Well, Prince is a 'sexy purple robot' according to SPIN...

http://www.spin.com/articles/prince-u-know-art-official-age-single-stream/?utm_source=spintwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spintwitter

"It's smooth and sexy in all the right places, with the musician's vocals transformed into a steady digi-drawl for the verses, before picking up steam and soul for those billowing choruses. It's the kind of futuristic R&B that Prince prodigy Janelle Monáe has been letting loose for the past few year."

[Edited 9/1/14 8:59am]

so AOA is Prince's midlife crisis album?

[Edited 9/1/14 9:01am]

i am lovin this!..after reading the reviews i was dreading it!. It's git a bit of swagger, classic P stripped down sound but updated. This should be a single. BTW I hated clouds & generally alot of his current stuff BUT this is actually COOL & the younsters will love this.

The more that the fans hate this song, the bigger this will be a hit with general audience lol.

the simple piano sound, repeating over and over could be taken from (reminds me of):

Days Of Wild (Studio version)...... and that's a good thing imo...

I am really loving this track...... and no it's not Raspberry Beret folks..

the more people say they "dig" the track, the lower the bar will drop for the next release.

keep diggin...

Stymie said:

Blixical said:

It.

is....

bloody.....

awful..........

God, somebody shoot that album and put it out of its misery.

Clouds - boring song

Breakfast can wait - boring song and stupid video (which he charged fans for)

Breakdown - It's ok. Sounds like a Purple Rain era b-side.

Funknroll - boring song

This could be us - The snippet I heard, I didn't like

U Know - Like enduring chemo

That's 6 songs I don't like.

I am NOT buying Art Official Age.

Aerogram said:

OMG! My new Prince song does not sound like Raspberry Beret. I am saddened.

Where do you see someone asking that it sound like Raspberry Beret?

Genesia said:

Blixical said:

It.

is....

bloody.....

awful..........

God, somebody shoot that album and put it out of its misery.

I don't shoot, but it'd be worth learning just to take this thing to the range, load it up like a clay pigeon, and yell, "Pull!"

damn

Clouds - great pop-funky song

Breakfast can wait - great ballad but the Chip Munk ending is too much, stupid video I agree

Breakdown - not my song

Funknroll - so and so...

This could be us - I love that snippet I heard, I liked it a lot

U Know - electro sexxy track

That's 4 maybe 5 songs I like, I am glad I made my pre-order both cd's and both vinyls...

[Edited 9/1/14 9:14am]

I'm not creating any kind of "artificial construct" of what I think Prince should sound like. I'm reacting to a single song and to the "official" marketing statements made about the album.

.

I specifically said that I get he doesn't want to relive the past, and that plenty of people will eat this up. And by promoting the album as "classic Prince" it's clearly implied that "this is the Prince you loved in the height of his popularity." And it's clearly not.

.

If you'll read what I posted again, my point is that it sounds like THE LEVEL OF DISCERNMENT THAT PRINCE USED TO HAVE regarding what was album material and what was an experiment is gone. I'm not looking for the next Raspberry Beret or Kiss, no more than I'm looking for a sampled background track and meandering rap filler.

Sure, creating something "new and different" is what made so many of Prince's albums great. This is only "new and different" in the sense that it must still feel new to him to be out of ideas that are new and different - at least on this track. I'll listen to the album in its entirety and form a final opinion then. As for this single thread, regarding this single song, I'm not into it.

meejaboy said:

What does "classic Prince" sound like exactly?

In that run of albums from Dirty Mind to Lovesexy that most people might consider "classic Prince", not one sounded anything like the others - which is what made it "classic Prince".

This doesn't sound that much like anything he's done before, which, by definition is "classic Prince".

You might not like it - as many who liked PR didnt like ATWIAD - but that's just a question of taste, not of the artifical construct you have created of what you think Prince should sound like.

Doozer said:

I used to purchase Prince albums so I could avoid songs like this. Sorry.

.

I get that he doesn't want to relive the past and wants to try new things. But what happened to having some level of discernment regarding what's an experiment and what's album material?

.

I also agree with the previous posts regarding tempo of the album. So far it's a slow- to mid-tempo fest. A lot of mid-tempo beats with rushed lyrics to fill every hole. What used to be a craft of songwriting is now muddied by spoken interludes, samples and....autotune?!? This is a proven musician who stops mid-concert to preach about real music by real musicians, and a song like this makes the cut for his first album in four years?

