This has to be P's most underated work. The complexity of it, when you consider how it was made. Essentially the whole thing was written and performed by Prince, composed in its entirety then sent to Clare Fischer who added the nessecary orchestra parts, but still working to Prince's original structure, melodies and guidelines. It's pretty much a one man sympthony, and a great one too.

Hans Martin Buff said it took Prince an incredibly short time to compose, just mind bogglingly short.

Anybody else kinda missed this one and let it gather dust for a few years?

i should really try this again one of these days. i remember liking it well enough, but
being put off by the sound levels. it goes from rather beautiful, slow and quiet to the

most jarring loud shards of music that seem really out of place.

which is why i usually give up listening to this before i'm even through the title track.

but i promise i will give it another try and try to sit through it

IstenSzek said:

i should really try this again one of these days. i remember liking it well enough, but
being put off by the sound levels. it goes from rather beautiful, slow and quiet to the

most jarring loud shards of music that seem really out of place.

which is why i usually give up listening to this before i'm even through the title track.

but i promise i will give it another try and try to sit through it

it does go from soft to heavier rather suddenly in places, but i'm sure there was method to the madness. sometimes you gotta roll with an artists decision and try and work out what it all means or what mood they were trying to capture, rather then why it was made.

RumAndRaisin said:

This has to be P's most underated work. The complexity of it, when you consider how it was made. Essentially the whole thing was written and performed by Prince, composed in its entirety then sent to Clare Fischer who added the nessecary orchestra parts, but still working to Prince's original structure, melodies and guidelines. It's pretty much a one man sympthony, and a great one too.

Hans Martin Buff said it took Prince an incredibly short time to compose, just mind bogglingly short.

Anybody else kinda missed this one and let it gather dust for a few years?

Fisrt time I read something positive about Kamasutra in a long time...

.

To be honest I believe it to be one of P's weakest efforts ever, but contrarily to most others who think that way it's not because I lack musical education and understand only pop music, but because I do have acquired some musical education over the years. In fact when the album got released I wasn't familiar at all with contemporary neoclassical, ambient and experimental, and I was totally impressed by it. Then over the years I started to listen to a lot of stuff in the aforementioned genres and slowly realized how amateurish an effort Kamasutra was.

.

The problem is that Prince didn't do his homework. He just tried to emulate classical music on synth without realizing that all along the 20th Century there had been a whole scene of people with a classical music background who were/are composers and do that kind of stuff (to name a few among the most famous: Steve Reich, Jon Hassell, John Zorn, Philip Glass, Gavin Bryans, John Cage, Harold Budd, Chick Corea or Ryuichi Sakamoto, not to mention the dozens of musicians working on a more experimental/electronic level such as Zeena Parkins or Alva Noto, and the enormous ambient scene). By not doing his homework, Prince ended-up with a gross, naive, almost childish caricature of classical music that would have made any serious listener of contemporary music laugh out loud. It just sounded like someone who'd try to make jazz but would only know New Orleans jazz from the 1920's. To come-up with something relevant, Prince would have had to check out what was out there before going into the studio.

.

Now I do appreciate the effort: I like it when a musician goes out of his comfort zone and I certainly wish Prince would do it more often, so I'm not gonna say he should have not done it at all, I'm actually glad he did, only he could have done his homework. He certainly has the talent to come-up with something more substantial that that and maybe he should give it another try, with the help of MBN and String Genius for the parts that require musical theory. There are some things on Kamasutra that I still like, but there's a lot that makes me cringe.

[Edited 2/10/16 21:55pm]

databank said:

.

The problem is that Prince didn't do his homework. He just tried to emulate classical music on synth without realizing that all along the 20th Century there had been a whole scene of people with a classical music background who were/are composers and do that kind of stuff (to name a few among the most famous: Steve Reich, Jon Hassell, John Zorn, Philip Glass, Gavin Bryans, John Cage, Harold Budd, Chick Corea or Ryuichi Sakamoto, not to mention the dozens of musicians working on a more experimental/electronic level such as Zeena Parkins or Alva Noto, and the enormous ambient scene). By not doing his homework, Prince ended-up with a gross, naive, almost childish caricature of classical music that would have made any serious listener of contemporary music laugh out loud. It just sounded like someone who'd try to make jazz but would only know New Orleans jazz from the 1920's. To come-up with something relevant, Prince would have had to check out what was out there before going into the studio.

