herb4 said:

bonatoc said:

Wow, stop the press.

You cannot compare the real "Minneapolis Sound", which was a sound previously unheard of,
to the photocopies of Euro-Dance and modern R'n'B that brings MPLS down.

I don't care what "true" rock'n'roll fans have to say (are we talking Foreigner, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden or Mötorhead?),

the sound(s) Prince invented during the eighties still resonates to this day.
Without it, Williams and Mars would not make a single sell.

Mainly I was talking about people who listened to classic rock and worshipped at the alter of Zeppelin, the Stones, Van Halen and the Grateful Dead but hated disco and people like Michael Jackson and Howard Jones, for the same reason. People who gave up on VanHalen after "Jump" came out.

.

When I listen to "Irresistable Bitch" or 'Let's Pretend We're Married" I don't hear "organic" at all. I hear a great musician and a studio wizard at the top of his game. I love that stuff and certainly think it's better than MPLSound but I don't see the difference as vast, necessarily, no. I hear a lot of "When Doves Cry" in "Dance 4 Me", for instance, and a little bit of "DMSR" in "Ol Skool Company".

.

Maybe I'm just not as smart as you dudes and listen to music wrong.

[Edited 5/14/15 9:05am]

Wow, take it easy.

I'm curious, do you own any vynils?

On which media did you first listen to "Purple Rain" or "1999"?

Because the difference is stellar, yes. There's not a single thing in common except for the Linn (which is probably sampled lately) and moogs/Oberheim (which are probably software plugins).

[Edited 5/14/15 14:17pm]

bonatoc said:

herb4 said:

Mainly I was talking about people who listened to classic rock and worshipped at the alter of Zeppelin, the Stones, Van Halen and the Grateful Dead but hated disco and people like Michael Jackson and Howard Jones, for the same reason. People who gave up on VanHalen after "Jump" came out.

.

When I listen to "Irresistable Bitch" or 'Let's Pretend We're Married" I don't hear "organic" at all. I hear a great musician and a studio wizard at the top of his game. I love that stuff and certainly think it's better than MPLSound but I don't see the difference as vast, necessarily, no. I hear a lot of "When Doves Cry" in "Dance 4 Me", for instance, and a little bit of "DMSR" in "Ol Skool Company".

.

Maybe I'm just not as smart as you dudes and listen to music wrong.

[Edited 5/14/15 9:05am]

Wow, take it easy.

I'm curious, do you own any vynils?

On which media did you first listen to "Purple Rain" or "1999"?

Because the difference is stellar, yes. There's not a single thing in common except for the Linn (which is probably sampled lately) and moogs/Oberheim (which are probably software plugins).

[Edited 5/14/15 14:17pm]

I'm fine. Just joking around. I don't own much vinyl anymore but back in the day that's all I had. Bought ever 12" too and then made cassettes for the car. I understand the difference in sound and depth is palpable.

I'm really puzzled as to why some people are on this forum in the first place. It seems many people just like the first phase of P's career or a few albums. I think when u get a deeper understanding of an artist u get to enjoy most of their work to some extent because even if you are not so excited about some songs or albums, u just understand what the artist was trying to achieve and this understanding alone is a source of pleasure, or at least a source of curiosity. When I read some people saying a whole album is utter crap or that they have listened to some albums once then shelved them forever, I can't help but thinking they do not like Prince's music or Prince as an artist AT ALL, they just love a short phase of his career and for some reason got so excited about it that they believe to be fans of Prince's music. If Prince's music had bored me for the last 15 or 20 years, I certainly wouldn't have an account on this forum, I'd have just so totally moved on But like some others I keep finding more or less the same thing in his recent output as I used to find in his "golden age" output. I mean the fundamentals are still there and I fail to see how one can be totally obsessed with 1999 and totally despise Mpslsound. I can appreciate why 1999 was a visionary record at the time and why Mplsound, of course, wasn't. I can appreciate that 1999 was a wild beast and Mplsound, as a more mature work, is more of a tamed beast. But the fundamentals musical and thematic elements that made me like 1999 when I first discovered it are still there in Mpslsound, and that comparison goes for every classic vs. new Prince album.

