JordanRose said:

Thank you to langebleu for re-opning my AOA thread to allow me to respond:

http://prince.org/msg/7/411633

I'd like to respond to BobGeorge909 who said this:

I don't like the OP at all. Some of it was just flat out wrong. Maybe the op didn't see any mention of age and issues with it cuz they dismissed an entire song with the title time.

Much of it just seemed misinformed and a lot of projection misinterpreted as some kind of fact.

I said several times that I wasn't sure about all of the specifics so of course a lot of what I said was conjecture. But I think that overall i'm on the right lines and you haven't offered an alternative take on what the album is communicating.

Yes, I did dismiss the song Time entirely, just like I dismissed all of the songs which don't fit into the lyrical narrative I was discussing. There is not one single line in Time which points to Prince reflecting on his age or ageing in general. The lyrics are actually extremely banal:

Gonna lemme tell u one time

that I think its 'bout time
That I got time
Alone with u
Cuz ure so fine
When I get mine
Baby u can too

Oh oh I think I need u 2 b my girl
Travel with me around the world
Baby baby
So no paper
This works out fine
But not half as fine
As when I get time
With u

Sugar have u heard

I think its 'bout time
That I got time
Alone with u
Cuz ure so fine
When I get mine
Baby u can too

If there's a lyric on the album that i've missed that remotely refers to Prince discussing ageing than please show me.

-

In addition to my other comments on Art Official Cage, has anyone else noticed that it seems as if prince is being waterboarded near the end? After two sinister voices demand of him 'Tell us what you know!' you can hear water being poured onto something and then Prince making gurgling noises, exactly like someone being torture through water-boarding.

[Edited 10/21/14 16:25pm]

[Edited 10/23/14 10:14am]

leundertaker said:

Is the deep voice in The Gold Standard the same as the one in Bob George?

Quite similar. However I don't think he speeded up the analog tapes, recording the vocals to a faster beat, then slowing the tapes down to correct speed for a low pitched voice. In modern times we have this thing kalled pitch shift. You can pitch up and down the voice without doing it the old fashioned way. Even though the old fashioned way often sounds better, because it's more musically pleasing. When you sing with your voice to a speed up or slowed down beat, you'll try to match the feel of it. "replacing" your vocals with the pitch shift doesn't do quite the same magic imo. However he is doing his Bob George alot better than the new high pitched Camilleish voice these days.

ART OFFICIAL CAGE: One of the worst Prince songs of all time. YEAH, I said it!!!

byrdman10 said:

ART OFFICIAL CAGE: One of the worst Prince songs of all time. YEAH, I said it!!!

It's pretty bad, agreed. Probably the worst song on the album. It almost seems intentional, like "look how artificial sounding everything is these days" before he segues into being re-awakened. It's like he's re-awakening and hearing all this Roxbury electronic music and wondering "what the fuck is this shit?" Then he tunes in the radio dial and we get "Clouds".

.

Got me to thinking, I can't remember the last time a lead-off track was really this bad. Usually they're quite strong (1999, Let's Go Crazy, Dirty Mind, SOTT, The Future, Controversy, 3121, Musicology, Chaos & Disorder, Beginning Endlessly, ATWIAD, Thunder, LeGrind, The Truth, Come, Crystal Ball, IWBYL) and even second tier openers (Rave, Never Be Another, TRC, ONA, P Control, Christopher Tracy's Parade, My Name is Prince, Can't Stop This Feeling I Got, I Know, Jam of the Year, NPS) are all interesting enough depending on your personal taste.

"From the Lotus" and "North" are the last times I remember him shitting himself this hard out of the box but, like I said, it seems intentional on AOA. I think that song is supposed to suck.

herb4 said:

byrdman10 said:

ART OFFICIAL CAGE: One of the worst Prince songs of all time. YEAH, I said it!!!