.

lol. imagine Kamasutra re-constructed along the Insen/Vrioon/RevEP lines.
prince wouldn't recognise it anymore. but it would become an amazing cd

IstenSzek said:

databank said:

.

The problem is that Prince didn't do his homework. He just tried to emulate classical music on synth without realizing that all along the 20th Century there had been a whole scene of people with a classical music background who were/are composers and do that kind of stuff (to name a few among the most famous: Steve Reich, Jon Hassell, John Zorn, Philip Glass, Gavin Bryans, John Cage, Harold Budd, Chick Corea or Ryuichi Sakamoto, not to mention the dozens of musicians working on a more experimental/electronic level such as Zeena Parkins or Alva Noto, and the enormous ambient scene). By not doing his homework, Prince ended-up with a gross, naive, almost childish caricature of classical music that would have made any serious listener of contemporary music laugh out loud. It just sounded like someone who'd try to make jazz but would only know New Orleans jazz from the 1920's. To come-up with something relevant, Prince would have had to check out what was out there before going into the studio.

.

lol. imagine Kamasutra re-constructed along the Insen/Vrioon/RevEP lines.
prince wouldn't recognise it anymore. but it would become an amazing cd

Those records...

databank said:

IstenSzek said:

lol. imagine Kamasutra re-constructed along the Insen/Vrioon/RevEP lines.
prince wouldn't recognise it anymore. but it would become an amazing cd

Those records...

i know

Make it stop!

The Truth is a classic.

"The problem is Prince didn't do his homework...Prince ended up with a gross, naive, almost childish caricature of classical music that would have made any serious listener of contemporary music laugh out loud."............THIS!! Those are the main reasons that made me not dig "Kamasutra"..I know here at the org "N.E.W.S" gets shit on a lot, but it was MILES (no pun intended) better than "Kamasutra".

SPYZFAN1 said:

"The problem is Prince didn't do his homework...Prince ended up with a gross, naive, almost childish caricature of classical music that would have made any serious listener of contemporary music laugh out loud."............THIS!! Those are the main reasons that made me not dig "Kamasutra"..I know here at the org "N.E.W.S" gets shit on a lot, but it was MILES (no pun intended) better than "Kamasutra".

The difference is that when they recorded NEWS, Prince, Rhonda, Eric, John and Renato had a strong knowledge of the genre of music they were doing (jazz fusion and funk, it was of course no attempt at doing jazz in the traditional sense). Prince stepped out of his comfort zone with this record (the opening of East is solething I thought I'd never hear in a Prince record) but he and the band had done their homework.

databank said:

SPYZFAN1 said:

"The problem is Prince didn't do his homework...Prince ended up with a gross, naive, almost childish caricature of classical music that would have made any serious listener of contemporary music laugh out loud."............THIS!! Those are the main reasons that made me not dig "Kamasutra"..I know here at the org "N.E.W.S" gets shit on a lot, but it was MILES (no pun intended) better than "Kamasutra".

The difference is that when they recorded NEWS, Prince, Rhonda, Eric, John and Renato had a strong knowledge of the genre of music they were doing (jazz fusion and funk, it was of course no attempt at doing jazz in the traditional sense). Prince stepped out of his comfort zone with this record (the opening of East is solething I thought I'd never hear in a Prince record) but he and the band had done their homework.

I deff think N.E.W.S. is a lot more sophisitcated than Kamasutra.

[Edited 2/12/16 0:52am]

SPYZFAN1 said:

"Kamasutra has to be his worst album ever, it's unlistenable."......It reminds me of bad background music you would hear while walking past the jewelry section at Sears.

RumAndRaisin said:

IstenSzek said:

i should really try this again one of these days. i remember liking it well enough, but
being put off by the sound levels. it goes from rather beautiful, slow and quiet to the

most jarring loud shards of music that seem really out of place.

which is why i usually give up listening to this before i'm even through the title track.

but i promise i will give it another try and try to sit through it

it does go from soft to heavier rather suddenly in places, but i'm sure there was method to the madness. sometimes you gotta roll with an artists decision and try and work out what it all means or what mood they were trying to capture, rather then why it was made.

