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2 good reviews so far. On Metacritic, Indepedent gives it 80, Popmatters a 70, both positive. All you others say Hell Yea!!  | |
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I expect the reviews to be positive in the 70 to 75 range. | |
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It's a decent album. Much better production values also. Doesn't sound as amateurish as AOA. | |
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Two Uk newspapers - the Independent and the Guardian give it 4/5 and describe it as his best in decades. I'd have to agree. Green virgin teenager, or filthy rich yuppy. Pussy cat pussy cat, where for out thou puppy |
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Violet the AOA lady has spoken. | |
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This is good news. small circles, big wheels!
I've got a pretty firm grip on the obvious! |
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Yep the whining and look at me complaining cause I'm a nobody continues from this complete ignoramous...pathetic The greatest live performer of our times was is and always will be Prince.
Remember there is only one destination and that place is U All of it. Everything. Is U. | |
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Back on subject this is getting excellent reviews from everyone so much more then 2...many are even talking album of the year contention! I concur! Great job P! The greatest live performer of our times was is and always will be Prince.
Remember there is only one destination and that place is U All of it. Everything. Is U. | |
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2020 said:
Yep the whining and look at me complaining cause I'm a nobody continues from this complete ignoramous...pathetic Temper temper. I'm just stating the obvious. Prince is not well versed in modern production and neither is Joshua. But this one is more up his alley. I actually like Hitnrun one and two far better than AOA, it's either because joshua is getting better and better, or because Prince is accepting that he should delegate where he is weak. But AOA IS amateur hour, and bad amateur hour at that. I would guess it's mostly the older fans, those who are stuck in the past and hsve rarely listened to contemporary music in the past 30 years that find it "modern" and not cringe at how bad it is. Anyway, watch your temper, anger lowers your IQ, and by reading your post it looks like you have been dealing with anger issues for a long long time. | |
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V10LETBLUES said:[quote] 2020 said:
Yep the whining and look at me complaining cause I'm a nobody continues from this complete ignoramous...pathetic Temper temper. I'm just stating the obvious Uhhhh not you are NOT stating the obvious and no it's not about anger at all. Here's the thing...you are not stating the obvious what you are doing is repeating the same tired ass comment about how YOU feel about AOA over and over and over and over and over and over and over again! As has been stated by other orgers we get it you hate it. We got it STFU ALREADY! If you don't have anything to say about the CURRENT topic that relates to the ACTUAL topic, song, new music etc then keep you over inflated egotistical commets about how much YOU hate AOA to yourself. I dare you not to make any comments about AOA on anymore threads EVER! All we can do is hope you finally get it. [Edited 12/16/15 7:07am] The greatest live performer of our times was is and always will be Prince.
Remember there is only one destination and that place is U All of it. Everything. Is U. | |
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^ Don't worry your pretty little head. It's OK, you'll get it. Some are slower than others. How long did it take for some to see how bad TGE was? Takes time for some. It's OK. | |
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FOOLS multiply when WISE Men & Women are silent. | |
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I don't think Joshua had anything to do with this one. All you others say Hell Yea!! | |
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Probably the chillest album Prince has ever released. Probably the least cringe worthy one in a decade too. Just press play and chill.
The new version of Xrraloveable still makes my skin crawl, but I can just skip it. [Edited 12/16/15 8:45am] | |
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i like the perspective of the LA Times reviewer. He's thinking about the WAY Prince puts out music even as he analyzes the music itself. that's what this HnR period has me thinking, is this a great way to "empty the vault", is the way he conceives album construction different now? BCW preceded AoA by months (if not a full year). does he feel ok with releasing a SINGLE, as "stand alone" but then including it later where he sees that it fits, or doesn't "fit" but just also getting it out there in a more "official" way. i'm intrigued by the artistic process of it all. i'm not the cynic who feels it all amounts to "mailing it in." times have indeed changed. | |
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Having a look around in Twitter the reviews so far seem to be unanimously good. | |
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Nme have a positive review as well, can't link as on phone, but pleasantly surprised that they like it. | |
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is josh "involved" in this album ??? | |
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Reviews don't matter much these days, neither does being number 1, because everything moves so fast these days, nothing lasts for long anyhow. Something is a "big deal" one day, and the next day, it's on to something else......that's the world we live in now. | |
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what about a
CD release??? | |
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The Prince3EG twitter account tweeted that there will be a physical CD released. | |
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to be honest.. I am skipping all tracks except Groovy Potential & Revelation.. [Edited 12/17/15 0:00am] Prince 4Ever.  | |
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This is becoming the best reviewed Prince album in years. | |
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Review links:
http://www.independent.co...73056.html
Happen to agree with this summary: Overall, it’s an unexpected triumph: bright, sexy, smart and full of life. http://www.theguardian.co...view-album [Edited 12/17/15 14:58pm] | |
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The Buffalo NewsPrince is back, as funky and contradictory as ever
link: http://buffalo.com/2015/1...y-as-ever/
We’re really not worthy. Or if we’re worthy, we’re barely so. On Saturday, with no advance warning, Prince dropped his second album in six months.
