Pentacle said:

jaawwnn said:

So which bit do you disagree with? Both?

I think the 12" version of Partyman does a lot to redeem it.

Well, first you say NPG is a dreadful song, which it's not. And then you rave about the remixes, and I start doubting your sanity

haha, well now, I truly think New Power Generation sounds like the theme song to a kids tv show. In the release chronology it's the first song where I go "really prince? REALLY?". I think the remixes are at least interesting. Purely as a fan though, I wouldn't be putting them on a best of prince or anything.

Anyway, Loveleft is strangely catchy, and Partyman 12" is fun - but it's hardly good.

Seriously, I know there 'different strokes for different folks', but sometimes my jaw just drops. Like when people say 'Another Lonely Christmas' is not only good but has touched them... Or they say 'Crazy You' is a classic ballad...

'Official people' also surprise me. Like Alex Hahn claiming that 'Schoolyard' should have been on Diamonds And Pearls, or Susan Rogers saying that 'Witness 4 The Prosecution' is amazing. 'Witness' is a nice song, but amazing....

I know what you mean but no one can ever agree on these things with prince. Personally I think Witness 4 the Prosecution is pretty amazing as well, probably more as a performance than a song though.

I don't understand that much hate for that song, "New Power Generation", I really dont...

It's a positive popfunk song, and the message about "makin' love and music is what we're fighting for", I like that.. like Prince is dealing with "all" his enemies (doubters), right?

NPG (the song) is imo a classic Prince song, I love this much more tha any post-Warner music. Actually I can't think of a Prince song 1996-2015 that is better than NPG, the song.. but ok I will admit this, I prefer sweet popfunk instead of the jazzyfunk on TRC and Lotus.

Don't laugh too much at me here, because that is what I feel like about it.

And I remember seeing the NPG-musicvideo on MTV... it's actually an ok video, Prince looks sexxy driving his motorbike in a black leather jacket, and performing the song on stage. That was loong before the internet, YouTube etc....... haha, sweet MTV-memories from the early 90s...


Nostalgia from me, yeah maybe.. but I do like the song a lot.....

emesem said:

I'm sure there are plenty of other theories out there for the exact date (death of the baby, June 7 1992-name change, the day License to Ill became the first "rap" album to hit #1) but musically I can only point to this moment, possibly on a cold day in early winter of 1989 (according to Prince Vault) when Prince began to put together the song "NEW POWER GENERATION".

KoolEaze said:

TrevorAyer said:

ima say the moment was "horny pony" the fact this was ever released or performed really cemented the end of prince shit filter and ever since his output has been crapped all over by horrible ideas similar to everything that is horny pony

I´m in the minority here but I actually neve had a problem with the Diamonds and Pearls album and still like it to this day (though I did not and never will like Tony M´s parts).

However, I totally agree with you that Horny Pony is an embarrassingly bad song and I was thinking "WTF?" when Prince came up with that song, among others.

Though I love the D&P album, I think it could have easily turned into a disaster if he had stuck with the original configuation. It still baffles me to this day how he could ever think that the first configuration was something that people would dig.

Glam Slam 91?

Horny Pony?

Terribly bad songs.

I´m glad he changed that original configuration and came up with much better songs instead.

-

How do you feel about the D&P album and about that era in general?

I think some of the shows were really great and still are in hindsight, and I liked some of the remixes such as Violet the Organ Grinder or the long version of Gett Off, or Get Some Solo.

And the album contains some great and timeless songs that make me forget about the clunkers on it.

I really like a lot of the songs on DNP .. its just hard to listen to them with some of the rapping all over it. Horny Pony to me represents the moment when prince decided it was ok to just put crap all over his music, whether it be bad lyrics or fake posturing or egocentric gloating or treating women like property or just plain letting people or himself rap badly. I love me some BIG but bad rapping really ruins prince music for me. And he has done it a lot ever since HP

funksterr said:

TrevorAyer said:

ima say the moment was "horny pony" the fact this was ever released or performed really cemented the end of prince shit filter and ever since his output has been crapped all over by horrible ideas similar to everything that is horny pony

YEP!! I can forgive him for writing and recording it. The day he decided to release it though

and dont forget it was a featured song on the tour .. like ANYTHING would not have been better than hearing that garbage live .. his crap filter was gone at this point .. we are lucky we got a few actual songs during the dnp era .. it seams he would have prefered to release a carmen electra album with P on vocals instead

databank said:

emesem said:

Was it 12/1/87 "Blue Tuesday"? Perhaps...without this day we would have never had the Black Album fiasco, no Ingrid (and therefore no Grafitti Bridge?) no overthetop spiritualizm that led him right into the arms of the JW. Was that really it? What about LoveSexy which lots of people still really like.

Prince was already working on the script before he met Ingrid.