Yeah, and sometimes a musician will simply experiment with an idea that just does not go anywhere, and I feel that this is what happened with "Kamasutra." There is a repetitive motif within that just sounds silly to me. It'd be good to hear Prince's own take on that piece of work, though! I'm just not convinced of anything with my own hearing of it.

Germanegro said:

RumAndRaisin said:

it does go from soft to heavier rather suddenly in places, but i'm sure there was method to the madness. sometimes you gotta roll with an artists decision and try and work out what it all means or what mood they were trying to capture, rather then why it was made.

Yeah, and sometimes a musician will simply experiment with an idea that just does not go anywhere, and I feel that this is what happened with "Kamasutra." There is a repetitive motif within that just sounds silly to me. It'd be good to hear Prince's own take on that piece of work, though! I'm just not convinced of anything with my own hearing of it.

U mean him xplaining what he wanted to do?

databank said:

Germanegro said:

Yeah, and sometimes a musician will simply experiment with an idea that just does not go anywhere, and I feel that this is what happened with "Kamasutra." There is a repetitive motif within that just sounds silly to me. It'd be good to hear Prince's own take on that piece of work, though! I'm just not convinced of anything with my own hearing of it.

U mean him xplaining what he wanted to do?

Yes. Xcuse my language!

Germanegro said:

databank said:

U mean him xplaining what he wanted to do?

Yes. Xcuse my language!

My English ain't always that good either I just wanted 2 make sure I understood correctly and I totally agree. No interviewer ever even asked Prince about Kamastra and it's a pity. In fact no interviewer has asked Prince about his music at all in years. All they ever ask him about is Miles Davis, the music industry, the internet, his latest band and religion

databank said:

Germanegro said:

Yes. Xcuse my language!

My English ain't always that good either I just wanted 2 make sure I understood correctly and I totally agree. No interviewer ever even asked Prince about Kamastra and it's a pity. In fact no interviewer has asked Prince about his music at all in years. All they ever ask him about is Miles Davis, the music industry, the internet, his latest band and religion

I guess that Prince himself is to blame for the limited range of topics explored in his interviews. He can be elusive and ignore questions that he doesn't really care to answer. Journalists might simply be lowering their ambitions as a result. In the end we all end up exclaiming on any lingering topic: "well, that's just Prince."

>

I'm still puzzling about the statement he made to press during the presentation of his first Webby Award for the NPG Music Club: "Everything you think, is true." Oo-kay, Prince! But I digress--onward with the Kamasutra discussion.

Germanegro said:

databank said:

My English ain't always that good either I just wanted 2 make sure I understood correctly and I totally agree. No interviewer ever even asked Prince about Kamastra and it's a pity. In fact no interviewer has asked Prince about his music at all in years. All they ever ask him about is Miles Davis, the music industry, the internet, his latest band and religion

I guess that Prince himself is to blame for the limited range of topics explored in his interviews. He can be elusive and ignore questions that he doesn't really care to answer. Journalists might simply be lowering their ambitions as a result. In the end we all end up exclaiming on any lingering topic: "well, that's just Prince."

>

I'm still puzzling about the statement he made to press during the presentation of his first Webby Award for the NPG Music Club: "Everything you think, is true." Oo-kay, Prince! But I digress--onward with the Kamasutra discussion.

What has been said by one journalist once is that there's a list of topics not to address given to interviewers before interviews. I totally respect that this list includes P's private life (girlfriends, wives, his child in 96) but I wonder what else is on it.

"Everything you think, is true." is nearly a quote of DMSR's lyrics 'everything u've heard about me is true, I'm in love with God etc.'.

One thing that puzzles me is that when I read a Prince interview on press I usually wonder WTF is that nonsense, but when he (rarely) is interviewed on TV he does make sense. Is it him or the journalists? IDK.

But yeah, he's a hell of a hard fellow to interview I'll give u that. But the questions suck just the same