If it were an instrumental track, I might be able to give it more of a pass but those lyrics...
"If I'm workin' at my jobba A robin sings a masterpiece that lives and dies unheard... | |
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I strongly agree with you on "Lemon Crush" (a disgrace) and maybe on "Arms Of Orion" (not that great but not that disgrace, for me)..... but how "Trust" can be classified as "crap"?!?!?!?
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Also, if "New Power Generation" is "the exact moment Prince lost it"..... then what is "Tick Tick Bang"?!?!?
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If we're talking about the 81' version, it's one of my favorite unreleased tracks
A robin sings a masterpiece that lives and dies unheard... | |
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. [Edited 4/22/15 7:36am] | |
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No, I was talking of the released version. A real nightmare.
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I don't mind that song. The lyrics are cheesy but the groove is solid imo and the drums are killer. I love the extended version with the "Are there really angels...". There were a few weak moments on both Batman and Graffiti Bridge that I though weren't up to his usual greatness. But the only moment I thought he truly lost it was the name change. | |
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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... I agree that he didn't invent everything as some believe, but I daresay he added a lot to the mix between 80 and 82. His sound was possibly the most influential of the decade.
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. Yeah u r right, I used the wrong term, I meant "black music" and used R&B as a shortcut, my bad. But my point still stands. Herbie did record numerous albums that aimed to follow the trend of the day, as early as the 70's when he went funk, then he went disco, then he went breakbeat for not one song but 3 albums, and he kept updated his song throughout the 90's with some hardbop albums in the middle. Anyway I fail to see the relationship between sales and music. I'm talking music, you're replying sales. Excuse me?
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. I believe nationalism is out of place in a serious music discussion, sorry.
Prince did all that didn't he? Prince went reggae. Blue Light? One song counts? Prince went ambient. A few tracks were "ambientish" maybe, such as Eight, but never really in the proper sense of the term, no. He used different producers, publicly for the first time. Kirk and Josh, not exactly fan favorites Thieves In The Temple (remix) was the hit, not the album version. The 90's weren't as creatively satisfying as the 80's. I totally agree. 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. I'm a massive fan of P's 90's output.
Man, all those albums are flops. None of those albums were "well received" in any market on the planet. They were actually pretty well received in hip circles, but yeah that's pretty much it. Nobody is asking Prince to reinvent his whole game. Nobody wants that. OK but then what? 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. I hear Funkadelic in The War but I can respect that you won't, and I'm a huge P-Funk fan too (I have every possible P-Funk album, including side projects).
None of that sounds like Prince's "original sound", whatever that means. I fail to see how people can say that, I really do. How could Prince possibly sound more like 1999 than he did with those 2 records? People complain that he integrated some modern sounds. Yeah of course he did, WTF? But on a very limited level. Lavaux could have been leaked as a 1999 outtake with different lyrics, no one would have guessed it was from 2010. Prince started out as a disco act and "The Minneapolis Sound" isn't on either record, iirc. Not to mention the songs are weak subjective statement, out of place and he's in a grumpy mood on both albums he is? .
Who the hell, ever called for Prince to use a "younger producer"? Dozens of people on this forum, I'm afraid. I'm pretty sure the names kicked around these parts are all Prince's age or older. Nope they sure weren't.
Actually Prince's songwriting and musicianship from say, 1996 until now are probably stronger than they were from FOR YOU to LOVESEXY. I agree. The problem is we don't want him to be better at sounding different from our expectations. I do. We don't like his attitude. I don't really care about this. 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. This last terms define exactly how I feel about his post-WB music but obviously we have very different sensibilities so OK. 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. subjective statement, out of place. 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.
Prince doesn't care what we want. No he doesn't, but I can't see any other reason for the weekly "Prince is over and done" thread than fans having the delusion that he might care and do what they want him to do (whatever that is, for we still have no clue in the end) And even when he does listen he just fucks it all up, with his sour attitude toward the industry and technology.
Well, we disagree on lots of things but thanks for taking the time to gimme a long reply A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ | |
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A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ | |
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Dang, why so sensitive? You are the person levying the race-based criticisms. | |
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A quick breather from the drama as I insert another Tick Tick Bang loving gif...