“HITNRUN Phase Two” (NPG Records) followed September’s “Phase One” straight to Tidal, the Jay Z-authored streaming site said to be the most artist-friendly of the bunch. Now, you can stream or download the two-part album the way Prince and whatever deity you believe in intended – as a single entity comprising, much like the man himself, contradictory views on almost everything.
Prince hates technology; Prince loves technology. Prince is seeking something spiritual amidst a cultural landscape that is much more Kardashian than Krishna; Prince just wants to steal your girlfriend and teach her something about carnal revelry. Prince is a master of old school analog funk; Prince splashed auto-tune all over “HITNRUN Phase One.”
These philosophical dichotomies form part of what makes Prince one of the most interesting artists of the past 35 years. The other part is his prodigious talent – as a musician capable of killing it on multiple instruments, as a songwriter, as a producer, as a bandleader, as a dancer, as a man who takes to the stage and does all of these things at once. Critics and over-zealous fans might want to suggest that Drake, or Timberlake, or even Kendrick are the equivalent of Prince, but let’s face it, such arguments could be diffused immediately if one simply handed a guitar (or one of several other instruments) to Drake or Timberlake or Kendrick and asked them to play a solo like Prince. It ain’t happening. Prince does have musical peers, though most of them are either deceased or older than he is – think Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, Parliament Funkadelic – or have left pop behind altogether in favor of more jazz-inflected fusions. When it comes to music that might be considered mainstream R&B, Prince is on his own these days. At 57, he still has full possession of his agile singing voice, and he continues to dazzle as an instrumentalist.
He also manages to sound contemporary, without expending much noticeable effort. So “HITNRUN Phase Two” arrives without ceremony, which seems almost insulting, really, especially once you’ve spent some time with it, and realized that it’s made up of high-level Prince music. If an artist with his talent, pedigree and proven track record needs to pull a surprise attack as a way of generating the publicity that record labels used to consider it their job to generate, well, this somehow seems unjust. Shouldn’t a new release from one of our most significant artists be a bigger deal than, say, the absurd You Tube video for the new Psy single?
Whatever.
As he always has, Prince came to play, and he plays up a storm throughout “Phase Two,” flexing his songwriting muscle on tunes that run the gamut from psychedelic soul-pop to grinding funk, softly-lit and sexy R&B to horn-driven hot buttered soul. It’s top-tier Prince fare – even relative throwaway pieces like “Screwdriver,” a salacious slab of pop-funk that would not have been out of place as a “Purple Rain”-era B-side, is still a more finely-crafted affair than the majority of tracks you’ll find at the top of Spotify’s hit-list.
The album begins with its only political/social criticism piece, in the form of “Baltimore,” a song that focuses on the riots in that city following the deaths of African Americans Freddie Gray and Michael Brown at the hands of police. Prince attempts to aim some sunlight toward this American tragedy, dressing “Baltimore” in trippy psychedelia and soothing tonal colors, but the “no justice, no peace” message still burns through.
“Baltimore” is gauzy and beautiful, which is remarkable, given the true horror behind its inspiration. But “Phase Two” hits its peak later on, with the one-two punch of “Black Muse” and “Revelation,” a combined 13 minutes of music that ranks amongst this prolific wunderkind’s finest. The former is a filthy funk workout that quotes both early Prince and prime period Earth Wind & Fire, but beneath its groove-based veneer is a paean to African American fortitude: “Black muse/We gonna’ make it through/Surely people that created rhythm and blues/Rock ‘n Roll and Jazz/You know we’re built to last/It’s cool,”Prince sings, female backing vocalists joining him in harmony. Three minutes in, the song evolves into a spacious jam with jazzy piano figures sprinkled around horn section stabs and the sort of sophisticated funk that Herbie Hancock was dealing with in the mid '70s.
Together, these two pieces represent the sound of Prince leaving the competition a few miles behind, choking on his dust.
So is “Phase Two” as great of an album as, say, “Sign O’ the Times,” “Lovesexy” or “Purple Rain”? I might tell you yes, indeed it is, but how would you really know? Those earlier efforts came out during a time when albums meant something. Now, as great as it is, this two-part Prince masterpiece is just another teardrop in an ocean, a collection of sounds that will be given no more credence as a unified statement than will a Spotify playlist curated by Joe or Jane Everyman. And that’s nothing but a shame.
When it comes to music, democracy has its limits. Not everyone is equally talented or worthy of our time and attention. Prince is far more worthy than most.
This is fact. Not speculation.
[Edited 12/17/15 15:32pm] | |
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Some kick ass promotion should be done now. I know he's never going to sell millions again, but this is becoming his best reviewed album in years (decades?). Shame if it doesn't get to be heard by more than a few thousand people.. | |
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Sweden´s biggest newspaper Aftonbladet gives it 4/5 - "Congratulations to the world - surprise of the year": | |
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murph said:
The Buffalo NewsPrince is back, as funky and contradictory as ever
link: http://buffalo.com/2015/1...y-as-ever/
We’re really not worthy. Or if we’re worthy, we’re barely so. On Saturday, with no advance warning, Prince dropped his second album in six months.