.

I don't think Prince ever lost his "magical powers" but u r right in the sense that he allowed himself to try and sound like contemporay artists in the 90's, and this became obvious for the first time with GB and its new jack swing influenced sound, then in the 2000's he quit doing that but it was replaced by a constant rehash of previously used musical ideas. Not that I mind at all, but I see what u mean.

.

However, what else could he do? He was primarly a R&B artist, and ALL R&B artists without exception have fallen into that trap to some extent: either trying to sound contemporary or rehashing past ideas, usually in that specific order (James did it, Herbie did it, George Duke did it, Stevie did it, even the P-Funk Allstars did it...). The only one who kept moving on was Miles, but still in the 80's he was trying to follow the trends of the time, and it's very possible that he'd have gotten back to his roots between two hip-hop albums in the 90's (see Django and the Montreux concert quith Quincy). And to be honest it's not just R&B, most pop artists followed that "first try to sound contemporary then rehash to death" road, too. Even contemporary classical music and experimental music composers end-up doing the same thing over and over again past the first decade of their career.

.

So I fail to see exactly what fans expected Prince to do after his first decade. Go reggae? Make Brian Eno-like ambient? Have the latest hip producers produce commercial radio-friendly records for him?

.

The very few times P tried to evade his usual musical vocabulary (The Undertaker, Kamasutra, The War, N.E.W.S., ONA piano, Xpectation) the reaction was often lukewarm at best, if not pure and simple bashing, though I'll admit that The Undertaker and The War were well received but they were respectively Hendrix and Funkadelic rehash in more than one way, so it's not exactly Prince "keeping the groundbreaking magic of his prime".

.

Similarly, when P came back to his original sound (Mplsound, 20ten), reactions were far from positive, so I guess people didn't want him to go back to his roots either.

.

And when people say he oughta get a young producer those are the same people saying he should not have followed R&B trends in the 90's, so I fail to follow the logic in this reasoning either.

.

So I can totally respect people being disappointed with post 90 or post 95 Prince releases, but what I'd like to know is what, exactly, said people would have liked Prince to do? In 15 years on this forum I couldn't ever, EVER have anyone provide a clear, explanatory answer to that question. All I see is the weekly thread saying that P has lost it and trying (at best) to explain why and when, but this doesn't tell me (or Prince if he comes here and read those threads) what it is that y'all wanted, exactly...

[Edited 4/20/15 11:53am]

Very well said, kudos. This hits the nail on the head. The problem of Prince's decline is complicated and the majority of Prince fans I think don't want to face up to the problem. Also, what sort of music are they listening to? They think Prince is a genius and could easily come up with a masterpiece record at will. It's not that easy. I thought Emancipation was a great album, unfortunately other Prince fans didn't. I thought NEWS was amazing, but some other Prince fans I know had never listened to anything remotely as complicated before. Planet Earth too is a good album. For what it's worth, I think Prince is closer to the Grateful Dead, even though the music is from two different worlds. His work and talent acquires a whole new vocabulary live, much like the Dead. Many standard rock/guitar fans listen to a Prince record and wonder what the big deal is. They also listen to a Dead album and wonder what the big deal is. The real goldmine is the live work, some of which is cannon. Unfortunately, Prince isn't available live on record or live video and that has destroyed his musical impact over the past two decades or so. If there were multiple prince live albums or DVDs, most of the recent records would be unnecessary.

databank said:

The only one who kept moving on was Miles, but still in the 80's he was trying to follow the trends of the time, and it's very possible that he'd have gotten back to his roots between two hip-hop albums in the 90's (see Django and the Montreux concert quith Quincy).

Dingo, not Django.

I've never really had problem with this song or any of the Prince songs on GB . The Latest Fashion is kinda meh though .

hmmmm. Normally you just feel a thing and I've always asserted the exact point P lost it, with the Revolution at least, was All My Dreams

(that jazz hands musical tra la la)

But New Power Generation still stands for me as the beginning of the F U to the new jack sound, as only to be mirrored by the likes of Snoop and Dre, or any studio with a kick and a snare.

Thankfully I have a head full of Scotch and a massive cold so I can distance myself from any form of sincerety. Plus research gives you head cancer.

Naw was in '86 with Movie Star...

i think there needs to be a princeisover.org so all this crap can go there.

prince is wonderfully freaking weird. i hate the way the jw tamed him but even so, he's not boring ergo NOT OVER lololol

To me, Prince "jumped the shark" when hip hop entered his world. I could deal with Cat's quirky raps on The Black Album and Lovesexy...but "Dead On It" was atrocious (even though it was supposed to be a "joke"). When Diamonds and Pearls dropped... He stopped setting trends and started following, and he wasnt "Prince" anymore. He's still the man, but his truly magical period is LONG over.

feeluupp said:

feeluupp said:

Naw was in '86 with Movie Star...