I don't blame anyone for anything, I just think there's a big misunderstanding and some people would be better moving on instead of wasting their time in a Prince fans community, or listening to every new song/album by Prince and being repeatedly disappointed as if some miracle could happen and it could suddenly be 1987 again.

databank said:

I'm really puzzled as to why some people are on this forum in the first place. It seems many people just like the first phase of P's career or a few albums. I think when u get a deeper understanding of an artist u get to enjoy most of their work to some extent because even if you are not so excited about some songs or albums, u just understand what the artist was trying to achieve and this understanding alone is a source of pleasure, or at least a source of curiosity. When I read some people saying a whole album is utter crap or that they have listened to some albums once then shelved them forever, I can't help but thinking they do not like Prince's music or Prince as an artist AT ALL, they just love a short phase of his career and for some reason got so excited about it that they believe to be fans of Prince's music. If Prince's music had bored me for the last 15 or 20 years, I certainly wouldn't have an account on this forum, I'd have just so totally moved on But like some others I keep finding more or less the same thing in his recent output as I used to find in his "golden age" output. I mean the fundamentals are still there and I fail to see how one can be totally obsessed with 1999 and totally despise Mpslsound. I can appreciate why 1999 was a visionary record at the time and why Mplsound, of course, wasn't. I can appreciate that 1999 was a wild beast and Mplsound, as a more mature work, is more of a tamed beast. But the fundamentals musical and thematic elements that made me like 1999 when I first discovered it are still there in Mpslsound, and that comparison goes for every classic vs. new Prince album.

I don't blame anyone for anything, I just think there's a big misunderstanding and some people would be better moving on instead of wasting their time in a Prince fans community, or listening to every new song/album by Prince and being repeatedly disappointed as if some miracle could happen and it could suddenly be 1987 again.

I think this is a good post, but I don't blame anyone for liking certain chapters of an artist's career and disliking others. I love early to mid 70's Alice Cooper, Elton John and Bowie, Pink Floyd before Roger Waters left, early Black Sabbath and Genesis...some of the later stuff by these artists? Not so much. I love the RCHP but hate a couple of their albums so it's not all that unusal.

.

I'm just usually bafled about which albums get the hate and why. I think we all listen to Prince for different reasons. He's so good at so many styles. I like A LOT of stuff that gets routinely shit on around here but I think most of it's just a matter of personal taste. The problem(s) start when people start calling people ignorant or stupid for liking something others don't. That's like saying someone is wrong for liking anchovies or arugula or something.

I like Valentina, Old School Company and No More Candy 4 U quite a bit. The rest is horrible to me. I put those three songs together with Lotusflower and its one of my absolute favorite Prince albums but MPLS is bad to me. Not his worst but its up there with them for me

PurpleKnight said:

IstenSzek said:

i like:

* Dance 4 Me

* Here

* Old Skool Company

* No More Candy 4 U

i don't care what others think, i like those tracks a lot. the rest of the tracks is
borderline boring/horrible to me U're Gonna C Me is cool, but i liked it more

on the One Nite Alone piano album.

Agreed 100%.

My GOD, Chocolate Box and There'll Never.... are fucking terrible. They're perfect examples of why 90's Prince was sometimes so bad - totally cheap sounding, totally plastic, totally fake and obnoxious.

90s Prince is my favorite!! I don't think this album sounds at all like 90s Prince. I think it sounds like Prince currently trying to recreate his early 80s sound and just can't do it. The 90s era was GREAT(especally from 91-97).

herb4 said:

databank said:

I'm really puzzled as to why some people are on this forum in the first place. It seems many people just like the first phase of P's career or a few albums. I think when u get a deeper understanding of an artist u get to enjoy most of their work to some extent because even if you are not so excited about some songs or albums, u just understand what the artist was trying to achieve and this understanding alone is a source of pleasure, or at least a source of curiosity. When I read some people saying a whole album is utter crap or that they have listened to some albums once then shelved them forever, I can't help but thinking they do not like Prince's music or Prince as an artist AT ALL, they just love a short phase of his career and for some reason got so excited about it that they believe to be fans of Prince's music. If Prince's music had bored me for the last 15 or 20 years, I certainly wouldn't have an account on this forum, I'd have just so totally moved on But like some others I keep finding more or less the same thing in his recent output as I used to find in his "golden age" output. I mean the fundamentals are still there and I fail to see how one can be totally obsessed with 1999 and totally despise Mpslsound. I can appreciate why 1999 was a visionary record at the time and why Mplsound, of course, wasn't. I can appreciate that 1999 was a wild beast and Mplsound, as a more mature work, is more of a tamed beast. But the fundamentals musical and thematic elements that made me like 1999 when I first discovered it are still there in Mpslsound, and that comparison goes for every classic vs. new Prince album.

I don't blame anyone for anything, I just think there's a big misunderstanding and some people would be better moving on instead of wasting their time in a Prince fans community, or listening to every new song/album by Prince and being repeatedly disappointed as if some miracle could happen and it could suddenly be 1987 again.

I think this is a good post, but I don't blame anyone for liking certain chapters of an artist's career and disliking others. I love early to mid 70's Alice Cooper, Elton John and Bowie, Pink Floyd before Roger Waters left, early Black Sabbath and Genesis...some of the later stuff by these artists? Not so much. I love the RCHP but hate a couple of their albums so it's not all that unusal.

.

