Oi! You just nabbed my thread! Mine was more imaginative though!!

Bambi319 said:

Didn't steal nothing, Grammys are coming up and thought this would have had a better chance as a religious cd rather than a pop/soul cd.

You were talking about religious people selling TRC on TV or something??

jthad1129 said:

Chill dude. I was just taking the p as our threads started at roughly the same time and same theme.

Never, because the religious section in most record stores is Religious Right dominant; and they hate the JW's as well as the Mormons, because they see them as cults that take people away from the true Jesus. I have seen many tapes and pamphlets about how Jehovah's Witness people are going to hell and stuff. And also, Prince is the only JW to openly be into making mainstream records.

And also, Prince is the only JW to openly be into making mainstream records.

I wouldn't call TRC gutter trash. Musically it's interesting and entertaining. Lyrically a trip, indeed.
The controversy is solely in the lyrics.
I would have to wholeheartedly agree with IstenSzek that TRC is a magpie of a religion lyrically. While a JW thread runs through it, there are obviously other elements. I never fully understood why people focused only on the JW theme and hardly any comments were made about the other religious elements. It's as if they didn't even exist. Perhaps the JW thing is the stronger and more obvious.

So I would say yes, it's a religious record of sorts, but no, it is not a Jehovah's Witness record per se. It "tries" to be a JW record.
Also, it definitely is NOT a Gospel or Christian record. Maybe "another gospel"(the gospel according to Prince?) inspired spoken word, but not THE Gospel.

It is a retelling of the Genesis story, and refers to the temptation of the wise one's (Prince's) woman (Mayte?) by the serpent, or in this case the resistor. The resistor knows that the wise one's love for god is so strong, that he decides to assimilate/tempt the woman first and only. She falls, and is banished from the garden/rainbow forever (Mayte leaves Prince for good).

The remainder of the album is concerned with the wise one (Prince) explicitly laying down his conditions for a new love - ie the muse (Mani?) must share his understanding and love for god to truly understand and love him. By "She Loves Me 4 Me" it is clear that the muse has reached this understanding and true love. It reminds me of the scene in GB when he plays hangman with Aura.

Through this main narrative, Prince touches on common themes of the medicocrity of mass media, the history of his people and the treatment of his musical heroes by this mass media, and how ultimately he doesn't care for their rules, because he is secure within the walls of his palace to do as he pleases. His faith in god is his faith in his abilities because his music is a gift from god, and rises above the criticisms of others.

At least, that is one of my takes on it. There are lots of levels of understanding on this album, which is why it is one of my favourites - whilst people have said it is explicit and unambiguous, I believe that it can be interpreted in many ways, as most of his albums can. For all the dressin gup in pseudo biblical terms, however, I do think one major strand in TRC is autobiographical, and describes how Prince has moved on from the Mayte years and found an equal. Don't forget a few years ago he made a huge public and artistic thing out of his relationship to Mayte and for him to move on required an equal artistic statement. However he has learnt to keep his new love out of the public eye, and to express his love in a less explicit way than previously.

To

quote Cosmicslop:

Dig deeper, y'all.