Got me to thinking, I can't remember the last time a lead-off track was really this bad. Usually they're quite strong (1999, Let's Go Crazy, Dirty Mind, SOTT, The Future, Controversy, 3121, Musicology, Chaos & Disorder, Beginning Endlessly, ATWIAD, Thunder, LeGrind, The Truth, Come, Crystal Ball, IWBYL) and even second tier openers (Rave, Never Be Another, TRC, ONA, P Control, Christopher Tracy's Parade, My Name is Prince, Can't Stop This Feeling I Got, I Know, Jam of the Year, NPS) are all interesting enough depending on your personal taste.

"From the Lotus" and "North" are the last times I remember him shitting himself this hard out of the box but, like I said, it seems intentional on AOA. I think that song is supposed to suck.

Beginning Endlessly (a fine tune) wasn't the opener to 20Ten--the truly horrible-in-its-blandness Compassion was first. Give me the trainwreck AOC over that snoozer any day.

[Edited 10/27/14 12:13pm]

EddieC said:

herb4 said:

Got me to thinking, I can't remember the last time a lead-off track was really this bad. Usually they're quite strong (1999, Let's Go Crazy, Dirty Mind, SOTT, The Future, Controversy, 3121, Musicology, Chaos & Disorder, Beginning Endlessly, ATWIAD, Thunder, LeGrind, The Truth, Come, Crystal Ball, IWBYL) and even second tier openers (Rave, Never Be Another, TRC, ONA, P Control, Christopher Tracy's Parade, My Name is Prince, Can't Stop This Feeling I Got, I Know, Jam of the Year, NPS) are all interesting enough depending on your personal taste.

"From the Lotus" and "North" are the last times I remember him shitting himself this hard out of the box but, like I said, it seems intentional on AOA. I think that song is supposed to suck.

Beginning Endlessly (a fine tune) wasn't the opener to 20Ten--the truly horrible-in-its-blandness Compassion was first. Give me the trainwreck AOC over that snoozer any day.

[Edited 10/27/14 12:13pm]

Oh. It is on my copy. I never bought it and had assembled it on CD through various...um...sources. I stand corrected. Yeah "Compassion" is not so good.

.

What do you think of the idea that AOC is sort of supposed to be inferior? It's all over the place and highly derivative of all the wrong styles. Keeping with the concept of the record, it's like Prince wakes up after 45 years and THIS is the first shit he hears.

herb4 said:

EddieC said:

Beginning Endlessly (a fine tune) wasn't the opener to 20Ten--the truly horrible-in-its-blandness Compassion was first. Give me the trainwreck AOC over that snoozer any day.

[Edited 10/27/14 12:13pm]

Oh. It is on my copy. I never bought it and had assembled it on CD through various...um...sources. I stand corrected. Yeah "Compassion" is not so good.

.

What do you think of the idea that AOC is sort of supposed to be inferior? It's all over the place and highly derivative of all the wrong styles. Keeping with the concept of the record, it's like Prince wakes up after 45 years and THIS is the first shit he hears.

Could be. I'm not sure it's necessarily intentionally bad--but it's certainly disjointed, which might be tied to the diorientation of coming out of whatever state he's been in. I'm just not sure it's the case that Prince thinks the sounds he's aping (when he is aping something on this track) are bad ones. It feels a lot like a Batman outtake to me, so he might not even realize he's being derivative of anything current now. I don't really see it as that different from Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic.

You might have something, but I'm not convinced. The song's just kind of there for me, a bit (I hate to say it) meh. Not bad enough to seem meaningfully bad, just mediocre, with a few moments of interest.

Forgive me if this has been answered, but who is the female voice in the "affirmation" interludes and in "Way Back Home" and "Clouds"? Is the person really British?

namepeace said:

Forgive me if this has been answered, but who is the female voice in the "affirmation" interludes and in "Way Back Home" and "Clouds"? Is the person really British?

Lianne La Havas....I think that's how you spell it.


http://princevault.com/in...n_I_%26_II

Yes, this album works, as we have all said.

