KingSausage said:

Aerogram said:

Most of the songs on this record are either great or more than decent, but it does feel overblown especially 3 Chains of Gold.

As an album it's like a magnificent Austrian pastry with a criminal amount of cream and melted caramel that you feel guilty about the next day when you realize you can hardly put on your tight jeans.

Hater. Why do you even come to this site if you hate Prince so much?

I'm the man who loves to hate for sho.

I like it a lot it's just I see some true excesses there even though it's all performed and recorded superbly. I only dislike maybe two or three songs but the album feels and sounds oversuffed with everything Prince.

It took half an hour to figure out where the Arsenio Hall performance was, finally found it on a boot 'Neo Manifesto'.

I'm gonna have to organize these things...

Anyway, the performance of 'The Max' is the highlight for me.

Aerogram said:

KingSausage said:

I've always liked the Symbol album, but lately it's grown to be one of my absolute favorite Prince albums. I love its wackiness, its variety, its sheer creativity. Every song is great. The segues are bizarre but dammit that's just part of the fun. Prince's vocals are top notch throughout. The production is warm, organic, and aggressive. The slow songs are great, the fast songs are great, the funk is great. Most importantly, the Symbol album might be the weirdest Prince era.

Agreed. One of the best.

Agree wholeheartedly with the OP about the wonders of this album.

It's a weird album in the sense that I recognise it is deeply flawed and yet at the same time, I rank it as one of his all time best. I think the flaws (Tony M, the seagues, filler like The Max or The Continental) add to the overall charm to some degree. There are times I wish he would re-release the album without all that crap and just let the songs stand for themselves, but then I think it would lose a little something in a strange sort of way.

Getting past all of the external nonsense that bogs down and dates the album, the songs on this set are really magnificent. Sweet Baby is probably one of the most tender and sincere moments of his entire career and certainly in my personal top 3 Prince ballads. The sound of the NPG on this entire album is second to none. It is probably the best lineup and band Prince has ever played with. Whilst some of the production techniques are a little dated, the band themselves sound so organic with the lush hammond organs on The Morning Papers and Sonny T, Michael B and Levi adding so much warmth and clarity to the mix.

I even love the much-maligned Blue Light and 3 Chains O Gold. The latter is of course incredibly pompous and self-indulgent, but the entire album is like that and it's part of the reason why I love it. It's just so out-there, it's the sound of Prince and his band flaunting his genius and existing on their own little planet, making a record which is both undeniably insane and incredibly diverse in equal measures.

I remember hearing a cool remix of MNIP a few years back which I was never able to find again. It doesn't exist on the maxi-single and had some really cool funky guitar licks throughout the verses (similar to the live version). It was much better than the album version and I wish I could track it down again.

[Edited 9/27/15 3:52am]

KingSausage said:

I've always liked the Symbol album, but lately it's grown to be one of my absolute favorite Prince albums. I love its wackiness, its variety, its sheer creativity. Every song is great. The segues are bizarre but dammit that's just part of the fun. Prince's vocals are top notch throughout. The production is warm, organic, and aggressive. The slow songs are great, the fast songs are great, the funk is great. Most importantly, the Symbol album might be the weirdest Prince era. Have you seen the 3 Chains of Gold video? Have you read the 3 Chains of Gold comic? His weirdness is absolutely stunning. [Edited 9/26/15 7:52am] [Edited 9/26/15 10:19am]

I love the extravaganza of this album.

It's ambitious on every ground: musically, lyrically, thematically. Everything is just you know, like grand opera, so totally blown out of proportions. It's like The Bible, vol. 2. And Prince is Jesus. Ans this is so ridiculously exaggerated an ego-trip that it's just awesome as a work of art

It was also a turning point for P in terms of musical sophistication.

The video is an absolute disaster, though, it makes no sense at all and the fact that nearly all the songs were butchered, let alone absent for some, doesn't help.

But the record, wow indeed

MIRvmn said:

it Prince's best album of the 90s imo

^^ Enough said

databank said:

KingSausage said:

I've always liked the Symbol album, but lately it's grown to be one of my absolute favorite Prince albums. I love its wackiness, its variety, its sheer creativity. Every song is great. The segues are bizarre but dammit that's just part of the fun. Prince's vocals are top notch throughout. The production is warm, organic, and aggressive. The slow songs are great, the fast songs are great, the funk is great. Most importantly, the Symbol album might be the weirdest Prince era. Have you seen the 3 Chains of Gold video? Have you read the 3 Chains of Gold comic? His weirdness is absolutely stunning. [Edited 9/26/15 7:52am] [Edited 9/26/15 10:19am]

Yes this is also my favorite album by him as well and no other album is even close to this one for me. I absolutely love this album!! The whole era is just the greatest ever from the album, the videos, the tv performances and the tour. Its just phenomenal!!

[Edited 9/27/15 6:07am]

databank said:

KingSausage said:

I actually love Tony M on this album. I said it. There's no going back.

Today marks a sad day in the life of being a Prince fanatic.

I have stood by most of your comments and posts for all of time.

But based upon this last comment, you are on your own kid.

Tony M was the worst thing that every happened to the universe.

