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Reply #570 posted 09/29/14 10:50am

dadeepop

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nebkheperrure said:

I'm going to put a song review up here. I've shared this review on other fb prince group pages and a friend has suggested I post here too. After listening to Prince’s music for over thirty years, I’ve never felt compelled to review his material publicly before. However, I think on this occasion, owing to the significance of this song, you may forgive me if I go astray... If you're curious and don't mind fan reviews, then here’s my view of a song that I feel moves beyond the simple narrative and chord progressions of some song-writing into something quite extraordinary. I think the song, ‘Time’, the last full song on the album, could well be the most musically reflective song Prince has ever crafted using his own musical source material. It’s a song that is produced, arranged, composed and performed out of a seam of musicality that defines the legacy of a man who has inspired generations, thrilled and frustrated millions in equal measure whilst, all the time, living and breathing his craft beyond any other considerations in his life. So to my review: ‘Time’ has a final resting place on an album that is preoccupied with ‘adjustment periods’, ‘affirmations’ and ‘enlightenment’. For me, this placement is significant. For me, this song reflects on a life’s work and musicality. From the start, the song uses a phone and deep vocal. Classic Prince devices to show narrative and storytelling. Then comes the drum pattern and initial spacey keys. We’re back in 1983. The drum is quickly enhanced by a live drum kit picking up the beat whilst someone lights a match/cigerette (another image from the Prince canon). The spacey chords continue until the drum beats expand into something Michael B would throwdown circa Diamonds and Pearls. Get out the headphones and listen to that kick drum once the verse starts. It’s immense. The keys continue to expand too. Like the universe and the Big Bang. Flourishes of harp strings flash across the soundscape like an Aurora Borealis. The lyric here becomes significant. Andy Allo sings of running out of lies and alibies. Prince is confessional. He’s reflecting big time. The keys grow and the beat circles around and around. We could be in Linn territory here. Lisa Coleman could well be serving up her “spacey chords”. Emancipation harps are unbothered by chaos swirling around outside and the drum smashes Gett Off big beats. It’s all there, listen. Then there’s a bass. It comes in, Face Down, and adds a texture and tone that sits right on the top of the mix. When Prince gets his bass out, he’s really feeling it. We all know this. The vocal around ‘animal cages’ suddenly sounds like Mad Sex and we’re referencing New Power Soul. He keeps this groove going. Remember this guy jams a single groove all night. He’s there. Suddenly the synths start to sprinkle a little and the bass climbs and climbs. Something is coming.. The next part of the song, at 6:05 mins in, is why Prince is a musical genius. It’s why Prince will live and die his music. Its inclusion here reminds us of the stop-start inventive playfulness of Alphabet Street, the dirty pause of Batmans ‘Keep Bustin’, the subtle moans on When Doves Cry buried deep in the mix at the second verse. Prince stops the song and groans. A groan isn’t a fair representation. He uses his voice to convey loneliness, lust, vulnerability and musicology within a few simple yet highly sophisticated breaths. It’s a moment within the song that is like seeing Picasso’s thumbprint on a painting, or Shakespeare’s notes to himself on, as yet, unseen manuscripts. At this point in the song, Prince is saying this is it. This is me. This is what I am and no more. At this point Prince will never be beaten. He Is Music. The song then melts away into familiar Minneapolis synth horn refrains and pretty guitar and we realise that this last song on the album has taken us through his entire career and we didn’t even see it coming.

[Edited 9/29/14 1:07am]

. . Excellent review of Time. That song certainly deserves all the accolades possible.
"The password is what."
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Reply #571 posted 09/29/14 10:55am

herb4

dadeepop said:

nebkheperrure said:

wall of text

. . Excellent review of Time. That song certainly deserves all the accolades possible.

Could use some paragraph breaks.

.

Are we allowed to post links to streams of these albums?

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Reply #572 posted 09/29/14 11:22am

dadeepop

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herb4 said:

dadeepop said:

. . Excellent review of Time. That song certainly deserves all the accolades possible.

Could use some paragraph breaks.

.

Are we allowed to post links to streams of these albums?

Lol..."wall of text." Yes, excellent review, but a B- on presentation. wink

.

Not sure.

"The password is what."
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Reply #573 posted 09/29/14 11:23am

HatrinaHaterwi
tz

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herb4 said:

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

The fact that I had to use the word BLAND to describe a new Prince album is horrible enough but someone telling me to smoke some weed to help me not see the blandness is just too much for me. I'm going out to play in the sun

You can do all three (grab some headphones, smoke a bowl and go outside)! It'll be fun! The fuck is so horrible about smoking pot and listening to music? I'm pretty sure that's a thing people do. You seem like a really fun person.

.

Forget the weed if you find the idea of getting high and listening to music insulting. Start with the headphones. I'm not trying to tell you what to like or not to like but to call this record "bland" leads me to think you may have a hearing problem or that you're listening to it through shitty laptop speakers. I can get why some folks might not like it, but it's hardly "bland". If you'd said it was overproduced, too slick, pretentious, plastic, synthetic, preachy or...well...even "artifical" I could take your critique seriously but the motherfucker aint "bland". Like at all.

.

Just so i have a frame of reference relating to your tastes, can you cite 3 or 4 Prince albums that you don't think are bland?

Nothing at all but once upon a time, smoking pot and listening to Prince at the same time could be dangerous. That was having far too much of an endorphin rush at one time, trust me, I KNOW! batting eyes

The insulting part is NOW, I actually might have to smoke some weed just to find some flavor in this BLANDness that is AOA. And since it already sounds BLAND to me through my Bose headphones, I don't think a gram is going to be enough, so I'll have to get back to you on this, next weekend. biggrin

As for the 3 or 4 non-BLAND Prince Albums? For You, Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, LoveSexy, Batman, prince, Diamonds and Pearls and Emacipation. Post 2000 - Musicology.