“HITNRUN Phase Two” (NPG Records) followed September’s “Phase One” straight to Tidal, the Jay Z-authored streaming site said to be the most artist-friendly of the bunch. Now, you can stream or download the two-part album the way Prince and whatever deity you believe in intended – as a single entity comprising, much like the man himself, contradictory views on almost everything.
Prince hates technology; Prince loves technology. Prince is seeking something spiritual amidst a cultural landscape that is much more Kardashian than Krishna; Prince just wants to steal your girlfriend and teach her something about carnal revelry. Prince is a master of old school analog funk; Prince splashed auto-tune all over “HITNRUN Phase One.”
These philosophical dichotomies form part of what makes Prince one of the most interesting artists of the past 35 years. The other part is his prodigious talent – as a musician capable of killing it on multiple instruments, as a songwriter, as a producer, as a bandleader, as a dancer, as a man who takes to the stage and does all of these things at once. Critics and over-zealous fans might want to suggest that Drake, or Timberlake, or even Kendrick are the equivalent of Prince, but let’s face it, such arguments could be diffused immediately if one simply handed a guitar (or one of several other instruments) to Drake or Timberlake or Kendrick and asked them to play a solo like Prince. It ain’t happening. Prince does have musical peers, though most of them are either deceased or older than he is – think Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, Parliament Funkadelic – or have left pop behind altogether in favor of more jazz-inflected fusions. When it comes to music that might be considered mainstream R&B, Prince is on his own these days. At 57, he still has full possession of his agile singing voice, and he continues to dazzle as an instrumentalist.
He also manages to sound contemporary, without expending much noticeable effort. So “HITNRUN Phase Two” arrives without ceremony, which seems almost insulting, really, especially once you’ve spent some time with it, and realized that it’s made up of high-level Prince music. If an artist with his talent, pedigree and proven track record needs to pull a surprise attack as a way of generating the publicity that record labels used to consider it their job to generate, well, this somehow seems unjust. Shouldn’t a new release from one of our most significant artists be a bigger deal than, say, the absurd You Tube video for the new Psy single?
Whatever.
As he always has, Prince came to play, and he plays up a storm throughout “Phase Two,” flexing his songwriting muscle on tunes that run the gamut from psychedelic soul-pop to grinding funk, softly-lit and sexy R&B to horn-driven hot buttered soul. It’s top-tier Prince fare – even relative throwaway pieces like “Screwdriver,” a salacious slab of pop-funk that would not have been out of place as a “Purple Rain”-era B-side, is still a more finely-crafted affair than the majority of tracks you’ll find at the top of Spotify’s hit-list.
The album begins with its only political/social criticism piece, in the form of “Baltimore,” a song that focuses on the riots in that city following the deaths of African Americans Freddie Gray and Michael Brown at the hands of police. Prince attempts to aim some sunlight toward this American tragedy, dressing “Baltimore” in trippy psychedelia and soothing tonal colors, but the “no justice, no peace” message still burns through.
“Baltimore” is gauzy and beautiful, which is remarkable, given the true horror behind its inspiration. But “Phase Two” hits its peak later on, with the one-two punch of “Black Muse” and “Revelation,” a combined 13 minutes of music that ranks amongst this prolific wunderkind’s finest. The former is a filthy funk workout that quotes both early Prince and prime period Earth Wind & Fire, but beneath its groove-based veneer is a paean to African American fortitude: “Black muse/We gonna’ make it through/Surely people that created rhythm and blues/Rock ‘n Roll and Jazz/You know we’re built to last/It’s cool,”Prince sings, female backing vocalists joining him in harmony. Three minutes in, the song evolves into a spacious jam with jazzy piano figures sprinkled around horn section stabs and the sort of sophisticated funk that Herbie Hancock was dealing with in the mid '70s.
Together, these two pieces represent the sound of Prince leaving the competition a few miles behind, choking on his dust.
So is “Phase Two” as great of an album as, say, “Sign O’ the Times,” “Lovesexy” or “Purple Rain”? I might tell you yes, indeed it is, but how would you really know? Those earlier efforts came out during a time when albums meant something. Now, as great as it is, this two-part Prince masterpiece is just another teardrop in an ocean, a collection of sounds that will be given no more credence as a unified statement than will a Spotify playlist curated by Joe or Jane Everyman. And that’s nothing but a shame.
When it comes to music, democracy has its limits. Not everyone is equally talented or worthy of our time and attention. Prince is far more worthy than most.
This is fact. Not speculation.
[Edited 12/17/15 15:32pm] Great review and interesting read. This is the first album in awhile in which it is being reviewed on its merits and not the fact it is "Prince." | |
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