the forums as well) on the other hand, fails this test for me personally. I was bored with that one on first listen back in '92

I am going to stick to the TOPIC; and just say YES!FOR SURE!

One of the funkiest JAMS! The bass, and drums sound so sexy as they syncopate together!

I love the trippy lyrics, and spiritual reference!

When the guitar comes in, it's just all kinds of nasty!

Use to love the song more than i do now. the whole 3121 concept and number thing is cool and something prince should keep alive. i love the way he dressed during the 3121 era. the song is really good on indigo nights.