I totally agree about 1996-2001 sounding "plastic" and that's precisely one of the main reasons why it is probably my favorite era of 's music

KingSausage said:

KingSausage said:

I think High would have been the worst Prince album if it had been released.

"Supercute" "Underneath the Cream" "Golden Parachute" "When Will We B Paid?" "The Daisy Chain" "Gamillah" "High" "My Medallion" "U Make My Sun Shine" "When Eye Lay My Hands on U"

I don't know about the worse, but it'd have been in the top 3 worse for me.

I only liked When I lay my hands on U, Golden Parachute and U Make my Sunshine. Supercute was ok but I never actively sought to put that song on, its more track I wouldnt bother to skip if I were feeling lazy. In all the Chocolate Invasion / Slaughterhouse period was a low point for me for Prince's music. All of the NPG albums never did anything for me either except for two tracks off of NPS.

supercute is one of my all time fav prince choons! also i like golden parachute (even the instrumental 'Femi' version). Judas Smile and Jukebox With A Heartbeat are also quite good. i don't really like High Y Should Eye, Sex me Not, My Medallion, or Northside they seem too forced and childish. I think Habibi is amazing though!!!! I think a more Crystal Ball type of mix bag would of been a better CD of the era - but we have the mp3's so we can make our own playlists. Ps When eye Lay My hands would be stunning with live drumming instead of the tiny drum machine.

aiden said:

funnily i like the radio version better as it has some strange atmosheric noises throughout which give it a nice feel. unlike the ultra slick 'too clean' final version.

aiden said:

KingSausage said:

I think High would have been the worst Prince album if it had been released. I love Supercute and When Eye Lay..., and moderately enjoy Underneath the Cream, but there's so much fluff on the album. See Wikipedia track list below. I think the song High is one of the worst things he's ever recorded. "Supercute" "Underneath the Cream" "Golden Parachute" "When Will We B Paid?" "The Daisy Chain" "Gamillah" "High" "My Medallion" "U Make My Sun Shine" "When Eye Lay My Hands on U"

Probably... Sheesh... My version has all this radio talk at the start of "vavoom" which is annoying.

Woah, so you haven't got The Chocolate Invasion?

TheEnglishGent said:

I actually LOVE the title track. It's fun.

tatocorcu said:

Where Breathe and Madrid to Chicago from this era? I love M2C, but Breathe I found awful...

They are reportedly from 1998 and were included on the unreleased "smooth jazz" album Madrid 2 Chicago which was announced for a 2002 release then canceled. The rest of the tracklist is unknown.

Other tracks that ended-up on High/Peace/TCI/TS were recorded between 1997 and 1999 (while the rest of the sessions mostly dates from 2000): S&M Groove, Hypnoparadise, Y Should Eye Do This and the 2 "outtakes" Van Gogh and Instrumental (Holy River). It's a common thing for to record tracks aimed at specific projects alongside random tracks, then replace some of the first ones by some of the second ones for final album configurations.

It's funny how tastes can differ. I never even suspected ANYONE could dislike Breathe

Militant said:

I actually LOVE the title track. It's fun.

Me too, and I like

these:

"Supercute"
"Underneath the Cream"
"Golden Parachute" no
"When Will We B Paid?" no
"The Daisy Chain"
"Gamillah" no
"High"
"My Medallion"
"U Make My Sun Shine" just ok
"When Eye Lay My Hands on U"

I have always had a thing with Beatles, Zappa and Prince of having a 'period' of listening to them constantly, checking in with goings on etc and then totally tuning out, sometimes for several years.

I came back in to Prince a decade ago after one of these outages and was totally knocked out by the 'High' and 'Chocolate Invasion' albums as they were just so much fun.

I think what he was doing on these is what he's been trying to do more recently but because these weren't *real'* albums but anthologies of 'works', the pressure was non-existent to make them hang together and although everyone seems to think they don't, I really think both of them collected together a lot of diverse explorations on the 'bright weird' side of things.
They have really 'stuck down' well as prototypes of the kind of album Prince has been interested in making since 3121.

The very fact of the tracks not having been made *as* an album is what conversely makes them such good collections.

MORE!

In fact I'm gonna check em out again tomorrow.

[Edited 9/7/14 15:07pm]

[Edited 9/7/14 15:09pm]

The Daisy Chain is by far the best one on there, Golden Parachute is also good.....for anyone else the album would be fairly decent, but for Prince, yeah, it would of been one of his worst.

Radical Man would also of drastically improved it.

