year was 1999. Prince released Rave UN2 The Joy Fantastic and Beck

released Midnight Vultures.

Becks album was compared a lot to Princes trademark sound.

So who did a better job being Prince that year? Beck or Prince?

I think Midnight Vultures kills the sh.t out of Rave in terms of originality,

production,

songs but i dont think Rave is a bad album.

Midnite Vultures seemed like a parody album of 80s music to me. Get Real Paid and Debra were the only Prince-ish songs and if Prince had released either of them they would have been seen as too self-referential and immature.

There's certainly more Prince-ish songs on Midnite Vultures than just those two - Peaches & Cream, Mixed Business, Nicotine & Gravy... although I thought Sexxlaws was more Rick James / Parliament etc. than Prince.

But I agree that the record is based far too much on irony to be taken seriously. At the time it felt it was a lot better than Rave, but I'm not so sure anymore. In addition to the record relying too much on irony, Beck's falsetto vocals are just annoying to listen to. They're just bad, there's no other way to put it. The arrangements and the production are great though. There are a few songs that are more of his own style and those are very good ("Broken Train", "Beautiful Way"). In retrospect it might be Beck's worst album in any case. I've seen it being included on some of those "worst records of all time" lists, despite the very good reviews it got around the time of its release.

Rave is a complete mess, of course, but at least when "Prince does Prince" he's way more sincere. It's mainly those Kirky J. beats that ruin the record for me. The LM-1 stuff is okay, but that same "drum" sound that was used on NPS is just among the worst I've heard. Doesn't groove at all.

Becks best album v one of Prince's worst. It wasn't a case of Beck doing Prince better than Prince it was just a simple case of Beck releasing a better album.

^I have a soft spot for Rave. And it's certainly not as bad as people tend to remember. But that said, I agree with TheEnglishGent here. Fact is, Midnight Vultures was one of the best albums of 1999 by anyone, Princely inspired or otherwise.

I've enjoyed Midnight Vultures much more than Rave, to me it's just a far better album with better produced songs. Midnight Vultures is very ironic and fun, and Rave sounds forced and boring to me. There are a few good tracks on Rave, but overall I like Midnight Vultures much better.

[Edited 1/31/14 3:16am]

MV pisses all over Rave. The only good thing to come from the two Rave albums was Beautiful Strange.

I don't think Beck was being ironic with Midnite Vultures. He has always used humour in his music, but I believe his intention with Midnite Vultures was a serious attempt to pay respect and reflect his love for R&B and funk in the best way he knew how, even if that did include humour. It's a flawed but wonderful album. I love it and listened to the hell out of it when it came out. I think he took it very seriously - he even pushed himself to do the splits for the live shows, which as Prince fans we all know is no easy feat!

.

Rave. A cynical attempt to return to the mainstream using an old-fashioned duet model that Clive Davis was bandying about. The title track is awesome and there are some other nice moments, but ultimately a poor album. And that lamb in the artwork...................

.

The two albums just don't compare.

"I met you....in JC Penny...."

If you combine Midnite Vultures with all the accompanying b-sides that were released

I feel you have a collection of songs that comes close to Sign of the Times.

fishwillbite said:

I don't think Beck was being ironic with Midnite Vultures. He has always used humour in his music, but I believe his intention with Midnite Vultures was a serious attempt to pay respect and reflect his love for R&B and funk in the best way he knew how, even if that did include humour. It's a flawed but wonderful album. I love it and listened to the hell out of it when it came out. I think he took it very seriously - he even pushed himself to do the splits for the live shows, which as Prince fans we all know is no easy feat!

.

Rave. A cynical attempt to return to the mainstream using an old-fashioned duet model that Clive Davis was bandying about. The title track is awesome and there are some other nice moments, but ultimately a poor album. And that lamb in the artwork...................

.

The two albums just don't compare.

Being ironic and paying respect are not exclusive to each other. At least half of the songs on the album are clearly ironic. It's not "mean" type of irony, of course. He's making fun of himself more than anyone else when he's singing some of those ridiculous lyrics on the album.

