I hate Emancipation with a passion from day one it was released. It was the first Prince album I didn't buy on the date of release. I remember I was horrified when I listened in the record store, 36 songs and I didn't like any!

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Maybe some of the songs were OK as far as songwriting, but I could not get past the horrible production, saccharine and stale at the same time. I did buy the album some time later from the cut out bins for completist reasons, tried to play it once or twice but have not felt the urge to play the album in a long long time.

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I can only imagine it must sound even worse now!

the production is horrible. it sounds like he's trying to emulate 90's production rather than show where it should be headed.

I think it passed the test of time.

I agree with the comments about the production. Some of the songs seem a little hastily written or uninspired as well. I feel like he was trying to have Kirk give him a more current sound so as to increase radio play, despite the fact that Kirk was completely unproven as a producer, having NO SONGS actually on the radio. I also feel like the same thing is happening right now with Josh.

maybe just LIKED what Kirk brought to his music. I sure did: the plastic years is probably my favorite era in the end

the only albums that have aged well are parade and atwiad...mostly everything else is a representation of their time. nothing wrong with that.

there are at least 10-12 songs on emancipation that still sound current

Fury said:

the only albums that have aged well are parade and atwiad...mostly everything else is a representation of their time. nothing wrong with that.

there are at least 10-12 songs on emancipation that still sound current

I'm not sure I agree with that statement. I think one of the reasons many feel those albums have aged well is because they sounded retro from the beginning, so our perception of them hasn't changed.

AdmiralFrenchkiss said:

the production is horrible. it sounds like he's trying to emulate 90's production rather than show where it should be headed.

This quote is from a 1996 interview with Rolling Stone. To me, it says it all...

"Eager to reassert his status as hitmaker, is verbally riffing in a style that recalls one of his heroes, the young Muhammad Ali. "I ain't scared of nobody," he exclaims at one point, laughing. "I wanna play you the bomb. You tell me how many singles you hear -- I wanna read that. The only person who kept me down is R. Kelly, and when I see him, he's gonna pay a price for that!" "

funkaholic1972 said:

I hate Emancipation with a passion from day one it was released. It was the first Prince album I didn't buy on the date of release. I remember I was horrified when I listened in the record store, 36 songs and I didn't like any!

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Maybe some of the songs were OK as far as songwriting, but I could not get past the horrible production, saccharine and stale at the same time. I did buy the album some time later from the cut out bins for completist reasons, tried to play it once or twice but have not felt the urge to play the album in a long long time.

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I can only imagine it must sound even worse now!

I share your disgust over this album. I bought it the day it hit the recordstores and was very dissapointed after I had wrestled myself through the 3 hours of his absolute worst cheeziest gutcrunching production in his career.

I've tried to listen to the album several times since that day, just to make sure that age, mine or the album, would change my feelings about it. But I've never succeeded in listening to it more than a few songs in a row. 90% of the songs has a torturous effect on my being.

After this album, the feeling that Prince was "the best" (whatever that is?), was gone. It took "Rainbow Children" ONA and NEWS to get a bit of that feeling back.

Emancipation was for me the definite conclusion that his best years had past and never would return. And untill this time I am right, despite a handfull of decent albums and plenty of good songs ever since.

Emancipation has not aged. It is as lifeless now as was then.

paulludvig said:

If you're obsessed with only listening to old records that happen to sound more like new records than old records that sound like old records, IMO you will miss out on a lot of great music out there.

Perhaps by comparing the production sounds on modern pop/ r'n'b records, Emancipation does sound a little 'dated'. It's nearly 20 years old after all. Today's 'cutting edge' will sound dated by 2032. For me, the record's not perfect but there are some of the greatest songs of his whole career on that album, like The Love We Make, Dreamin' About U (great production imo), White Mansion (great prodution), Saviour, Face Down (Dead Like Elvis!) er ... sorry reflex reaction there , Sleep Around, Emancipation (not great on the album but the live Brit Awards 97 version is fab imo), Somebody's Somebody (tho 'live in studio version is far superior ).

Records sound like they sound like, I enjoy a bit of 1920's Louis Armstrong; the sound's a little quaint and hissy, but it's still great to me and I certainly wouldn't want it to sound 'modern'. That would destroy most of the charm and context of the music for me.

Normally, if the songs, music and vocals are good, I can more than live with music not sounding like it was made over the last 5 years .

Loved it then.

Still love it now.

The production never bothered me.

Some of the songs just begged for remixes

or extended versions. Sorry that never came

to fruition.

I still hate the same songs that I used to hate when it first came out (We Gets Up, Courtin Time, Damned If I Do, Jam Of The Year) and I still love the songs I loved when it first came out, such as Right Back Here In My Arms, Dreamin About U, Soul Sanctuary, The Love We Make etc.

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I understand why some folks don´t like the production on this one, you can hear the difference when you listen to Betcha By Golly Wow, which was recorded with the NPG, and the rest of the songs, which were recorded with the new band and produced differently but still, I think the production is still enjoyable, albeit not as timeless as other Prince albums.

I try to look at it in a positive way....Prince surrounded himself with people that he felt close to, like Kirk, or people that were from Minneapolis, such as Steppa Ranks and Scrap D.

Musically not the smartest choices and maybe a bit cheap but he was finally free to do so just because he could.

I´d love to hear new recordings of these songs but I doubt he´d ever feel like going back to that era, apart from a few renditions of songs like The Love We Make etc.