[Edited 9/7/14 16:28pm]

My top 10 songs from this period would be (in no particular order):

When Lay My Hands On U
Supercute
Underneath The Cream
Vavoom
High
Silicon
When Will We B Paid?
S&M Groove
My Medallion
The Daisy Chain

I liked a lot of these tracks that he was leaking slowly though NPGMC. What I do is, same as I've done for the last 25 - 30 years, is just keep the stuff I like (funk/rock) and weed out the stuff I don't (ballads/bland pop). I liked a lot of Slaughterhouse and Chocoloate Invasion too but I pliced them into one album called "The Chocolate Slaughterhouse".

.

It's been like this for so long I'm used to it. I can't remember the last Prince record I could just play from start to finish. 3121 was close but that one was weird because hardly any of the songs were great and hardly any were awful.

herb4 said:

BobGeorge909 said:

herb4 said:

I liked a lot of these tracks that he was leaking slowly though NPGMC. What I do is, same as I've done for the last 25 - 30 years, is just keep the stuff I like (funk/rock) and weed out the stuff I don't (ballads/bland pop). I liked a lot of Slaughterhouse and Chocoloate Invasion too but I pliced them into one album called "The Chocolate Slaughterhouse".

.

It's been like this for so long I'm used to it. I can't remember the last Prince record I could just play from start to finish. 3121 was close but that one was weird because hardly any of the songs were great and hardly any were awful.

Nice title...but it makes me feel bad for the little cocoa beans. That's what i do to..make my own little album of a time period and related recording and have a blast with it. Radical Man, super cute, my medallion(not ground breaking musically but fucking HILARIOUS) hand on you, paid, vavoom, and Madrid r staples in my collection. Especially radical...wow ...fucking LOVE that track. Super cute is super fun too...in always feel like I'm actually in a club peepin' a hottie when I hear it. Gamillah very occasionally makes it on to a 'having sex' sdtk with a certain kinda girl. Its an opener...not a closer. [Edited 9/9/14 14:30pm]

Chocalate is delicious. Don't worry. A lot of people don't like the funk/dance/party/rap tracks around here for whatever reason.

.

NouveauDance

.

How anyone can praise the "genious" of songs like "Planet Earth", "Empty Room" and "The Dance" yet take a giant shit on MPLSound is beyond me, but whatever. MPLSound and NPS are underrated.

.

There's a lot of fun stuff from the High era too. I certainly enjoyed more of that material than anything on Rave. "Jukebox With a Heartbeat" is an all timer. "Funky Design" is great and so is 'Radical Man".

Yeah, I said it.

herb4 said:

BobGeorge909 said:

herb4 said: Nice title...but it makes me feel bad for the little cocoa beans. That's what i do to..make my own little album of a time period and related recording and have a blast with it. Radical Man, super cute, my medallion(not ground breaking musically but fucking HILARIOUS) hand on you, paid, vavoom, and Madrid r staples in my collection. Especially radical...wow ...fucking LOVE that track. Super cute is super fun too...in always feel like I'm actually in a club peepin' a hottie when I hear it. Gamillah very occasionally makes it on to a 'having sex' sdtk with a certain kinda girl. Its an opener...not a closer. [Edited 9/9/14 14:30pm]

Chocalate is delicious. Don't worry. A lot of people don't like the funk/dance/party/rap tracks around here for whatever reason.

.

NouveauDance

.

How anyone can praise the "genious" of songs like "Planet Earth", "Empty Room" and "The Dance" yet take a giant shit on MPLSound is beyond me, but whatever. MPLSound and NPS are underrated.

.

There's a lot of fun stuff from the High era too. I certainly enjoyed more of that material than anything on Rave. "Jukebox With a Heartbeat" is an all timer. "Funky Design" is great and so is 'Radical Man".

Yeah, I said it.

Funky Design is a Gold/Exodus outtake from 1994.

databank said:

herb4 said:

Chocalate is delicious. Don't worry. A lot of people don't like the funk/dance/party/rap tracks around here for whatever reason.

.

NouveauDance

.

How anyone can praise the "genious" of songs like "Planet Earth", "Empty Room" and "The Dance" yet take a giant shit on MPLSound is beyond me, but whatever. MPLSound and NPS are underrated.

.

There's a lot of fun stuff from the High era too. I certainly enjoyed more of that material than anything on Rave. "Jukebox With a Heartbeat" is an all timer. "Funky Design" is great and so is 'Radical Man".

Yeah, I said it.

Funky Design is a Gold/Exodus outtake from 1994.

Oh, well. I was just using it as an example of a style of music that most Prince fans tend not to like.