I knew from the start that I loved you with all my heart.
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Reply #574 posted 09/29/14 11:32am

SupaFunkyOrgan
grinderSexy

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HatrinaHaterwitz said:

herb4 said:

You can do all three (grab some headphones, smoke a bowl and go outside)! It'll be fun! The fuck is so horrible about smoking pot and listening to music? I'm pretty sure that's a thing people do. You seem like a really fun person.

.

Forget the weed if you find the idea of getting high and listening to music insulting. Start with the headphones. I'm not trying to tell you what to like or not to like but to call this record "bland" leads me to think you may have a hearing problem or that you're listening to it through shitty laptop speakers. I can get why some folks might not like it, but it's hardly "bland". If you'd said it was overproduced, too slick, pretentious, plastic, synthetic, preachy or...well...even "artifical" I could take your critique seriously but the motherfucker aint "bland". Like at all.

.

Just so i have a frame of reference relating to your tastes, can you cite 3 or 4 Prince albums that you don't think are bland?

Nothing at all but once upon a time, smoking pot and listening to Prince at the same time could be dangerous. That was having far too much of an endorphin rush at one time, trust me, I KNOW! batting eyes

The insulting part is NOW, I actually might have to smoke some weed just to find some flavor in this BLANDness that is AOA. And since it already sounds BLAND to me through my Bose headphones, I don't think a gram is going to be enough, so I'll have to get back to you on this, next weekend. biggrin

As for the 3 or 4 non-BLAND Prince Albums? For You, Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, LoveSexy, Batman, prince, Diamonds and Pearls and Emacipation. Post 2000 - Musicology.

It's funny because the other day I was thinking how I would be satisfied if at least the music was interesting. I'm not interested in buying these albums based on what I've heard. I am interested in hearing them, just not buying them.

2010: Healing the Wounds of the Past.... http://prince.org/msg/8/325740
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Reply #575 posted 09/29/14 11:44am

V10LETBLUES

Alexandernvrmind said:



V10LETBLUES said:


Nikkie said:
The Guardian is moderately postive, 3 stars out of 5 for the whole package: Prince: Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum review – no lack of ideas, just focus. http://gu.com/p/422x8/tw

Seems like a more sober review. While he obviously rates it far better than me, I respect it. For me it comes down to, yes Prince has been ..funky, jazzy, pop, rock, indulgent, vulgar, weird, everything under the sun, but it wasn't until recently that we could add oblivious and corny to the list. from the Guardian review
Two decades on, Prince’s patchy period is still in full swing. If he’s never made a truly awful album in the ensuing 17 years, the kind of unequivocal artistic triumphs of which his release schedule once solely consisted have been noticeable by their absence. In their place has come a familiar sound: that of journalists trying to will an unequivocal artistic triumph into existence on Prince’s behalf. It’s almost an art form in itself, which reached a kind of apotheosis – its Sign O’ the Times, its Parade – with Tony Parsons’ 2010 piece, in which he informed the world that the mediocre Prince album the Daily Mirror was giving away was both the most important comeback since Elvis climbed onstage in a leather suit and literally the best album ever made: “as good as anything that anyone has done”. Which brings us to PlectrumElectrum and Art Official Age, on which Prince himself seems to join the chorus of voices insisting his new album, or rather albums, are an astonishing return to form.

[Edited 9/29/14 10:19am]



IDK V10... hes been corny for a while. Its a fine line with Prince. Diamond and Pearls you could be a happy boy or a girl. Gold... Graffitti Bridge. We are the New Power Generation and we want to change the world! He could be corny but a lot of times it worked. The music or the hook was soooo good it worked. On the examples I just gave that is not the case and honestly there is nothing corny on AOA IMO



If you don't mind me asking is their recent work you do like? LotusFlower (disc 1 of course)? Rainbow Children, 3121? Again I think some of your points make sense but its like you are talking about Planet Earth or Rave... not AOA



yes I agree with you on D&P being corny, and I agree that when the music is great one is more likely to overlook it and think of it as "charming" instead of corny. But I think the cornyiness musically and lyrically on a XY graph have been slowly converging to the top of the corniness scale, and likewise on a timeline axis has shown it has slowly been inching upward where the corniness ultimatly trasfoms to banality and something cringeworthy. To me at least.
[Edited 9/29/14 13:54pm]
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Reply #576 posted 09/29/14 11:48am

herb4

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

herb4 said:

Smoke weed and listen to this record through proper headphones

Nothing at all but once upon a time, smoking pot and listening to Prince at the same time could be dangerous. That was having far too much of an endorphin rush at one time, trust me, I KNOW! batting eyes

As for the 3 or 4 non-BLAND Prince Albums? For You, Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, LoveSexy, Batman, prince, Diamonds and Pearls and Emacipation. Post 2000 - Musicology.

Then why did you call me out as some sort of stoner shitheel for suggesting that smoking weed adds to music appreciation on occasion, and apprecation for this album in particular? You seemed to, at least. Sorry you had a dangerous experience combining the two (Prince and pot). Give it a shot! I'd be interested to hear about the endorphin rush and the danger you experienced.

.

This album is on par or better than all the ones I bolded and, for the record, I haven't even smoked pot while listening to it. Yet. But I'm looking forward to it. How is this album "bland"? You keep using that word but haven't elaborated or described why you feel that way. It's inceredibly thick, rich and layered.

.

Your entire review is "it's BLAND" and it "it SUCKS" and "I'm going to shoot myself instead of listening to this" but details would help.

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Reply #577 posted 09/29/14 12:21pm

dadeepop

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Remember how so many ppl on here thought Joshua was a crap producer after "Fall In Love 2 Night"? WRONGO.

"The password is what."
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Reply #578 posted 09/29/14 12:30pm

HatrinaHaterwi
tz

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herb4 said:

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Nothing at all but once upon a time, smoking pot and listening to Prince at the same time could be dangerous. That was having far too much of an endorphin rush at one time, trust me, I KNOW! batting eyes

As for the 3 or 4 non-BLAND Prince Albums? For You, Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, LoveSexy, Batman, prince, Diamonds and Pearls and Emacipation. Post 2000 - Musicology.