.

Even worse to me is the PR behind this album, pushing it as "classic Prince." There is nothing "classic Prince" about this song. In fact, songs like this don't appeal to most people who know what "classic Prince" sounds like. This is for a different audience altogether. This is Prince working with a co-producer to sound contemporary and relevant, not to carve out a sound that's his.

.

I'm sure there are plenty of devoted fans out there who will eat this up. For me, it's a skip. This song is enough for me to say that the pendulum has swung to being more excited for Plectrum Electrum.

[Edited 9/1/14 8:27am]

What the fuck did I just listen to?

kapo74 said:

Okay, here's the deal... I am a PhD student in the medical field and the motto in the academic world is: publish or perish. Same goes for music. Prince is the professor and the legions of protegees he's tried to launch over the years are his PhD students. Prince has earned his place in the publication field and I'm talking the equivalent of publishing in Nature and Science every year. Now tell me, honestly, how long can one mind be truly creative? Only when he would discover a new music style, like he did in the early 80's with the multi-layered funk-rock, he would be back in 'science'. Now he hardly makes it to the 'south korean journal of n=1'. Give the man some slack

If you can no longer get it up in the studio - if your creative mind is, well, dead, then you should bow out. Stick to producing or find something else to do.

TheEnglishGent said:

What the fuck did I just listen to?

Have to throw my support behind that 8-word summation.

This is by far the least impressive song I've heard from the new album.

youngpflames said:

R we listening 2 the same song? I keep reading about him rapping...but I don't actually hear rapping when I listen. But upon further listen...I still find it awesome!!!

He's not rapping.

Dave1992 said:

it is similar to incense & candles BUT soooo much better. Piano is fab, got this 1 on repeat. The vocal is freakin' great. To all that didn't like it 1st time around please give it another go & play it loud!

Blixical said:

Giovanni777 said:

I gotta say, that after listening to 'The Breakdown', 'Clouds', and 'U Know', one after the other, they do go together very well. I'm not particularly fond of 'Breakfast Can Wait', but this album could end up being a surprising package, depending on the remainder of cuts...

You might have a point there... I'm still not convinced about any of the songs but the whole might be better than the sum of the parts...

I like this one. Easier 2 get in2 than clouds 4 me. They both don't compare 2 breakdown though, which is close 2 masterpiece imo.

U know, as i get older, I don't dance much, just seem to bounce...this song is a perfect bounce song, therefore, I love it!

purpleshadow said:

so AOA is Prince's midlife crisis album?

[Edited 9/1/14 9:01am]

Bnah. Already happened with 3121.

Doozer said:

TheEnglishGent said:

What the fuck did I just listen to?

Have to throw my support behind that 8-word summation.

This is by far the least impressive song I've heard from the new album.

In the past I've played songs to death before I've had the album and was deliberately avoiding Clouds so that it would be fresh. I don't know why I listened to this, probably because I'm at work and it was there, so why not? After this attrocity I had to listen to Clouds.

Oh Dear.

I already thought Breakfast Can Wait was the worst of the singles he put out in the last couple of years. The Breakdown has already been overplayed. I now have almost zero excitement for this new album .

On the plus side, I can now listen to the New Power Soul album and recognise it as a masterpiece. Even Jughead sounds like Mozart next to this piece of shit. It's all about perspective I guess...

I wonder what the reaction would be like if it was 1992, Prince.org would have existed then and he streamed "I Wanna Melt With U" as a taster from the new album...

[img:$uid]http://i.imgur..../img:$uid]

Romeoblu said:

Blixical said:

Clouds - boring song

Breakfast can wait - boring song and stupid video (which he charged fans for)

Breakdown - It's ok. Sounds like a Purple Rain era b-side.

Funknroll - boring song

This could be us - The snippet I heard, I didn't like

U Know - Like enduring chemo

That's 6 songs I don't like.

I am NOT buying Art Official Age.

Have you have endured or know some who had Chemo? I'm yet to hear the song but I'm pretty sure the two aren't comparable. I think you should be ashamed of and remove that comment.

oh god, now we've got mother theresa chiming in.

For years I've managed to fool my friends, who know I am/was a big Prince-fan, by saying that he had died in a car accident with Paul McCartney, but now with Warners and a big PR-campaign they are bound to find out he's still alive. And worse: they'll hear his new songs...