Come on! That's the threatening marriage on drugs in 2005 dance!

Yes!

Actually i'd REALLY say lovesexy.. but thats just me.

funkomatic said:

Shitty song that's for sure, lol. Still I'd say that the Batman album takes this crown.

[Edited 4/21/15 1:18am]

Militant said:

Morris Day plays amazing drums on "New Power Generation" too. Listen to that drum groove, it's tight as fuck. It doesn't sound out of place when played in a mix with other NJS songs that have programmed drums so that shows you how tight his playing is.

I thought Morris did the drums on Release It? Anyway, I think to be more specific, Prince maybe didn't lose it, but hit a huge snag with the New Power Generation Maxi, only because it included Brother With A Purpose. I'll take 11 Oobey Doop's over that bullshit.

Nope!

Its Funky, Quirky, & the Prince i Love..

feeluupp said:

Naw was in '86 with Movie Star...

https://bleep.com/release/57455-squarepusher-damogen-furies#

No that shit began with the Batman album, after putting 4 good to great songs (The Future, Partyman, Vicki Waiting and Batdance) and 2 classics (Electric Chair, Scandalous) he placed not 1 but 3 absolute crap filler songs on it. Trust, The arms of Orion and the truly wretchable Lemon Crush. There is no way he would even considered that shit a few years earlier. The fact he put it on that album, was a sign he no longer cared for quality control and every album except perhaps the Gold Experience since then, has had one or more unlikstenable crappy filler tracks on it. Some albums like NewPowerSoul (Its a Prince album - get over it) and TRC are pure filler.

.

The day he reached this point of complacency was the big turning point. Remember the words Lemon Crush!

databank said:

In the sense that he allowed himself to try and sound like contemporay artists in the 90's, and this became obvious for the first time with GB and its new jack swing influenced sound, then in the 2000's he quit doing that but it was replaced by a constant rehash of previously used musical ideas. Not that I mind at all, but I see what u mean.

He always sounded like contemporary artists. Still does even to this day. A lot of what became known as the "Prince" sound among young kids of the 80's were contemporary sounds and ideas from the 70's that the rest of the music industry had already moved past, no? Chicken scratch guitar? Funk horn lines, albeit played as synths because Prince isn't personally great playing horns, but still...

However, what else could he do? He was primarly a R&B artist, and ALL R&B artists without exception have fallen into that trap to some extent: either trying to sound contemporary or rehashing past ideas, usually in that specific order (James did it, Herbie did it, George Duke did it, Stevie did it, even the P-Funk Allstars did it...). The only one who kept moving on was Miles, but still in the 80's he was trying to follow the trends of the time, and it's very possible that he'd have gotten back to his roots between two hip-hop albums in the 90's (see Django and the Montreux concert quith Quincy).

James Brown was Funk and Soul...Miles wasn't an R&B artist... Herbie and George Duke? not primarily R&B either. And none of them, even if you add their numbers together, sold even 1/100th the number of albums in their supposed "musical growth" periods and Prince did during his. Even during his flop phase, his down and out phase, his everyone-is-copying-my-sound phase, his tax-man-cometh phase, Prince sold platinum and triple platinum numbers. Herbie had a breakdance classic, but that's about it. So I call horseshit on everything you posted above.

And to be honest it's not just R&B, most pop artists followed that "first try to sound contemporary then rehash to death" road, too. Even contemporary classical music and experimental music composers end-up doing the same thing over and over again past the first decade of their career.

What the hell?? Where are you from again? Tell me about how they do it where you are from? Tell me about all this musical growth where cats develop a successful sound, start selling music for money then fuck it all up by trying to be something they are not in the name of this "growth" you speak of. Hell nah, that's not how we do it in 'Murica.

So I fail to see exactly what fans expected Prince to do after his first decade. Go reggae? Make Brian Eno-like ambient? Have the latest hip producers produce commercial radio-friendly records for him?

Prince did all that didn't he? Prince went reggae. Prince went ambient. He used different producers, publicly for the first time. Thieves In The Temple (remix) was the hit, not the album version. The 90's weren't as creatively satisfying as the 80's. The peaks weren't as high, the home run balls weren't hit over the stadium roof, but they were still home runs. Prince had more hits in the 90's than people remember. All with new personnel, a different sound, difficulties with his label, cash-flow problems, tax problems, marital problems, and tons of other life circumstances, that would have broken the resolve of most people.

The very few times P tried to evade his usual musical vocabulary (The Undertaker, Kamasutra, The War, N.E.W.S., ONA piano, Xpectation) the reaction was often lukewarm at best, if not pure and simple bashing, though I'll admit that The Undertaker and The War were well received but they were respectively Hendrix and Funkadelic rehash in more than one way, so it's not exactly Prince "keeping the groundbreaking magic of his prime".