Then why did you call me out as some sort of stoner shitheel for suggesting that smoking weed adds to music appreciation on occasion, and apprecation for this album in particular? You seemed to, at least. Sorry you had a dangerous experience combining the two (Prince and pot). Give it a shot! I'd be interested to hear about the endorphin rush and the danger you experienced.

.

This album is on par or better than all the ones I bolded and, for the record, I haven't even smoked pot while listening to it. Yet. But I'm looking forward to it. How is this album "bland"? You keep using that word but haven't elaborated or described why you feel that way. It's inceredibly thick, rich and layered.

.

Your entire review is "it's BLAND" and it "it SUCKS" and "I'm going to shoot myself instead of listening to this" but details would help.

Where did you get all of that from? I just found the suggestion ironic. shrug

I did elaborate on why I feel it's BLAND. To ME: it's uninspired, heart-less, soul-less, FUNK-less and preachy. I don't hear a matured Prince, experimenting with loops, layers and whatever the fuck else the critics are being paid by WB to write in their BS reviews. I hear the same cookie-cutter, non-emotionally invested, half-assed effort wise crap he's been doing for the last several years. shrug

In all honesty, I'd rather smoke some weed and watch Graffiti Bridge again, than waste it on AOA because I couldn't smoke enough to spice up AOA, if I tried. razz

I knew from the start that I loved you with all my heart.
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Reply #579 posted 09/29/14 12:33pm

nosajd

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dadeepop said:

Remember how so many ppl on here thought Joshua was a crap producer after "Fall In Love 2 Night"? WRONGO.

.

lol I can't stand that song, but I do enjoy most of AOA & I'm tremendously glad that song is not wasting space on this album. I find it amazing that so many love this song, to me it's pure pop crap for teeny boppers. To each their own I suppose smile

[Edited 9/29/14 12:44pm]

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Reply #580 posted 09/29/14 12:34pm

Brendan

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If "The Rainbow Children" is at least a tiny bit inspired by DeAngelo, I think "Art Official Age" deserves the same credits for Janelle Monae.

And no doubt dozens of other things, including, and perhaps most importantly, his youthful counterparts, that have perhaps allowed him, inspired him to once again be a playful, bizarre, freaky spirit in the studio, masterfully concocting a choir of a hundred voices that feels much more the embodiment of "Lovesexy" than "The Rainbow Children".

He's not on a pedestal looking down at the great unwashed, rather it feels like he's sitting in the grass (while some are even smoking it) celebrating the awesome potential. I believe he's using modern tools and techniques to show how it can be done, to reinforce the theme of a caged generation that has sometimes forgotten how to fly. Quite a turn from the old man who once yelled at The Internet for getting in its backyard.

The old confessional Prince might someday show a completely new side. But until then I think he had to find a deeply connected way back to resolving his past magnificence, which in the previous 10 years, despite its moments of brilliance here and there, at least to me, always, or eventually, came across a bit like ill-fitting Lycra.
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Reply #581 posted 09/29/14 12:53pm

dadeepop

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nosajd said:

dadeepop said:

Remember how so many ppl on here thought Joshua was a crap producer after "Fall In Love 2 Night"? WRONGO.

.

lol I can't stand that song, but I do enjoy most of AOA & I'm tremendously glad that song is not wasting space on this album. I find it amazing that so many love this song, to me it's pure pop crap for teeny boppers. To each their own I suppose smile

[Edited 9/29/14 12:44pm]

I hear ya. I enjoy it for the disposable pop that it is & Prince dabbling in pop culture again with the show. But I'm also glad it wasn't included on AOA.

"The password is what."
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Reply #582 posted 09/29/14 12:57pm

HatrinaHaterwi
tz

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Brendan said:

If "The Rainbow Children" is at least a tiny bit inspired by DeAngelo, I think "Art Official Age" deserves the same credits for Janelle Monae. And no doubt dozens of other things, including, and perhaps most importantly, his youthful counterparts, that have perhaps allowed him, inspired him to once again be a playful, bizarre, freaky spirit in the studio, masterfully concocting a choir of a hundred voices that feels much more the embodiment of "Lovesexy" than "The Rainbow Children". He's not on a pedestal looking down at the great unwashed, rather it feels like he's sitting in the grass (while some are even smoking it) celebrating the awesome potential. I believe he's using modern tools and techniques to show how it can be done, to reinforce the theme of a caged generation that has sometimes forgotten how to fly. Quite a turn from the old man who once yelled at The Internet for getting in its backyard. The old confessional Prince might someday show a completely new side. But until then I think he had to find a deeply connected way back to resolving his past magnificence, which in the previous 10 years, despite its moments of brilliance here and there, at least to me, always, or eventually, came across a bit like ill-fitting Lycra.

Nooooooo! I was starting to like her. Don't put this on her. lol

I knew from the start that I loved you with all my heart.
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Reply #583 posted 09/29/14 1:08pm

herb4

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

herb4 said:

Then why did you call me out as some sort of stoner shitheel for suggesting that smoking weed adds to music appreciation on occasion, and apprecation for this album in particular?

Where did you get all of that from?

From this:

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

The fact that I had to use the word BLAND to describe a new Prince album is horrible enough but someone telling me to smoke some weed to help me not see the blandness is just too much for me. I'm going out to play in the sun

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Reply #584 posted 09/29/14 1:14pm

jasminejoey

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I can't wait to hear this album. Some claim it's a masterpiece, others a heaping, steaming pile. Obviously it can't be both.

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Reply #585 posted 09/29/14 1:25pm

lazycrockett

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^Its a prince site, of course it can.