I slightly vomit in my mouth. "You are awarded no points, and may god have mercy on your soul"

tollyc said:

did you appreciate the Billy Madison reference? "I will have my wife the tramp for $500. You are awarded no points and may god have mercy on your soul"

KingSausage said:

databank said:

I love the extravaganza of this album.

It's ambitious on every ground: musically, lyrically, thematically. Everything is just you know, like grand opera, so totally blown out of proportions. It's like The Bible, vol. 2. And Prince is Jesus. Ans this is so ridiculously exaggerated an ego-trip that it's just awesome as a work of art

It was also a turning point for P in terms of musical sophistication.

The video is an absolute disaster, though, it makes no sense at all and the fact that nearly all the songs were butchered, let alone absent for some, doesn't help.

But the record, wow indeed

The video is so shitty that it's great. I admire the craziness that took the album's incomprehensible bullshit and made it even more incomprehensible. And then there's the comic if you really want to step it up. It's all mad genius. Unfiltered, crazy, cocky, mad genius. And tits.

Fair enough. I think i've read scanbs of the comic once, ain't too sure (there was another comic a year before or so so IDK), I have no recollection of it anywa. U got scans?

.

I reviewed the film in a thread 5 years ago, I've managed to find it:

.

"Watched it again after 15 years the other day.

.

This film is nonsense!

.

So 1st and 4most: why the butchering edits on most songs? Why not putting them entirely since the videos were shot anyway?!

.

And why no videos 4 "Arrogance", "The Flow", "And God Created Woman", "3 Chains O' Gold" (despite the orchestral version) and "The sacrifice Of Victor"? if that goddamn album and film was supposed 2 tell a story what's the point in skipping the end of the story if u're gonna tell it anyway?

.

And what the hell's that story about anyway?

.

1st, 7 dudes (who?) kill Mayte's father (why?). Then Mayte goes to MPLS (why?) and sees on the news that Prince is kind of encouraging a violent riot (why?), so she goes there and gives him her precious gold chains (why?). Then Prince puts his whole own band in jail (why?), fails to fuck a woman because he thinks of Mayte (why: they just met?) and then frees his band 4 a photoshoot (!!!). Then he meets Mayte again and they fall in love and as she worries about the 7 dudes, he tells her that she can relax because "the max is in control" (what the fuck is "the max" anyway?) and they have wonderful times together but suddenly, as she makes an horrible nightmare, he decides to leave her (why?) and he takes a train to Japan (how on earth do u reach Japan by train if u're in the USA?!), where he claims he's such a "continental" hotshot to the crowd and possibly fucks Carmen (but as she's been edited out, we don't know), but in the end he decides to get back to Mayte because he can't put her outta his mind, and suddenly we skip 2 songs and jump to "7", which is slaughtered by interviews of the bandmembers about Mayte (why? and who cares what they think anyway?) and Prince kills both the seven dudes and his past selves (why?) and then the good guys won and we skip one more song and jump to this instrumental version of "3 Chains O'Gold" with Mayte reading her infamous letter about Prince's namechange and he signs a contract with Japanese executives (why?), which is so absurd because this is all about the name change, which happened in 1993 while this film/albums' concept goes back to late 1991, at a time when Prince wasn't thinking of changing his name or leaving Warner Bros, meaning that Prince suddenly changed the plot to make it fit with recent events in his life and that makes the story even more impossible to understand and spoils whatever original ending was there in the 1st place. And in the end they bury Mayte's precious chains of gold (why?) and we have a written message about Prince's spiritual revolution which has nothing to do with Mayte anymore, and that's it, story's over.

.

Damn, u can say whatever u want about Graffiti Bridge, but this film is a masterpiece in comparison to that absurd piece of crap that was released on video!!!

.

I'll add that the story in the video slightly differs from the story that's told by the album's unreleased segues, making the whole thing even more confusing.

.

Does someone understand something that i don't in the middle of that whole narrative mess??? "

tollyc said:

databank said:

KingSausage said:

KingSausage said:

starkitty said:

Have u seen a recent picture of Tony M... Guess his rapping wasn't that great after all...

I believe he's a real estate agent now. Saw a recent picture of him on Twitter.

KingSausage said:

starkitty said:

KingSausage said:

Most importantly, the Symbol album might be the weirdest Prince era. Have you seen the 3 Chains of Gold video? Have you read the 3 Chains of Gold comic? His weirdness is absolutely stunning.

is that the one with the topless ladies swimming or something? I remember getting that on VHS.

Mayte, yeah... she is showing her pussy in 3 Chains O' Gold, iirc..

She is a beauty so I did not mind back then..

About the album, like I said above I love this fine work especially the single releases.

starkitty said:

starkitty said:

I don't remember any pussy anywhere at all.

[img:$uid]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecnirp2004/vlcsnap-2015-09-27-19h36m33s83_zpsn4hn1ce4.png[/img:$uid]


[img:$uid]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecnirp2004/vlcsnap-2015-09-27-19h36m47s235_zpsnqiiyg8k.png[/img:$uid]


^ All these are screen caps from "3 Chains O Gold"..

Thanks - at request of Thread OP, some images have been removed to ensure the thread remains SFW.

lange bleu moderator

dodger said:

starkitty said:

I don't remember any pussy anywhere at all.

I watched that scene once or twice. You don't see Mayte in all her glory but there's a few other girls getting into the pool with a bit of squirrel on display

^ right

^^