I'm just usually bafled about which albums get the hate and why. I think we all listen to Prince for different reasons. He's so good at so many styles. I like A LOT of stuff that gets routinely shit on around here but I think most of it's just a matter of personal taste. The problem(s) start when people start calling people ignorant or stupid for liking something others don't. That's like saying someone is wrong for liking anchovies or arugula or something.

The funny thing is that the lucky one is always, in the end, the one who enjoys more stuff. I'm glad I enjoyed every album ever released by Prince, I had a hell of a ball for the past 26 years and it ain't over

herb4 said:

I've been giving this a re-spin lately after noticing that this record came up in the "most unlistenable album" thread quite a bit. Even more than NPS and Rave (and I don't hate those records either).

.

For the life of me I can't understand the hate for it. The production is a little on the tinny side and the thing could use a bit more thickness and depth on the bottom end of the sound but, my God. People talk about this record like it's a musical abomination, a total embarrasment and a genuine affront to Prince's legacy.

.

"(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" is just a fun little party dance track. No worse than a million things I've heard. I actually kind of like it and think it's fun. "Chocolate Box" is OK. Same thing. It gets me boucing around and is fun. "Dance 4 Me", "Valentina" and "Ol' Skool Company" are awesome. I love all of those songs.

.

The ballads arent't awful either for a change. "Here" is a nice little mid-tempo number. I'll take this over Planet Earth, NEWS and some of the more meandering, cultish bullshit on "Rainbow Children" any day. People I play it for like it. It makes a nice compliment to "Lotus Flow3r". It's hardly a piece of garbage.

.

Defenders of this albuim stand up!

I hear ya, I'm a Defender I really like some of the tracks u mention!!!

databank said:

herb4 said:

I think this is a good post, but I don't blame anyone for liking certain chapters of an artist's career and disliking others. I love early to mid 70's Alice Cooper, Elton John and Bowie, Pink Floyd before Roger Waters left, early Black Sabbath and Genesis...some of the later stuff by these artists? Not so much. I love the RCHP but hate a couple of their albums so it's not all that unusal.

.

I'm just usually bafled about which albums get the hate and why. I think we all listen to Prince for different reasons. He's so good at so many styles. I like A LOT of stuff that gets routinely shit on around here but I think most of it's just a matter of personal taste. The problem(s) start when people start calling people ignorant or stupid for liking something others don't. That's like saying someone is wrong for liking anchovies or arugula or something.

The funny thing is that the lucky one is always, in the end, the one who enjoys more stuff. I'm glad I enjoyed every album ever released by Prince, I had a hell of a ball for the past 26 years and it ain't over

I totally get your post. And like you have liked every one of his releases. I also don't understand those who hang on after not liking his output for years. prince had to really fuck them good to keep wanting more after so much disapointment. What I find with most prince songs/albums is that he puts so much into them that he always wins me over.

KingSausage said:

I'm often tagged as a naysayer here. But almost every Prince album has at least one song that I love. Even that shit Planet Earth....The thing with Prince is that you might hate the last four albums he put out. But he's likely to throw a total curveball soon. Who could have seen TRC or NEWS coming?! So I don't begrudge anyone for staying in touch with Prince updates even if they seem like they've been bitter assholes for a decade or more.

Which song on Planet Earth is the good one?

.

Since I guess Lovesexy, I've liked and loathed PARTS of every record he's put out. Lovesexy and The Black Album were last ones you could just listen to all the way through. The downslide started with Batman and Graffitti Bridge and shit started to get wonky and inconsistent. Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain, SOTT, Parade...I can listen to all of it (except for Do U Lie).

.

Since then, I've almost always found myself having to cobble together and mix different tracks on different albums to get something that I like and that I'm not embarrassed to play for my friends. I don't mind. I rather enjoy it. I have "New Power Rave", "Emancipation (One Disc), Exodus (edit) and "The Chocolate Slaughterhouse" amongst my many mixes. I like when he just spews out a whole bunch of stuff and I can select the songs that work for me. I'd rather have more than less. I seem to enjoy the hip hop/funk/dance stuff a lot more than others here, so I just take it and run. I'm not big on the ballads and a lot of the pop songs so I weed them out.

.

Are you saying "NEWS" and "TRC" were good or bad? I can't tell. There's lot of horrible shit on both of those records but somehow MPLSound gets the bad rap. As usual, I just mixed it with Lotus Flower and wound up with something really great. It's called "LotuSound".

.

ArtOfficalAge is the first Prince album since Black or Lovesexy that I can just play from beginning to end. 3121 is close. I don't reall HATE ahything on it and can let it go all the way through. Even Gold and Symbol have clunkers and skippers on them. I don't skip a thing on The Undertaker though because that shit ripped.

.