The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything.
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Reply #586 posted 09/29/14 1:35pm

McD

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It's more consistent than 20Ten (9 dog turds and one classic, Future Soul Song), but overall it's still the sound of an artist well past his prime. The peerless ability is still there, but as a songwriter, ideas-man and creative force, he's pretty much spent.

Every second track starting with the first (but omitting the 'affirmations') are OK, but there's really nothing here worthy of even 2004 Prince. Breakdown, possibly the best track on the album, feels like an offcut from New Power Soul, but even that was his worst album by far from that era.

Which leaves the tracks in between which I don't like at all. Including the worst moment of his entire career: Breakfast Can Wait. It's not only shit, but probably has the dumbest, most offensive lyrics I've ever heard. Faced with the prospect of not getting the sex he is demanding: 'You can't leave a black man in this state.' Ignoring the potential race issue... what if she does just leave ya like that, P? Coz I'm especially worried about this line: 'cant stop even if the police come'. Sheeee-it, even Ted Bundy called it a night when he heard a siren outside, but you keep going P, coz 'you think she's great'. You can always lawyer-up afterwards. Jesus H. Christ.

2/5
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Reply #587 posted 09/29/14 1:48pm

SupaFunkyOrgan
grinderSexy

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McD said:

It's more consistent than 20Ten (9 dog turds and one classic, Future Soul Song), but overall it's still the sound of an artist well past his prime. The peerless ability is still there, but as a songwriter, ideas-man and creative force, he's pretty much spent. Every second track starting with the first (but omitting the 'affirmations') are OK, but there's really nothing here worthy of even 2004 Prince. Breakdown, possibly the best track on the album, feels like an offcut from New Power Soul, but even that was his worst album by far from that era. Which leaves the tracks in between which I don't like at all. Including the worst moment of his entire career: Breakfast Can Wait. It's not only shit, but probably has the dumbest, most offensive lyrics I've ever heard. Faced with the prospect of not getting the sex he is demanding: 'You can't leave a black man in this state.' Ignoring the potential race issue... what if she does just leave ya like that, P? Coz I'm especially worried about this line: 'cant stop even if the police come'. Sheeee-it, even Ted Bundy called it a night when he heard a siren outside, but you keep going P, coz 'you think she's great'. You can always lawyer-up afterwards. Jesus H. Christ. 2/5

I was listening to Last Heart:

"Baby if you break my heart one more time, It'd be the last heart you ever break".

And on that I was going to create a thread called "Prince the Murderer" and then thought, well the fams will go ApeS over that one but now reading that lyric, I just might create it lol

2010: Healing the Wounds of the Past.... http://prince.org/msg/8/325740
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Reply #588 posted 09/29/14 1:50pm

jasminejoey

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I'm afraid I can't take your review seriously if you think Future Soul Song is a classic. That's real talk.

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Reply #589 posted 09/29/14 1:54pm

McD

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SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:



McD said:


It's more consistent than 20Ten (9 dog turds and one classic, Future Soul Song), but overall it's still the sound of an artist well past his prime. The peerless ability is still there, but as a songwriter, ideas-man and creative force, he's pretty much spent. Every second track starting with the first (but omitting the 'affirmations') are OK, but there's really nothing here worthy of even 2004 Prince. Breakdown, possibly the best track on the album, feels like an offcut from New Power Soul, but even that was his worst album by far from that era. Which leaves the tracks in between which I don't like at all. Including the worst moment of his entire career: Breakfast Can Wait. It's not only shit, but probably has the dumbest, most offensive lyrics I've ever heard. Faced with the prospect of not getting the sex he is demanding: 'You can't leave a black man in this state.' Ignoring the potential race issue... what if she does just leave ya like that, P? Coz I'm especially worried about this line: 'cant stop even if the police come'. Sheeee-it, even Ted Bundy called it a night when he heard a siren outside, but you keep going P, coz 'you think she's great'. You can always lawyer-up afterwards. Jesus H. Christ. 2/5


I was listening to Last Heart:

"Baby if you break my heart one more time, It'd be the last heart you ever break".

And on that I was going to create a thread called "Prince the Murderer" and then thought, well the fams will go ApeS over that one but now reading that lyric, I just might create it lol



We've all said we're gonna kill someone.

Not many of us have threatened to rape someone though. And especially not that we'd still keep humping away, holding their hands out of reach of the fruit bowl, even as SWAT came through the door.

I'll give him a pass for thoughtless vulgarity. But it doesn't reflect too well either way.
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Reply #590 posted 09/29/14 1:59pm

herb4

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Stuff

It's funny because the other day I was thinking how I would be satisfied if at least the music was interesting. I'm not interested in buying these albums based on what I've heard. I am interested in hearing them, just not buying them.

What's your problem with the music? I can understand why some folks might not dig it or find it up their alley but to call it "uninteresting" and "bland", "boring" and "uninspired", as some are saying, just boggles my fucking mind. Becuase, say what you will about the new stuff, it's hardly boring. When I think "boring", I think of NEWS and Planet Earth. AOA has layers of weirdness and ear candy happening all over the place. The songwriting is even back to a large extent. What's uniinteresting about it? The last 4 or 5 tracks are among the greatest opus Prince has ever done. Christ, he even managed this time to make segues listenable and bearable.

.

