herb4 said:

NewPowerSoul probabaly gets the worst rap as far as level of criticism vs. actual quality of content goes. Granted, the production is plastic and some of the funk is phoned in, but there's a lot of fun songs on this album. And any record that has 'The One', 'Come On, and 'Wasted Kisses' on it can't possibly suck as badly as everyone thinks. Those three songs are better than anything on Planet Earth, N.E.W.S. or Rave. Rave has aged horribly and was never that good to start with. It's the opposite of a grower.

Around the World in a Day took a lot shit from critics and made its way to the bargain rack rather quickly. I don't listen to it much because it;s not really my style but it's at least interesting, especially when it's not trying too hard to be clever and artsy and bending over backwards to be too obvious about what an "artistic statement" it is.

Honorable mention goes to Exodus. I'm not sure how it's perceived critically, but it doesn't seem like it gets much love around here and that disc is funky as shit. I've made prince fans out of non-believers by giving them that record. Same with the "Chocolate Invasion/Slaughterhouse" stuff.

Haven't gotten around to hearing exodus or chocalate invasion/slaughterhouse or any of the npgmc stuff cause theres no way for me to obtain it. and yes new power is way better than planet earth, rave, mpls, news.

At first listen i didn't like around the world in a day and thought i was his most overated album.

But i heard Prince perform the Lader live somewhere and becuase of how much i liked the performance it inspired me to reslisetn. ANd i actually kind of like the album but i wouldn't sasy love

Im gonna relisten to lovesexy one more time. because everyone on here seems to love it and i just can't get into it. I still have all of crystall ball , exodus, npgmc stuff, for you, and disc 2 of emancipation to listen to, and gonna do a reslisten of 20ten, and gonna lisetn to the remaining songs i haven't heard off of Rave.

herb4 said:

NewPowerSoul probabaly gets the worst rap as far as level of criticism vs. actual quality of content goes. Granted, the production is plastic and some of the funk is phoned in, but there's a lot of fun songs on this album. And any record that has 'The One', 'Come On, and 'Wasted Kisses' on it can't possibly suck as badly as everyone thinks.

I can agree with this. I think the notion of fun is important with that though. I sat with NewPowerSoul longer than most probably do and I like to think it's really not the complete crock of shit it's made out to be, but only if I take it at face value: a side-project album with some mediocre tracks, some low points, and some high points.

Cuddles said:

skywalker said:

riocoolnes said:

Well the riff works alot nicer in the max than on rave. I haven't heard the version of the song from 88 era but ive heard the rave un2 the joy fantastic sample used around that era on one of the batman songs i believe.

In any event, I like what you are saying because you are doing (what is sometimes unthinkable at Prince.org) and talking bad about a Prince song from a "golden" Prince era.

Question: Your critique of the song seems to be about the production value (which is oh so very 1988 Prince). What are your thoughts on the Lovesexy album? Batman?

"Rave un2" is crap! That's why it doesn't get mentioned very often. People had huge expectations because of the "Small Club" live bootleg and the fact that Prince envisioned an album named after it.

I think the best prince's years are the 83-88 and the 96-03 ones.

To answer to your question, The War, Kamasutra, The Truth, Xpetation, N.E.W.S., The Vault, One Nite Alone, C-Note, Crystal Ball, The Rainbow Children... are albums that did not get much reviews on magazine and often are left outside the prince's discography, but are the albums that made the difference between the "prince pop-star" and a more sophisticated pop-musician playing with music. Even other works like Newpowersoul, Chocolate Invasion, Slaghterhouse, Rave, Emancipation, are good works, but in less experimental and more commercial way.

No one of this works is a perfect works. All have problems of occasional creativity*, but in all there is something good and new from some point of view.

I have less interest for works from 2004 to 2013.

f.

* Kamasutra have nice moment and crappy keyboard-orchestra songs, N.E.W.S. have problem to find a musical theme to work with and put together different session to reach the 15 minutes, One nite alone is a demo that fails to be a complete and mature piano work, Crystal Ball have too much remix inside and missing some important bootleged songs, The Raibow children has got some sugar sweetish chorus in last song, in The truth is missing solid songs in second half of album... etc. etc.

rave is a mediocre record IMO. I do like the greatest romance and a couple of others i guess, but its too long and the songs aren't great either (well, most of them)

I wish he would have combined a couple of songs of Newpower Soul with the better stuff from Rave, kept it to about 40 minutes and we'd have a decent album.

true. We have an album like Grafitti Bridge with several mediocre songs while he had gems like "Pink Cashmere" waiting in the vault. Stuff like Open Book, Get Blue, I wonder etc could have been used because these songs are excellent.

Make fewer records and put your best songs on there, that is something prince didn't do.

This kinda leads to a point i make with people that as album artist prince isn't the greatest but is one of . Prince probably has the most GOOD albums of alltime but nowhere near the most great. If we look at prince's work as a collection of songs prince is the greatest but not in terms of albums.. Like if we compare any of so called 5 star prince albums to any of zeppelins or floyds 5 star albums prince 's albums don't hold up. However, if we took the collection of songs from all of prince's albums and compared it agaisnt some of the biggest acts Prince would just domintate. Thats why i rarely wen im just listenign to prince just go through a whole album and i just jump song to song..