A robin sings a masterpiece that lives and dies unheard... | |
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I do not see how and why the artists from "where I come from" have anything to do with this. You are totally out of line here, I'm sorry, if only because I actually almost do not listen at all to those musicians from "where I come from" and therefore have no interest in discussing them at all. I was making a general statement about a musical tradition, which is the African-American tradition, which you are trying to turn into a racist or anti-american comment. Then as I was writing I finally realized that what I was writing was also describing most musical artists in any possible genre, regardless of genre or country (let alone color ), so I added that in the end what I was writing was also valid for most composers. In that sense I was myself acknowleding that my previous statement was somewhat too limited and therefore I find your distorsion of my words extremely disturbing to say the least. . My point in the end was that most if not all artists end-up creating the same things in a loop past their first decade or so, basing their "evolutions" on contemporary trends rather than a true exploration of unexplored musical territories, and repeating the same patterns over and over. In that sense Prince certainly is no better than his pairs. Not that I mind, I came to realize that it was a natural process for most creators (not only musicians by the way), but I think Prince set the bar so high during the first 15 years of his career that most people are unable to cope with the fact that, in the end, he is no better than any other composer when it comes to evolving. From (roughly) 1978 to 1995, Prince explored a diversity of genres and sound palettes that was uncommonly diverse, very few musicians do explore so many palettes in the course of so few years, and I assume people expected him to keep doing that, I guess even I did expect him to do that at some point, but I quickly realized in the late 90's that he wouldn't and quickly accepted it as something that wasn't a problem for me. In that sense (diversity and quick evolution in musical vocabulary and sound palettes), certain people are disappointed by Prince doing what most musicians do, for the only (and quite unfair) reason that he was much better at this game than 95% of them in his prime. But this is absurd because not only did Prince remain way more prolific than most artists, but he also is certainly not less creative or evolutive than them, he's just become a "normal" artist (in the "extremely talented" category, that is), but people can't realize it because they see him through the filter of the expectations he gave them in the 80's. . This being said, since you seem to want to speak about this, I have been greatly disappoiinted by the way the African-American musical tradition has been unable to truly renew itself for the last 20 years. Considering that for near a century it's probably been the most dynamic, innovative and quickly evolving scene in the world, seeing it staggering like that all of a sudden is all the more depressing to me. Everything now sounds like a homage to something from the 60's, 70's, 80's or 90's. But here again I will moderate this statement by acknowledging the fact that after a fantastic boom in innovation and diversity during the 20the century, music in general has tended to revisit itself more than truly innovate for the last 15 years or so. I believe this has a lot to do with the fact that the boom was due to several factors: an unprecedented multicultural crossover (that is now very much integrated), an unprecedented desire from the part of musicians to break past molds (there are little if any molds left to break), an unprecedented evolution in human societies in developed countries (that is going on but in maybe more subtle ways, so the changes reflect less violently in arts) and, possibly even more, a constant evolution in musical technologies that has somehow reached its peak with computer-assisted music (there is little technologfy offers today that wasn't already available in 2000, a statement that could not be made for 2000 and 1985, or 1985 and 1970). . So IDK, we'll see... [Edited 4/22/15 12:39pm] A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ | |
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Thanks for the reply. I would agree with you on the post WB live performance vs post WB studio output issue, except for things like montreux and some such. post WB live isn't as theatric or dramatic, hence as a visual/musical spectacle young prince rules, but the newer live stuff (pre-third eye girl) is musically more explorative and satisfying, and in some ways even more contemporary. Maybe a personal bias here . as for the dead, i suggest u pick a studio compilation album with early greatest hits and buy a live album like live/dead with the fillmore east 69 dark star, just for academic purposes. a different language, yes, but just to somehow contrast the studio output with the live work. i'm glad i've found an emancipation admirer. that is one album which will be talked about differently 200 years from now. and yes, prince will live that long, and much longer. thanks again
[Edited 4/22/15 13:52pm] Funky alien | |
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jaawwnn said: He didn't lose it but oh man, that song... cheesiest theme song ever. DREADFUL. It's so cheesy. Lots of the album is cheese. | |
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The name change was when he lost it..becoming a JW was icing on the cake.. Prince was at his best singing a sonPrince's music has suffered greatly because of it BOB4theFUNK | |
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I didn't distort anything and you know it. You already admitted you were generalizing diverse artists of different styles whose only real common trait was race ("black music"). | |
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Time for another commercial break from the drama. Brought to you by Tick Tick Bang - the gif that just keeps on giving...
A robin sings a masterpiece that lives and dies unheard... | |
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I love that song too.