Plectrum Electrum even manages to capture the aftershow/jam/rock n roll side of Prince that most of the world has never heard and that was frustratingly absent on "It Aint Over". I'm not sure what some people's problems are with these albums

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Reply #591 posted 09/29/14 2:01pm

2020

avatar

McD said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:



McD said:


It's more consistent than 20Ten (9 dog turds and one classic, Future Soul Song), but overall it's still the sound of an artist well past his prime. The peerless ability is still there, but as a songwriter, ideas-man and creative force, he's pretty much spent. Every second track starting with the first (but omitting the 'affirmations') are OK, but there's really nothing here worthy of even 2004 Prince. Breakdown, possibly the best track on the album, feels like an offcut from New Power Soul, but even that was his worst album by far from that era. Which leaves the tracks in between which I don't like at all. Including the worst moment of his entire career: Breakfast Can Wait. It's not only shit, but probably has the dumbest, most offensive lyrics I've ever heard. Faced with the prospect of not getting the sex he is demanding: 'You can't leave a black man in this state.' Ignoring the potential race issue... what if she does just leave ya like that, P? Coz I'm especially worried about this line: 'cant stop even if the police come'. Sheeee-it, even Ted Bundy called it a night when he heard a siren outside, but you keep going P, coz 'you think she's great'. You can always lawyer-up afterwards. Jesus H. Christ. 2/5


I was listening to Last Heart:

"Baby if you break my heart one more time, It'd be the last heart you ever break".

And on that I was going to create a thread called "Prince the Murderer" and then thought, well the fams will go ApeS over that one but now reading that lyric, I just might create it lol



We've all said we're gonna kill someone.

Not many of us have threatened to rape someone though. And especially not that we'd still keep humping away, holding their hands out of reach of the fruit bowl, even as SWAT came through the door.

I'll give him a pass for thoughtless vulgarity. But it doesn't reflect too well either way.

Pleeeease what the hell you smokin?
The greatest live performer of our times was is and always will be Prince.

Remember there is only one destination and that place is U
All of it. Everything. Is U.
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Reply #592 posted 09/29/14 2:05pm

SupaFunkyOrgan
grinderSexy

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herb4 said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

It's funny because the other day I was thinking how I would be satisfied if at least the music was interesting. I'm not interested in buying these albums based on what I've heard. I am interested in hearing them, just not buying them.

What's your problem with the music? I can understand why some folks might not dig it or find it up their alley but to call it "uninteresting" and "bland", "boring" and "uninspired", as some are saying, just boggles my fucking mind. Becuase, say what you will about the new stuff, it's hardly boring. When I think "boring", I think of NEWS and Planet Earth. AOA has layers of weirdness and ear candy happening all over the place. The songwriting is even back to a large extent. What's uniinteresting about it? The last 4 or 5 tracks are among the greatest opus Prince has ever done. Christ, he even managed this time to make segues listenable and bearable.

.

Plectrum Electrum even manages to capture the aftershow/jam/rock n roll side of Prince that most of the world has never heard and that was frustratingly absent on "It Aint Over". I'm not sure what some people's problems are with these albums

To be honest, I haven't heard the albums in full, just individual cuts and they aren't spectacular. Prince fans are so starving for the real prince that crumbs taste like cake! lol wink

And actually, the one thing that excites me the most about this output is the opportunity that the 3 girls are experiencing. Working with a legend and getting to express themselves to the world. That excites me more than the music.

[Edited 9/29/14 14:06pm]

2010: Healing the Wounds of the Past.... http://prince.org/msg/8/325740
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Reply #593 posted 09/29/14 2:10pm

2020

avatar

New York loves it!

http://www.newyorker.com/...ince-album



A Legitimately Magical Prince Album


CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE VIA GETTY
In 2010, Prince released an album, called “20Ten,” that ushered in the longest silence of his thirty-five-year career as a recording artist. For most of Prince’s creative existence, he’s put out an album a year, sometimes double and triple sets. After “20Ten,” though, came nothing. Well, nothing by Prince’s standards: plenty of singles trickled out, along with rumors about upcoming projects, but there was no major release. Then, earlier this year, he announced a return to Warner Bros. records, at first for the purpose of assembling a thirtieth-anniversary edition of “Purple Rain,” which would include outtakes and rare demos. This has not yet materialized. What has emerged is his first album of new material since “20Ten,” and the second: this week, Prince resurfaces with “Art Official Age,” a solo album, and “PlectrumElectrum,” a long-delayed collaboration with his all-female backing group, 3rd Eye Girl.


“PlectrumElectrum” is easier to understand and easier to dispense with, which doesn’t mean that it’s subpar, exactly. It’s a short rock record with plenty of guitar, and includes meditations on sex, self-empowerment treatises, and energetic songs about energy. The more ambitious songs often spotlight someone other than Prince. Hannah Ford, the band’s drummer, sings the plaintive ballad “Whitecaps,” and “Boy Trouble” is a strange flower of a song with an out-of-left-field speed rap.

The so-called solo record, “Art Official Age,” is considerably more interesting. For starters, Prince has dispensed with his typical “Produced, Arranged, Composed, and Performed by Prince” credit, the one on which much of his mystique as a one-man band and all-around genius was founded, and has shared production credit with Joshua Welton, who also happens to be Hannah Ford’s husband. Was this an admission by Prince that he needed another pair of ears? Was he in search of a more contemporary sound? The quasi-title track that opens the album (“Art Official Cage”) seems to suggest so. It’s a strange welter of E.D.M. clichés and Europop, with some gnomic lyrics, some grinding guitar, and some rapping. It’s a mess, provocative but not exactly successful; it sounds like a track that was left off Prince’s 1989 “Batman” soundtrack, updated for 20Fourteen.

But the rest of the album is easily Prince’s most coherent and satisfying record in more than a decade. In the past few years, the Prince songs that leaked online seemed to be less about paving the way for a new album and more about trolling the Internet. “Breakfast Can Wait,” a lithe and light funk number, was released with a cover photo of Dave Chappelle as Prince. Only a snippet of “This Could Be Us” leaked, but it was enough to confirm that Prince had written a song about a popular Internet meme that used a picture of him from his “Purple Rain” days. As proper singles started appearing, though, the album came into sharper focus. Songs like “Clouds” and “U Know,” slower and more repetitive than the kaleidoscopic funk-rock we’ve come to expect from Prince, suggested a new direction—a kind of gelatinous, futuristic R. & B.