Prince is just so versatile and caters to so many different tastes. People listen to his stuff for different reasons. I'm in the Days of Wild, DMSR, Calhoun Square, NOW crowd and others like Empty Room, The Dance, and the meandering falsetto stuff.

trax said:

PurpleKnight said:

Agreed 100%.

My GOD, Chocolate Box and There'll Never.... are fucking terrible. They're perfect examples of why 90's Prince was sometimes so bad - totally cheap sounding, totally plastic, totally fake and obnoxious.

90s Prince is my favorite!! The 90s era was GREAT(especally from 91-97).

See? A lot of people would think you're nuts for thinking this. Tomato Tom-AH-to and all that. I like a lot of that sutff myself. I didn't even mind the name change. I thought it was funky, underground, a little bit punk and kinda cool, just for the sheer balls of it.

.

I read a critic recently who described Prince as the "first underground/cult pop artist" and that seems strikingly accurate. He always keeps one foot in the public spotlight and one in the basement of Paisely Park. I think it's really the secret of his success and longevity. Even his most die hard fans have a love/hate relationship with him.

herb4 said:

i dont understand the hate either...i played it all night last night just to see if i was wrong for liking this album..hell no..

Valentina is my shit...Better With Time...Dance 4 Me...No More Candy 4 U...Chocolate Box

i love the classic Prince Linn Drums all over that LP...

MPLSound is better than alotta other P lps, like:

Chaos & Disorder

Lotusflow3r

Come

3121

The Overrated Gold Experience

Plectrum Electrum

Musicology

what exactly dont people like about this record?

i dont understand the hate either...i played it all night last night just to see if i was wrong for liking this album..hell no..

Valentina is my shit...Better With Time...Dance 4 Me...No More Candy 4 U...Chocolate Box

i love the classic Prince Linn Drums all over that LP...

MPLSound is better than alotta other P lps, like:

Chaos & Disorder

Lotusflow3r

Come

3121

The Overrated Gold Experience

Plectrum Electrum

Musicology

what exactly dont people like about this record?

smoothcriminal12 said:

V10LETBLUES said:

And it was sad for Prince to call it MPLSOUND and try to explicitly recapture that old sound.

-----

i can definitely hear that, but thats exactly what i liked about it...

RJOrion said:

And it was sad for Prince to call it MPLSOUND and try to explicitly recapture that old sound.

-----

i can definitely hear that, but thats exactly what i liked about it...

Me too. I feel largely the same way about it as you seem to. I hadn't broken it out in a while but I read the "most unlistenable" thread and gave it a spin just to test my ears. I still found it mostly to be a lot of fun. NPS is another one I break out on occasion and find to be largely OK. But like I said, I like of stuff that routinely gets shit on around here - especially the more dance/hip hop stuff.

.

There seems to be a large segment of the Prince fan base that hates the dance/party tunes. Especially the rap stuff. I don't even thing that "Jughead" is the worst song on Diamonds and Pearls.

databank said:

I'm really puzzled as to why some people are on this forum in the first place. It seems many people just like the first phase of P's career or a few albums. I think when u get a deeper understanding of an artist u get to enjoy most of their work to some extent because even if you are not so excited about some songs or albums, u just understand what the artist was trying to achieve and this understanding alone is a source of pleasure, or at least a source of curiosity. When I read some people saying a whole album is utter crap or that they have listened to some albums once then shelved them forever, I can't help but thinking they do not like Prince's music or Prince as an artist AT ALL, they just love a short phase of his career and for some reason got so excited about it that they believe to be fans of Prince's music. If Prince's music had bored me for the last 15 or 20 years, I certainly wouldn't have an account on this forum, I'd have just so totally moved on But like some others I keep finding more or less the same thing in his recent output as I used to find in his "golden age" output. I mean the fundamentals are still there and I fail to see how one can be totally obsessed with 1999 and totally despise Mpslsound. I can appreciate why 1999 was a visionary record at the time and why Mplsound, of course, wasn't. I can appreciate that 1999 was a wild beast and Mplsound, as a more mature work, is more of a tamed beast. But the fundamentals musical and thematic elements that made me like 1999 when I first discovered it are still there in Mpslsound, and that comparison goes for every classic vs. new Prince album.

I don't blame anyone for anything, I just think there's a big misunderstanding and some people would be better moving on instead of wasting their time in a Prince fans community, or listening to every new song/album by Prince and being repeatedly disappointed as if some miracle could happen and it could suddenly be 1987 again.

To be honest, I'm tired of posts like this one. So what if I think all his albums since 1996 have been bad. Seriously, so what? Does that disqualify me from being a fan deserving of being here? Yeah, I think MPLSOUND is a very bad album - it's around a **/***** for me. The first two songs are every bit as bad as anything I've ever heard from hacks like Bieber and Beyonce. Again, so what? I still enjoy a decade and a half of his output.