MV seems, to me, to be a logical extension of where Beck was(musically) at that point in his career. Kind of like early Prince, each new Beck album was richer, more muscially diverse and more enjoyable than the last. "Where it's at" is certainly ironic and tongue in cheek, but he went full humor on MV. It's a fun party album that was his most accessible yet. It had "grooves for days". Rave on the other hand, whilst having some decent tunes(as every P album does), just wasn't as enjoyable a trip for me.

Midnite Vultures is a million times better IMO.

[Edited 1/31/14 11:39am]

rave is okay, but the real problem with it is that it has no real energy. You can't name your album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic and then fill it with a bunch of depressing and unhappy songs.

Midnight Vultures is a fun and exciting album, and it was an good time to be a Beck fan

novabrkr said:

There's certainly more Prince-ish songs on Midnite Vultures than just those two - Peaches & Cream, Mixed Business, Nicotine & Gravy... although I thought Sexxlaws was more Rick James / Parliament etc. than Prince.

But I agree that the record is based far too much on irony to be taken seriously. At the time it felt it was a lot better than Rave, but I'm not so sure anymore. In addition to the record relying too much on irony, Beck's falsetto vocals are just annoying to listen to. They're just bad, there's no other way to put it. The arrangements and the production are great though. There are a few songs that are more of his own style and those are very good ("Broken Train", "Beautiful Way"). In retrospect it might be Beck's worst album in any case. I've seen it being included on some of those "worst records of all time" lists, despite the very good reviews it got around the time of its release.

Rave is a complete mess, of course, but at least when "Prince does Prince" he's way more sincere. It's mainly those Kirky J. beats that ruin the record for me. The LM-1 stuff is okay, but that same "drum" sound that was used on NPS is just among the worst I've heard. Doesn't groove at all.

Nicotine & Gravy is more Bowie inspried than Prince IMO, also the best track off the album.

It's not so much that MV sounds like Prince (except in a few places), it's more that it's an inspired, creative, musical, smart, diverse, and fun album like we'd expect from Prince

I love Rave. I used to say it was good but suffered from the wrong sequencing of songs, was too long, should have used this mix of such and such...blah, blah, blah. But I listened to it recently and have to say, as alongtime fan, I love it just the way it is. I wouldn'r change a thing. Rave is a very underappreciated album in Prince's canon.

I've listended to Midnite Vultures and am not terribly impressed.

Farfunknugin said:

novabrkr said:

There's certainly more Prince-ish songs on Midnite Vultures than just those two - Peaches & Cream, Mixed Business, Nicotine & Gravy... although I thought Sexxlaws was more Rick James / Parliament etc. than Prince.

But I agree that the record is based far too much on irony to be taken seriously. At the time it felt it was a lot better than Rave, but I'm not so sure anymore. In addition to the record relying too much on irony, Beck's falsetto vocals are just annoying to listen to. They're just bad, there's no other way to put it. The arrangements and the production are great though. There are a few songs that are more of his own style and those are very good ("Broken Train", "Beautiful Way"). In retrospect it might be Beck's worst album in any case. I've seen it being included on some of those "worst records of all time" lists, despite the very good reviews it got around the time of its release.

Rave is a complete mess, of course, but at least when "Prince does Prince" he's way more sincere. It's mainly those Kirky J. beats that ruin the record for me. The LM-1 stuff is okay, but that same "drum" sound that was used on NPS is just among the worst I've heard. Doesn't groove at all.

Nicotine & Gravy is more Bowie inspried than Prince IMO, also the best track off the album.

Are you hearing some Station To Station era track ("Stay"?) in the intro? Otherwise I don't hear a Bowie influence, except maybe for the "threatening" sounds during the chorus. I've just seen this song being mentioned as sounding like Prince, although if it sounds like Prince then it must be the NPG era Prince ("Days Of Wild"?). Maybe it just sounds like Beck's own music the most.