These tracks worked in concert with the other singles to sketch out a theme: that technology separates us from those we’re close to, and even from ourselves; and that the lack of integration may well result in disintegration. “Clouds,” the second track on the album, which opens with the sound of a radio tuning, critiques the way the computer age offloads experiences to distant servers (that’s what the clouds are); the song instead prioritizes romance and human connection (“You should never underestimate the power of a kiss on the neck when she doesn’t expect a kiss on the neck”). It also folds in a well-constructed argument about the way the Internet era has encouraged empty exhibition and a half-baked argument about violence and bullying, before ending with a sci-fi monologue delivered by a British female voice that seems to suggest that Prince has been placed in some sort of centuries-long suspended animation.

“Clouds” is a kind of manifesto: “When life’s a stage in this brand new age / How do we engage?” Prince’s answer is to do a version of what he’s always done, which is absorb nearly every kind of music available and, via alchemic wizardry, turn it into something that produces thoughts and emotions. That’s even more evident on “U Know,” which is built on a sample of the singer Mila J’s “Blinded” and alternates wordy half-rapped verses about romantic misunderstanding and spiritual crisis with an irresistibly seductive chorus. The songs seem like R. & B., but they’re statements of deep unrest. Then the album hits a lull, with tracks that declare the power of music rather than demonstrate it, and insist on the superiority of the past. It’s grumpy-old-man music, done with plenty of panache. None of this, though, is sufficient preparation for the homestretch of “Art Official Age,” which is where Prince stops worrying about the future or the past and truly inhabits the present. Beginning with “What It Feels Like,” a duet with the singer Andy Allo, Prince delivers a series of ballads, broken up by interludes and a red-meat dance song, that are like nothing he’s done before.

It’s worth thinking about what it means for Prince to step into new territory. He has spent years trying to recapture pieces of his old self: the provocateur in black lingerie who got booed as an opening act for the Rolling Stones, the New Wave-inflected keyboard freak of “1999,” the motorcycle-riding rock god who ruled the world after “Purple Rain,” the tortured psychedelic introvert of “Around the World in a Day,” the jazzy genius of “Parade,” the pop polymath of “Sign O the Times,” the deeply divided spiritual pilgrim of “Lovesexy.” These old selves then became albatrosses. His albums of the late nineties and the past decade found Prince making gestures toward those personas without ever really inhabiting them again. And how could he? Here, for the first time, he suggests an alternative: maybe there’s an entirely new Prince music, possibly aided and abetted by Joshua Welton, that harnesses his talents and his vision. Maybe he’s not condemned to auto-pastiche.

The closing songs are hard to absorb at first. “Way Back Home” sounds sluggish for a while and then, suddenly, it sounds revelatory. It’s a self-portrait painted in the strangest and most accurate colors imaginable, a melancholy confession and bruised boast in which Prince cops to the fact that he’s out of place, out of sorts, pushed forward at times by desperation but “born alive” in a world where most people are “born dead.” And “Time,” which runs for nearly seven minutes, is a love song, briefly lickerish, that’s mostly about the loneliness of the road. In both cases, Prince brings the tempo way down, focusses on the nuances of his melodies, shares the spotlight with female vocalists, weaves in motifs from earlier songs from the album, and adds a steady supply of surprising touches (such as the superbly funky, if subdued, horn outro to “Time”).

The ballads are broken up by “FunkNRoll,” a straightforwardly exciting party song that also appears on “PlectrumElectrum,” but the version here serves the album’s over-all message—it’s knotty, both playful and eerie, with sonar-like sound effects that create a sense of distance and mediation. The closing track, “Affirmation III,” is a haunting reprise of “Way Back Home.” And while it’s abstract (the clipped, angelic backing chorus, which seems to be on loan from Laurie Anderson, is even more prominent), it’s also concrete. For the first time in years, Prince seems not just carnal but corporeal. Way back on “Controversy,” he challenged categories: “Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?” By the time of “I Would Die 4 U,” the challenge had turned to taunting: “I’m not a woman / I’m not a man / I am something you can never understand,” and then, messianically, “I’m not a human.” Here, he presents himself as something understandable and fully human. In “Breakfast Can Wait,” he pleads with his lover that she can’t “leave a black man in this state.” But that black man is in this state: he’s in his fifties, grappling with loneliness, aging, creative inspiration, self-doubt, a shifting cultural landscape, and love. As luck would have it, he’s also Prince.
The greatest live performer of our times was is and always will be Prince.

Remember there is only one destination and that place is U
All of it. Everything. Is U.
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Reply #594 posted 09/29/14 2:25pm

BobGeorge909

avatar

McD said:

It's more consistent than 20Ten (9 dog turds and one classic, Future Soul Song), but overall it's still the sound of an artist well past his prime. The peerless ability is still there, but as a songwriter, ideas-man and creative force, he's pretty much spent.

Every second track starting with the first (but omitting the 'affirmations') are OK, but there's really nothing here worthy of even 2004 Prince. Breakdown, possibly the best track on the album, feels like an offcut from New Power Soul, but even that was his worst album by far from that era.

Which leaves the tracks in between which I don't like at all. Including the worst moment of his entire career: Breakfast Can Wait. It's not only shit, but probably has the dumbest, most offensive lyrics I've ever heard. Faced with the prospect of not getting the sex he is demanding: 'You can't leave a black man in this state.' Ignoring the potential race issue... what if she does just leave ya like that, P? Coz I'm especially worried about this line: 'cant stop even if the police come'. Sheeee-it, even Ted Bundy called it a night when he heard a siren outside, but you keep going P, coz 'you think she's great'. You can always lawyer-up afterwards. Jesus H. Christ.

2/5

R u saying the lyric suggest rape? Lol...wow. People r crazy.



Has PC finally vanished the figure and literal is the only experience.