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To clarify it furthermore I do not take into account the "race" factor. There IS an African-American subculture in the American culture (itself a Western subculture) - and by "sub" I don't mean inferior but part of a bigger cultural ensemble, but my definition of this has nothing to do with "race", only the acknowledgment of a cultural/artistic tradition that, by the way, some non-Black have gladly embraced (from early European jazz musicians to Teena Marie and Robin Thicke). This, to me, has NOTHING to do with race, it's a matter of cultural identity. Also, "my" (French/European) culture being Westerner, I don't see it as very different as American. I live in India, and before that I've lived in Cambodia, so I can appreciate how Western cultures are, in the end, totally alike by comparison to non-Western. A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ | |
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As others have already stated, Prince was just soaking up what was happening in the charts as he was to an extent on his early records (less so when in the "Revolution era" where he seemed to embrace whatever Wendy and Lisa was showing them, aswell as some older jazz records or something?).
And yeah, it does remind me of an early 90's kids tv theme. Particually with T.C Ellis' on the intro. It may only be one line, but that line is delivered in such a "look kids, I'm still hip" sorta way LOL, u gotta love it
As for the song itself, I like it alot, but then I like alot of pop/rnb from that era too. The knife sound effects on the breakdown are so very of it's time too. So some of the production elements date the track massively but at least you got real drums LOL. The rest of the new "GB" tracks use obvious drum programmed beats so at least that stands up (personally I liked his drum programming around this time, but they do massively date the said tracks with them on).
As for the comparison to Jackson's "Dangerous"? I see the point but Teddy Riley was in his early creative Prince zone around the late 80's-early 90's and his beats kicked 10 times harder then poor old "New power generation". If this was Prince's attempt at laying it down like Teddy Riley, then he failed LOL. The production on "New Power generation" is, to be kind, more like La Reid and Babyface new jack lite then Riley.
Anyway, Iam a big fan of the track and it does sound very of it's time, which I love LOL. The Maxi single main remix of "NPG" is great fun, but is even more dated then the album version. "Brother with a purpose" is shockingly poor, even for a bit of fun that the maxi single was. TC Ellis reprises "NPG part 2" again, incase we all missed it the first time LOL
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This thread is TL;DR so I'm just gonna join you in the gif posting and read the thread properly when I get home lmao
His smile at the end just fucking MAKES it | |
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It was the title track,"everybody wants to find Graffiti Bridge,something to.........the love of a boy,the love of a girl.........".I wanted to snap this album.Only one album since this that i can listen to front to back,The Gold Experience. | |
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mmart2008 said: It was the title track,"everybody wants to find Graffiti Bridge,something to.....the love of a boy,the love of a girl.....".I wanted to snap this album.Only one album since this that i can listen to front to back,The Gold Experience. Yes yes and three times yes to the bolded! | |
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That ain't the exact moment prince first misfired artistically, that would be Arms of Orion. With that ridiculously sweet and schmaltzy track, he lost the momentum from Batdance but there was no artistic merit as with something wonderful like If I Was your girlfriend, it was clearly a track intended to be crowd pleasing, except it wasn't. I do agree New Power Generstion was more of the same. It was ok, just not special enough to follow Thieves. I passed on buying the maxi single, same as I did with Arms of Orion. | |
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PUMP UP THE BIG NOISE! IN THE HOUUUUUSE! | |
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It is sad, the 1981 Tick Tick Bang is a soft porn masterpiece, with pounding organs and frenetic vocals that sound like he is masturbating. The 1989/1990 GB version is a travesty, one of the few times he took an old song and completely ruined it. How? he larded it with overdubs and flattened his voice out. . The 1981 song is an epic, the 1990 song is barely listenable. That whole album (Graffiti Bridge) was full of barely listenable filler. Theres only 4 or 5 songs from it I can stomach today. Even worse, was that "The Grand Progression" one of the few worthwhile songs from that period was left off the album. Got some kind of love for you, and I don't even know your name | |
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PLEASE, PLEASE..... STOP IT, I will talk. . They use this at Gitmo I am sure and ISIS prisoners have a choice, die or watch a directors cut of Graffiti Bridge. Got some kind of love for you, and I don't even know your name | |
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You know you wish that the Tick Tick Bang single featuring the Junior Vasquez remixes had been released. I mean hell, we already had a clip from GF that would have served as a formal music video
[Edited 4/23/15 20:56pm] A robin sings a masterpiece that lives and dies unheard... | |
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Not too good for it--but what good did it do Sly? Didn't get him past that single decade of mattering, did it? | |
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I can't agree--though deciding to re-release it during the NPGMC years with the "it's about dancing, not extra-marital sex" intro was a pretty low point. | |
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