I love MV, and saw Beck touring that album back then. Before the show they played D'Angelo's record over the PA, and then Beck did this great show with the highlight being him solo on stage with an acoustic guitar playing some magnificent songs. I remember thinking "oh if only Prince could see this and get a kick up his ass and do this shit instead of putting out rubbish liek NPS and playing tedious jamz".

I also remember that Beck around that time remarked in an interview that Prince should stop using expensive studio trickery and just play songs on a rinkydink piano to get to the essence of what songwriting is, and comparing him to Stevie Wonder and how that guy lost the ability to come up with decent tunes (IIRC, I'm certainly paraphrasing) which resulted in a nasty putdown on P's official site at the time.

BartVanHemelen said:

I love MV, and saw Beck touring that album back then. Before the show they played D'Angelo's record over the PA, and then Beck did this great show with the highlight being him solo on stage with an acoustic guitar playing some magnificent songs. I remember thinking "oh if only Prince could see this and get a kick up his ass and do this shit instead of putting out rubbish liek NPS and playing tedious jamz".

I also remember that Beck around that time remarked in an interview that Prince should stop using expensive studio trickery and just play songs on a rinkydink piano to get to the essence of what songwriting is, and comparing him to Stevie Wonder and how that guy lost the ability to come up with decent tunes (IIRC, I'm certainly paraphrasing) which resulted in a nasty putdown on P's official site at the time.

yes i remember .it was an interview with Dangelo and Beck and they said something negative about Prince songwriting

Prince suggested that he be Beck or D'Angelo's opening act after that interview, if they wanted to see how much he'd lost it. Of course, he missed the part about how they were referring to his albums, not his live act.

NDRU said:

Prince suggested that he be Beck or D'Angelo's opening act after that interview, if they wanted to see how much he'd lost it. Of course, he missed the part about how they were referring to his albums, not his live act.

Didn't he reply some cheesy crap about how we should celebrate Stevie Wonder instead of pointing out how crap his records had become? Ugh, I wish I could be arsed to look it up on amp. Too bad Prince's war with his fans has prevented that all of this had been properly archived and annotated in a wiki; I bet simply quoting from some of those L4OA "news" posts would have resulted in lawyer action from the Park. So much Prince history is lost in paper archives and abandoned HDs...

since 1996 beck has been on a steady roll:

.

odelay

mutations

midnite vultures

sea change

guero

the information

modern guilt

morning phase

.

plus countless one off singles, non album tracks, soundtrack contributions,

tracks and albums produced for others, the whole 'record club' project he

did with various musicians where they covered entire albums etc etc.

.

i know that doesn't contribute to the thread at all but i just felt like saying

it since Beck is pretty much just fucking awesome.

BartVanHemelen said:

NDRU said:

Prince suggested that he be Beck or D'Angelo's opening act after that interview, if they wanted to see how much he'd lost it. Of course, he missed the part about how they were referring to his albums, not his live act.

Didn't he reply some cheesy crap about how we should celebrate Stevie Wonder instead of pointing out how crap his records had become? Ugh, I wish I could be arsed to look it up on amp. Too bad Prince's war with his fans has prevented that all of this had been properly archived and annotated in a wiki; I bet simply quoting from some of those L4OA "news" posts would have resulted in lawyer action from the Park. So much Prince history is lost in paper archives and abandoned HDs...

Sort of. He said he thought the same about Stevie when he heard Ebony & Ivory, but then realized he couldn't talk shit about a guy who'd done all that he had done.

To some degree I agree, but it doesn't change the truth of what Beck & D'Angelo said, either

thedoorkeeper said:

If you combine Midnite Vultures with all the accompanying b-sides that were released

I feel you have a collection of songs that comes close to Sign of the Times.

i still hope we'll get a Midnite Vultures Deluxe edition, just like we did with Odelay Deluxe in 2008

BartVanHemelen said:

I love Prince

Beck is still kicking Prince's ass to this day....

http://www.vevo.com/watch...%2FWLAUDIO