Man, all those albums are flops. None of those albums were "well received" in any market on the planet. Nobody is asking Prince to reinvent his whole game. Nobody wants that. Funkadelic? This George Clinton fan doesn't hear it unless you want to say the bulk of Prince's career is George Clinton-influenced then I agree with that.

Similarly, when P came back to his original sound (Mplsound, 20ten), reactions were far from positive, so I guess people didn't want him to go back to his roots either.

None of that sounds like Prince's "original sound", whatever that means. Prince started out as a disco act and "The Minneapolis Sound" isn't on either record, iirc. Not to mention the songs are weak and he's in a grumpy mood on both albums.

And when people say he oughta get a young producer those are the same people saying he should not have followed R&B trends in the 90's, so I fail to follow the logic in this reasoning either.

Who the hell, ever called for Prince to use a "younger producer"? I'm pretty sure the names kicked around these parts are all Prince's age or older.

So I can totally respect people being disappointed with post 90 or post 95 Prince releases, but what I'd like to know is what, exactly, said people would have liked Prince to do? In 15 years on this forum I couldn't ever, EVER have anyone provide a clear, explanatory answer to that question.

Actually Prince's songwriting and musicianship from say, 1996 until now are probably stronger than they were from FOR YOU to LOVESEXY. The problem is we don't want him to be better at sounding different from our expectations. We don't like his attitude. He isn't lively and fun. He's dull and cranky on his records. Most of those albums are fugg-u's to the recording industry. Some of them are failed attempts to do something he's never done before. Others are religious statements. I'd always hoped he could work with a producer who could keep him on track with records that were equally, cool, relaxed, and sexy. Black funk, hillbilly rock and with a touch of dumb-blonde punk and new wave. He's writing almost exclusively about religion and politics. BORING. Then of course there is the pressure to release the outtakes, which is all I think most of the hardcore fans have really wanted from him since they started leaking to record shops in the late-80's/early 90's.

All I see is the weekly thread saying that P has lost it and trying (at best) to explain why and when, but this doesn't tell me (or Prince if he comes here and read those threads) what it is that y'all wanted, exactly...

Prince doesn't care what we want. And even when he does listen he just fucks it all up, with his sour attitude toward the industry and technology.

[Edited 4/21/15 21:33pm]

thedoorkeeper said:

I enjoyed the maxi-single. Get Off The Lubricated Lady Loveleft, Loveright - Love that stuff.

The B-sides are really great, I agree!

Ego101 said:

Nope!

Its Funky, Quirky, & the Prince i Love..

feeluupp said:

Naw was in '86 with Movie Star...

the song Movie Star, is funny and funky at the same time, what more do you want?

But I suppose you are joking right (feeluup)...

Meh! For me, it was the exact moment I was left dumbstruck upon hearing TRC cd.

ZahndiFadzhina said:

Adorecream said:

No that shit began with the Batman album, after putting 4 good to great songs (The Future, Partyman, Vicki Waiting and Batdance) and 2 classics (Electric Chair, Scandalous) he placed not 1 but 3 absolute crap filler songs on it. Trust, The arms of Orion and the truly wretchable Lemon Crush. There is no way he would even considered that shit a few years earlier. The fact he put it on that album, was a sign he no longer cared for quality control and every album except perhaps the Gold Experience since then, has had one or more unlikstenable crappy filler tracks on it. Some albums like NewPowerSoul (Its a Prince album - get over it) and TRC are pure filler.

.

The day he reached this point of complacency was the big turning point. Remember the words Lemon Crush!

LOL I kind of agree. I still can remember recoiling in shock at just how terrible that track was upon its initial play...

Lemon Crush is a pretty good candidate but I think that its still well within the Prince "sound" at least where it stood in the 87-89 era...and for the record I like both Trust and Arms of Orion

Averett said:

Adorecream said:

No that shit began with the Batman album, after putting 4 good to great songs (The Future, Partyman, Vicki Waiting and Batdance) and 2 classics (Electric Chair, Scandalous) he placed not 1 but 3 absolute crap filler songs on it. Trust, The arms of Orion and the truly wretchable Lemon Crush. There is no way he would even considered that shit a few years earlier. The fact he put it on that album, was a sign he no longer cared for quality control and every album except perhaps the Gold Experience since then, has had one or more unlikstenable crappy filler tracks on it. Some albums like NewPowerSoul (Its a Prince album - get over it) and TRC are pure filler.

.

The day he reached this point of complacency was the big turning point. Remember the words Lemon Crush!

LOL I kind of agree. I still can remember recoiling in shock at just how terrible that track was upon its initial play...