THIS IS WHY 3rdeyegirl is a great thing because Prince isn't gonna be pressured into releasing an album. Other than Purple rain every Prince album has filler songs to me. Now with 3rdeyegirl we can look at prince for wat he really is a song writer. Prince could write a song about love and another one about hate and it might not go on album cause they don't flow but if he releases them as singles its alright.

Come On and Wasted Kisses are not enough to save NPS

rdhull said:

Come On and Wasted Kisses are not enough to save NPS

Wat about the one?

riocoolnes said:

rdhull said:

Come On and Wasted Kisses are not enough to save NPS

Wat about the one?

That song belongs with NPS . Its irritating.

It is actually Arms Of Orion dressed up as a true to form Prince ballad if that makes any sense.

He really tricked some fans on that one imho.

There's a dark brown cloud over this project. It all reek(s)(ed) of desperate times.

funny people mention NEWS, that was critically acclaimed - it was nominated for a GRAMMY!

PS (with the new age of the ipod and playlists) i tend not to listen to whole albums anymore (maybe Parade, SOTT, 1999), the later stuff i tend to select certain songs or make my own playlists - I think Prince pretty much did this with most of these albums anyway so it's nothing heretical about it!

[Edited 3/27/13 13:32pm]

Dandroppedadime said:

funny you mention NEWS, that was critically acclaimed - it was nominated for a GRAMMY!

It was critically acclaimed?

hell, did anyne besides us hear it?

that was a pity nomination

like giving Scorcese the oscar for The Departed

only reason News was nominated was because Prince wrote an album that was very specific for the award he was nominated for and because its Prince.

riocoolnes said:

This kinda leads to a point i make with people that as album artist prince isn't the greatest but is one of . Prince probably has the most GOOD albums of alltime but nowhere near the most great. If we look at prince's work as a collection of songs prince is the greatest but not in terms of albums.. Like if we compare any of so called 5 star prince albums to any of zeppelins or floyds 5 star albums prince 's albums don't hold up. However, if we took the collection of songs from all of prince's albums and compared it agaisnt some of the biggest acts Prince would just domintate. Thats why i rarely wen im just listenign to prince just go through a whole album and i just jump song to song..

THIS IS WHY 3rdeyegirl is a great thing because Prince isn't gonna be pressured into releasing an album. Other than Purple rain every Prince album has filler songs to me. Now with 3rdeyegirl we can look at prince for wat he really is a song writer. Prince could write a song about love and another one about hate and it might not go on album cause they don't flow but if he releases them as singles its alright.

This really is it. Since..what...I dunno... Sign O' the Times and maybe Lovesexy (if that's your thing), most Prince albums have been 2 or 3 great songs, 3-5 OK ones and 2 or 3 turds. His hit to miss ratio is pretty consistent at this stage and largely predictable. I don't see where NPS is any different or deviates from that pattern and the three good/great songs on it are really that good/great. I'd defy anyone to pull three songs off a single "critically acclaimed" disc that are any better than those.

With Rave, the 3 best songs were sorta poopy. I'd say that's his most deserved critical failure. Planet Earth is in the same vein and I don't really recall what the critics said about it, but there's not one track on it as good as any of the three I mentioned from NPS.

herb4 said:

riocoolnes said:

This kinda leads to a point i make with people that as album artist prince isn't the greatest but is one of . Prince probably has the most GOOD albums of alltime but nowhere near the most great. If we look at prince's work as a collection of songs prince is the greatest but not in terms of albums.. Like if we compare any of so called 5 star prince albums to any of zeppelins or floyds 5 star albums prince 's albums don't hold up. However, if we took the collection of songs from all of prince's albums and compared it agaisnt some of the biggest acts Prince would just domintate. Thats why i rarely wen im just listenign to prince just go through a whole album and i just jump song to song..

THIS IS WHY 3rdeyegirl is a great thing because Prince isn't gonna be pressured into releasing an album. Other than Purple rain every Prince album has filler songs to me. Now with 3rdeyegirl we can look at prince for wat he really is a song writer. Prince could write a song about love and another one about hate and it might not go on album cause they don't flow but if he releases them as singles its alright.

This really is it. Since..what...I dunno... Sign O' the Times and maybe Lovesexy (if that's your thing), most Prince albums have been 2 or 3 great songs, 3-5 OK ones and 2 or 3 turds. His hit to miss ratio is pretty consistent at this stage and largely predictable. I don't see where NPS is any different or deviates from that pattern and the three good/great songs on it are really that good/great. I'd defy anyone to pull three songs off a single "critically acclaimed" disc that are any better than those.

With Rave, the 3 best songs were sorta poopy. I'd say that's his most deserved critical failure. Planet Earth is in the same vein and I don't really recall what the critics said about it, but there's not one track on it as good as any of the three I mentioned from NPS.

2 or 3 great songs, 3-5 OK ones and 2 or 3 turds that sounds right to me for nps, emancipation, rainbow to a certain extent, batman, grafitti, DP, . I think 3121 is an album full of either good or great. Musicology is an album full of good. Love symbol is literally the best good album prince released, and Gold is amazing. Ur right about Rave and nps and my points about nps is that its majority good with no great but doesn't suck.

But the lows on NPS are so low that they it takes NPS out of the running of standard releases after Lovesexy that were hit n miss with material.