What I dislike more than the production quality is the fact that for the first time in his career he used songs by other people , like I Can´t Make U Love Me, Betcha By Golly Wow, or La La La Means I love You, instead of using his own songs.

I actually LIKE those cover versions but was it really necessary to put other people´s songs on that album ? And then there were songwriting or credit problems with Sandra St.Victor and those other guys who wrote Somebody´s Somebody or Hide The Bone, don´t recall their names, but this left a bad taste.

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But I did like it as an album when it first came out, and still love many songs on it.

Miles said:

If you're obsessed with only listening to old records that happen to sound more like new records than old records that sound like old records, IMO you will miss out on a lot of great music out there.

Perhaps by comparing the production sounds on modern pop/ r'n'b records, Emancipation does sound a little 'dated'. It's nearly 20 years old after all. Today's 'cutting edge' will sound dated by 2032. For me, the record's not perfect but there are some of the greatest songs of his whole career on that album, like The Love We Make, Dreamin' About U (great production imo), White Mansion (great prodution), Saviour, Face Down (Dead Like Elvis!) er ... sorry reflex reaction there , Sleep Around, Emancipation (not great on the album but the live Brit Awards 97 version is fab imo), Somebody's Somebody (tho 'live in studio version is far superior ).

Records sound like they sound like, I enjoy a bit of 1920's Louis Armstrong; the sound's a little quaint and hissy, but it's still great to me and I certainly wouldn't want it to sound 'modern'. That would destroy most of the charm and context of the music for me.

Normally, if the songs, music and vocals are good, I can more than live with music not sounding like it was made over the last 5 years .

U make some good points here.

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1999 and Purple Rain actually sound terribly dated after all but who complains about it. They are deeply rooted in what music was in 82 and 84 and all the better for it! That made their success back then and that makes them milestones in the history of modern music today!

Mindbells9 said:

The songs that sounded more current then ("Sleep Around", "Right Back Here In My Arms", "Emale" etc.) are the ones that sound dated now. I wouldn't say the same about songs that can't be compared to anyone else. The thing is, I thought a lot of it sounded "dated" already when it came out, but there was a positive aspect to it too, as it was a record that had real arrangements and proper instrumentation used on many of the tracks. You know, the early 90s had a period when "black hits" often had barely anything else on them than some vocals, synth bass and a drum machine.

I'd say the style of many of the songs is somewhere between the songs from the SOTT and Graffiti Bridge sessions, just with some contemporary synths and drum machine sounds used instead of what he used earlier. He might not have made the best possible choices for the sounds he ended up using on all of the tracks, but I do like the songs that sound "smaller" that what his stuff sounded like during the Come / TGE days. Songs like "Get Yo Groove On" or "Somebody's Somebody" might be considered "Prince by the book" type of tracks, but at least they go back to his more "lightweight" production style that at one point seemed like something he had abandoned.

Seriously, at one point I thought his stuff would sound like "Gett Off", "Pheromone" or "Billy Jack Bitch" for all eternity, so I thought Emancipation pushed things into a direction that just had a more positive overall vibe in general. That's more what Prince is about to me.

Praxis said:

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[Edited 7/24/14 2:13am]

I have never understood the knock on this album's production. I think it's masterfully produced, for the most part. Novabrkr, above, does a good job explaining the merits of the arrangements and the 'lightweight' production style that permeate most of the album.

[Edited 7/20/14 7:25am]

[Edited 7/20/14 7:25am]

I love Emancipation, but I don't really listen to the second CD much for obvious reasons.

Even though it has a kinda sorta silly title, La La La means I love you is one of my favourite Prince songs. Its really catchy.

databank said:

1999 and Purple Rain actually sound terribly dated after all but who complains about it. They are deeply rooted in what music was in 82 and 84 and all the better for it! That made their success back then and that makes them milestones in the history of modern music today!

I disagree. Neither of those two albums sounds particularly dated to me. Most of the songs, if played today to someone who knew nothing, would not be able to date them to the early/mid 80's, I dont think.

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Parade and SOT I think could literally come from the 80's, 90's or the 00's. And Lovesexy, well, even by todays standards, would be labelled as belonging in all and no decade at the same time.

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Batman onwards, his sound started to merge with the times IMO and it starts to become easier to identify the era of the music.

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Maybe it is all down to the production, or maybe it is down to innovation. I just think that his mid/late 80's work was so much about Prince doing his own thing that he created music (by and large) that wasnt rooted to any decade, trend or style. from the 90's onwards, he started following trends which resulted in the music being easier to place and thus, making it sound more dated today.

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Other albums I think that will not sound dated as time progresses - C&D (except for "I Rock., therefore..." which is so 90's), Rainbow Children, NEWS, Xpectation, Truth, Lotus Flower and ONA (and maybe Plectrum Electrum one day?). Not that I think they are particularly classics, or in some cases any good at all, but their style could put them in any decade really (NEWS will always be crap, whether it was done in the 80's, 90's or 00's)

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One caveat -With all things being equal, and presuming all albums mentioned had been remastered before being tested on virgin ears, then I think dating his mid/late 80's stuff would be very difficult and his 90's stuff very easy to place.

callimnate said:

1999 and Purple Rain might sound outdated, but they are farken great albums with unforgettable songs. Emancipation on the other hand, is an average (at best) R&B album recorded by a sheep that was once a leader of the pack. There's a BIG difference there.

Totally agree!