I have one problem with it though, and it's a simple problem.

though it works, it is not addictive nor even memorable.

It will be an easy album to lay down and forget.

It's not going to hang with us.

And that is what I look for in a Prince album, and keep hoping that he achieves again.

Some would say, he doesn't have to, he already has.

I say, I don't know if he can anymore.

It would seem to me, that if Prince could, he would. I seriously think he is that kind of person.

And I think he is trying to.

So yes it works, but memorable or addictive, no.

nice try P, but this one misses the mark here.

That was a lovely poem.

Listening to AOA again--such a strange mixture of sincerity & satire--it's hard to know where one begins and the other ends...

it would be too easy to include lyrics.....he'd rather end up saying what he said after he released graffitti bridge WITHOUT lyrics......

After 6 weeks I still really love it, no real changes in marks though, except the first song, which I think has too many samples and overdubs. It's overproduced to hell, but its not a boytrouble track.

AOA is#10 on Billboard's R&B chart. Was #5 last week. (That's 5 weeks in and still in the top 10)

Adorecream said:

After 6 weeks I still really love it, no real changes in marks though, except the first song, which I think has too many samples and overdubs. It's overproduced to hell, but its not a boytrouble track.

Right

I have now been listening to the album for a few weeks. I'm still very happy with it. Been listening to Mr Nelson since 1982 and AOA is a classic Prince album. It has great melodies, unexpected twists and plenty for us fans to argue about! For instance Art official cage, a crazy song that one can easily thrash but at the same time enjoy for it's playfullness and weird arrangement. I love it, got to admit it. The only song I have problems with is the beginning of The Gold standard. Clouds, U know, Way back home, Time, This could be us...wow, these and more are pure Prince classics. And my 3 year old daughter loves them and dances to them....hell yeah, my wife who prefers country music even said that this stuff is good!

What I feel is that many of these songs sound like they were written when Prince was top of his game. People need to hear this art official stuff!

After not listening to it after the first initial play through, I have to say this is a definite album from Prince. It flows well and I don't feel as if it stumbles or switches randomlyl, seguing without silly tracks.

I don't think I dislike any of the songs. I consider the first track an actual introduction to the album rather than a song. But looking at the whole album I would definitely listen to pretty much every track seperately; pretty much the whole albums set of tracks.

I think it'll grow with time and become a milestone album much like Musicology, perhaps an even better album, as a point in time Prince returned to proper album making; 20Ten has some good tracks but has nothing on this. (going by the last album he released)

Ironic there is a flood of boots right after AOA was released...

Don't know why people don't like the song "This Could Be Us".It's one of my favorites. Also, why was breakfast can wait released first? It's okay, but there alot of better songso on this album.

luke1733 said:

Don't know why people don't like the song "This Could Be Us".It's one of my favorites. Also, why was breakfast can wait released first? It's okay, but there alot of better songso on this album.

Well you are preaching 2 the choir with me. I fxxken love that song. It is the sexiest shit he has written in years and the coolest - the line " purple psychedelic pimp slap" kills me everytime. Not only is he driving a girl to sex him, he is telling her to stop messing him around about it, like lets fuck already!. That's a classic Prince sex ballad for me.

[Edited 11/15/14 4:18am]

Just had to listen to Clouds again...it's been playing in my head for the past two hours for some reason...

langebleu said:

purplethunder3121 said:

Just had to listen to Clouds again...it's been playing in my head for the past two hours for some reason...

Today AOC was playing in my head. I'm still singing one or two songs from this cd every day.

Princey done good...

I haven't removed AOA from my car's cd player since day one. Just saying.

dadeepop said:

I haven't removed AOA from my car's cd player since day one. Just saying.

I guess I didn't do burn-out playing this CD over and over again... But, I keep coming back to it and the more I listen to it, the more fond of it I grow. Even the idiosyncracies I might not agree with--I think it is a memorable album that I will continue to play over again throughout the years.