Brains exists....use them.
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Reply #595 posted 09/29/14 2:59pm

Aerogram

avatar

V10LETBLUES said:

Nikkie said:
The Guardian is moderately postive, 3 stars out of 5 for the whole package: Prince: Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum review – no lack of ideas, just focus. http://gu.com/p/422x8/tw
Seems like a more sober review. While he obviously rates it far better than me, I respect it. For me it comes down to, yes Prince has been ..funky, jazzy, pop, rock, indulgent, vulgar, weird, everything under the sun, but it wasn't until recently that we could add oblivious and corny to the list. from the Guardian review
Two decades on, Prince’s patchy period is still in full swing. If he’s never made a truly awful album in the ensuing 17 years, the kind of unequivocal artistic triumphs of which his release schedule once solely consisted have been noticeable by their absence. In their place has come a familiar sound: that of journalists trying to will an unequivocal artistic triumph into existence on Prince’s behalf. It’s almost an art form in itself, which reached a kind of apotheosis – its Sign O’ the Times, its Parade – with Tony Parsons’ 2010 piece, in which he informed the world that the mediocre Prince album the Daily Mirror was giving away was both the most important comeback since Elvis climbed onstage in a leather suit and literally the best album ever made: “as good as anything that anyone has done”. Which brings us to PlectrumElectrum and Art Official Age, on which Prince himself seems to join the chorus of voices insisting his new album, or rather albums, are an astonishing return to form.
[Edited 9/29/14 10:19am]

This critic thinks Prince never made a truly awful record, surely lots of the hyper-critical fans here disagree vehemently. smile

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Reply #596 posted 09/29/14 3:38pm

vainandy

avatar

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

vainandy said:

What? You didn't hear "The Gold Standard"? That's the one track that he's given those of us that still like to jam to continue getting our sales. Are you greedy or something and wanting a complete album full of jams? Wake up and smell the coffee toots. The days of jamming are over with and today's mainstream is bland. Don't you know that if Prince wants to be back in the mainstream, he's got to become bland too? Hell, he can't get none of this young rough trade dick if he keeps putting jams on the albums because they've been raised on bland music their entire lifetime.

.

You're just being greedy. How dare you think that just because you're a consumer, you're supposed to get a product that sounds great all the way through. You've got your one little jam to keep you still around while he lurks the juvenille detention centers so get with the times honey. Hold on to that one jam, conveniently develop temporary amnesia on all the rants that Prince himself has done about contemporary mainstream music, give him a pass for selling out simply because he's Prince, and then turn around and not only kiss his ass in praise of the sellout stuff, but go even further and toss his salad. You've got to get with the program honey if you want to be a good little fam and earn your place in Prince's Purple Heaven one day.

.

.

.

[Edited 9/29/14 6:49am]

falloff

The Gold Standard is okay but the lyrics make it more gold-filled than solid. geek

I prefer "Breakdown" more for my one "Here, damn it!" track. lol

So nah! I'd much rather party in Prince's Purple Hell...where the good music obviously is; than spend eternity with this BLAND shit. shake

falloff And you know that's where Prince is going to condemn us to for not kissing his ass and claiming this to be the almighty masterpiece that's the best thing since "Purple Rain".

.

As for "The Gold Standard", now you know lyrics in songs in general aren't what make my ass shake anyway. It's the music behind the lyrics that do that. Hell, as long as the lyrics are actually "sung" rather than sounding like a cross between singing and rapping like most of the rest of the album sounds, I could care less about the lyrics themselves. On "The Gold Standard", the lyrics flow like lyrics of an actual song and are being sung rather than half spoken. And the best part is, they're sung in that unmistakedly "black" and sassy "gay" falsetto that's been his trademark since day one. When I heard this one I said...."Hot damn, this bitch has still got it in him to throwdown absolutely hard! This is the kind of stuff the entire album should be like if he'd stop trying to work the little rough trade boys and go after the grown men instead.". lol

Andy is a four letter word.
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Reply #597 posted 09/29/14 3:38pm

Nikkie

avatar

2020 said:

New York loves it!

http://www.newyorker.com/...ince-album



A Legitimately Magical Prince Album


CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE VIA GETTY
In 2010, Prince released an album, called “20Ten,” that ushered in the longest silence of his thirty-five-year career as a recording artist. For most of Prince’s creative existence, he’s put out an album a year, sometimes double and triple sets. After “20Ten,” though, came nothing. Well, nothing by Prince’s standards: plenty of singles trickled out, along with rumors about upcoming projects, but there was no major release. Then, earlier this year, he announced a return to Warner Bros. records, at first for the purpose of assembling a thirtieth-anniversary edition of “Purple Rain,” which would include outtakes and rare demos. This has not yet materialized. What has emerged is his first album of new material since “20Ten,” and the second: this week, Prince resurfaces with “Art Official Age,” a solo album, and “PlectrumElectrum,” a long-delayed collaboration with his all-female backing group, 3rd Eye Girl.


“PlectrumElectrum” is easier to understand and easier to dispense with, which doesn’t mean that it’s subpar, exactly. It’s a short rock record with plenty of guitar, and includes meditations on sex, self-empowerment treatises, and energetic songs about energy. The more ambitious songs often spotlight someone other than Prince. Hannah Ford, the band’s drummer, sings the plaintive ballad “Whitecaps,” and “Boy Trouble” is a strange flower of a song with an out-of-left-field speed rap.

The so-called solo record, “Art Official Age,” is considerably more interesting. For starters, Prince has dispensed with his typical “Produced, Arranged, Composed, and Performed by Prince” credit, the one on which much of his mystique as a one-man band and all-around genius was founded, and has shared production credit with Joshua Welton, who also happens to be Hannah Ford’s husband. Was this an admission by Prince that he needed another pair of ears? Was he in search of a more contemporary sound? The quasi-title track that opens the album (“Art Official Cage”) seems to suggest so. It’s a strange welter of E.D.M. clichés and Europop, with some gnomic lyrics, some grinding guitar, and some rapping. It’s a mess, provocative but not exactly successful; it sounds like a track that was left off Prince’s 1989 “Batman” soundtrack, updated for 20Fourteen.

But the rest of the album is easily Prince’s most coherent and satisfying record in more than a decade. In the past few years, the Prince songs that leaked online seemed to be less about paving the way for a new album and more about trolling the Internet. “Breakfast Can Wait,” a lithe and light funk number, was released with a cover photo of Dave Chappelle as Prince. Only a snippet of “This Could Be Us” leaked, but it was enough to confirm that Prince had written a song about a popular Internet meme that used a picture of him from his “Purple Rain” days. As proper singles started appearing, though, the album came into sharper focus. Songs like “Clouds” and “U Know,” slower and more repetitive than the kaleidoscopic funk-rock we’ve come to expect from Prince, suggested a new direction—a kind of gelatinous, futuristic R. & B.

These tracks worked in concert with the other singles to sketch out a theme: that technology separates us from those we’re close to, and even from ourselves; and that the lack of integration may well result in disintegration. “Clouds,” the second track on the album, which opens with the sound of a radio tuning, critiques the way the computer age offloads experiences to distant servers (that’s what the clouds are); the song instead prioritizes romance and human connection (“You should never underestimate the power of a kiss on the neck when she doesn’t expect a kiss on the neck”). It also folds in a well-constructed argument about the way the Internet era has encouraged empty exhibition and a half-baked argument about violence and bullying, before ending with a sci-fi monologue delivered by a British female voice that seems to suggest that Prince has been placed in some sort of centuries-long suspended animation.

“Clouds” is a kind of manifesto: “When life’s a stage in this brand new age / How do we engage?” Prince’s answer is to do a version of what he’s always done, which is absorb nearly every kind of music available and, via alchemic wizardry, turn it into something that produces thoughts and emotions. That’s even more evident on “U Know,” which is built on a sample of the singer Mila J’s “Blinded” and alternates wordy half-rapped verses about romantic misunderstanding and spiritual crisis with an irresistibly seductive chorus. The songs seem like R. & B., but they’re statements of deep unrest. Then the album hits a lull, with tracks that declare the power of music rather than demonstrate it, and insist on the superiority of the past. It’s grumpy-old-man music, done with plenty of panache. None of this, though, is sufficient preparation for the homestretch of “Art Official Age,” which is where Prince stops worrying about the future or the past and truly inhabits the present. Beginning with “What It Feels Like,” a duet with the singer Andy Allo, Prince delivers a series of ballads, broken up by interludes and a red-meat dance song, that are like nothing he’s done before.

It’s worth thinking about what it means for Prince to step into new territory. He has spent years trying to recapture pieces of his old self: the provocateur in black lingerie who got booed as an opening act for the Rolling Stones, the New Wave-inflected keyboard freak of “1999,” the motorcycle-riding rock god who ruled the world after “Purple Rain,” the tortured psychedelic introvert of “Around the World in a Day,” the jazzy genius of “Parade,” the pop polymath of “Sign O the Times,” the deeply divided spiritual pilgrim of “Lovesexy.” These old selves then became albatrosses. His albums of the late nineties and the past decade found Prince making gestures toward those personas without ever really inhabiting them again. And how could he? Here, for the first time, he suggests an alternative: maybe there’s an entirely new Prince music, possibly aided and abetted by Joshua Welton, that harnesses his talents and his vision. Maybe he’s not condemned to auto-pastiche.

The closing songs are hard to absorb at first. “Way Back Home” sounds sluggish for a while and then, suddenly, it sounds revelatory. It’s a self-portrait painted in the strangest and most accurate colors imaginable, a melancholy confession and bruised boast in which Prince cops to the fact that he’s out of place, out of sorts, pushed forward at times by desperation but “born alive” in a world where most people are “born dead.” And “Time,” which runs for nearly seven minutes, is a love song, briefly lickerish, that’s mostly about the loneliness of the road. In both cases, Prince brings the tempo way down, focusses on the nuances of his melodies, shares the spotlight with female vocalists, weaves in motifs from earlier songs from the album, and adds a steady supply of surprising touches (such as the superbly funky, if subdued, horn outro to “Time”).

The ballads are broken up by “FunkNRoll,” a straightforwardly exciting party song that also appears on “PlectrumElectrum,” but the version here serves the album’s over-all message—it’s knotty, both playful and eerie, with sonar-like sound effects that create a sense of distance and mediation. The closing track, “Affirmation III,” is a haunting reprise of “Way Back Home.” And while it’s abstract (the clipped, angelic backing chorus, which seems to be on loan from Laurie Anderson, is even more prominent), it’s also concrete. For the first time in years, Prince seems not just carnal but corporeal. Way back on “Controversy,” he challenged categories: “Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?” By the time of “I Would Die 4 U,” the challenge had turned to taunting: “I’m not a woman / I’m not a man / I am something you can never understand,” and then, messianically, “I’m not a human.” Here, he presents himself as something understandable and fully human. In “Breakfast Can Wait,” he pleads with his lover that she can’t “leave a black man in this state.” But that black man is in this state: he’s in his fifties, grappling with loneliness, aging, creative inspiration, self-doubt, a shifting cultural landscape, and love. As luck would have it, he’s also Prince.


What a nice piece of writing! And a wonderful review.
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Reply #598 posted 09/29/14 3:45pm

therapyisback

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Hello one and all.
I'm openly admitting I haven't read every post on this thread - so please forgive me if this has already been asked before - but is there anywhere that has details of who is playing what on what track from the album CD? I have the digital downloads. Would sure appreciate help smile
That's right, you are Divinity
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Reply #599 posted 09/29/14 3:50pm

Stymie

therapyisback said:

Hello one and all. I'm openly admitting I haven't read every post on this thread - so please forgive me if this has already been asked before - but is there anywhere that has details of who is playing what on what track from the album CD? I have the digital downloads. Would sure appreciate help smile

eek

Therapy Therapy? OMG!! hug

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