Has anyone realised, that March 21st will be the 10th anniversary of the release of the seminal album 3121. To me this was the big come back that gave us Prince's sanest and consistent album since Emanciptaion or even the Gold Experience. After a decade of sub par albums full of experiments, religious dogma albums and silly NPGMC albums with 2 good tracks and a lot of bad filler, ridiculous bad live albums, slight jazz sets and an assured but very boring "Comeback" album, 3121 was the breath of fresh air which bought the elder statesman of funk role that Prince has to this day.

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Look at the decades - 1996 - 2005 Decade of experimental and self indulgent music, with only a fewgood tracks

2006 - 2015 Decade of play it safe Prince albums and music, mixed quality, but generally good. The albums get more adventurous with sexualised lyrics becoming more permissive over time. AOA and HNR 2 are full of bedroom R & B.

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3121 was started in late 2004 at Paisley Park and somewhere called 3121. 3121 is either the combination of shirt numbers on the basketball photo of 1972/73 (They look very mature for 8th graders, unless it was an alternativejunior high school that went to 9th grade, or some of these einsteins were being held back a grade or 2. 6 foot tall guys with moustaches and afros and they are like 13 or 14?

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The other point is the Psalm 31:21 - "Blessed be God, for he hath rendered wonderful loving kindness to me in a city under stress"

Possibly the city is New Orleans after Katrina as SST/Brand New Orleans was released as a net only single in September 2005, although not the album, it is seen as 3121 era. The royalties of the song were donated to a Katrina relief fund, and physical CD singles were also released with the globe on it.

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Other singles were Te Amo Corazon in Dec 2005 - the first real single which reached #50 on the Hot 100.

Black Sweat emerged in Feb 2006 and got to #69

Fury was released in Mar 2006 and failed the chart, the song was released after the album on March 21st 2006 as it advertises more about the album.

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My CD copies of TAC and Fury only have the single song on them!!!

My vinyl copy of Fury has Love as a B side

My vinyl copy of Black Sweat has Beautiful, Loved and Blessed as a B side

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More about this fabulous album coming soon.

My first video on the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUZU4sS8XCw&index=1&list=PLq7wLY4M6blXWoytHhdgZTGSkd5JbXqe1

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Sorry don't know how to hotlink. Computer engineering is beyond my old brain.

Adorecream said:

My first video on the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUZU4sS8XCw&index=1&list=PLq7wLY4M6blXWoytHhdgZTGSkd5JbXqe1

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Sorry don't know how to hotlink. Computer engineering is beyond my old brain.

https://www.youtube.com/w...Skd5JbXqe1

Thanks Jayspud, I have just added some annotations to it, that explain the mistakes better like my mistake "Black Sweat was released in December 2015" Oh lawd, I think I need to do rehearsals.

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Here's that basketball photo I mentioned, two dudes in the back. Prince is front row bottom right and the white looking dude with the huge afro is his friend Paul Baker.

[img:$uid]http://i1081.ph.../img:$uid]

I have to admit it is one of the P "2000" album I return less, on pair with "Musicology".

I really like the title track, but that's all, it is the only one I could place on a P "Greatest".

There are 2 or 3 nice tunes ("The Word" comes in my mind) but as a whole I find it a little boring and somewhat ordinary music-wise.
And never liked the singles, "Te Amo Corazon" nor "Fury" nor "Black Sweat" (probably the best of the bunch, but ruined from that unlistenable high-pitch synth).

the continuation of him releasing albums with filler tracks...

I don't actually hear any filler on this one.

BLB is a bit soppy and we can lose all the plastic drums on Love, but otherwise they are fairly good songs.

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Musicology had filler (Life of the party, Reflection) and so did Planet Earth (Future baby mama, Mr Goodnight, Resoilution) but I don't hear any here, just did a 5km walk to 3121 in my ears and the stuff still sounds fresh, especially that title track with multi tracked voices and listen a bit closer lyrics. That will be my next video, reviewing that track. It should have been a single.

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There is more to this album, that most give it credit for. Plus on the org back then, we were praising it to heaven as I recall.

Wtf.... Future Baby Mama a filler..?

that is an amazing song and the only great song on Planet Earth.

Besides Black Sweat I never liked 3121, even the cover photo of Prince's neck backside is ugly..

Should have chosen a better picture for sure.

Imo 3121 is one of his worst albums.... the title song is ok when played live on the album the production sounds sterile. Love is ok as well, the rest is very boring.

Is it really Prince singing these dull songs, the same artist singing When Doves Cry, hard to imagine.

He sure have changed during the years, making boring music.. a change not to the good side.

3121, this album is only a 4 or maybe a 5 /10 but then I am too kind.

Wow time sure flies by. March 2006

I like the whole album

http://www.princevault.co...lbum:_3121

I am making this thread a sticky


http://www.billboard.com/...-with-3121

http://www.rollingstone.c...t-20060329




Album discussion by: Jester

Thanks luv4u.

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I am going to add to it as I do new videos. The current one is at 26 views, but hopefully will float higher, my second show review is just under 500.

thedance said:

Adorecream said:

I foresee a sticky for Parade, that turns 30 at the end of this month!

Listening to 3121 now, it's nice but not a 'classic' for me.

skipthecharades said:

I foresee a sticky for Parade, that turns 30 at the end of this month!

Listening to 3121 now, it's nice but not a 'classic' for me.

Me too, thats why I am reviewing 3121 now, soI can make way for March 31st, the 30th birthday of Parade, but lets stick to 3121, as its gonna be so much fun.

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Sorry about Paul Mitchell, not like I knew him , imagine even getting close to him with that crazy afro.

Adorecream said:

I don't actually hear any filler on this one.

BLB is a bit soppy and we can lose all the plastic drums on Love, but otherwise they are fairly good songs.

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Musicology had filler (Life of the party, Reflection) and so did Planet Earth (Future baby mama, Mr Goodnight, Resoilution) but I don't hear any here, just did a 5km walk to 3121 in my ears and the stuff still sounds fresh, especially that title track with multi tracked voices and listen a bit closer lyrics. That will be my next video, reviewing that track. It should have been a single.

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There is more to this album, that most give it credit for. Plus on the org back then, we were praising it to heaven as I recall.

filler....incense, teamo, the dance

Let us not forget that the TV appearances that year were fantastic. From "contrary to rumours, I will take some questions now", to the manic SNL's "Fury", it really was a great year.

SNL's "Fury" stands out as one of his greatest live performances, guitar AND vocals.
The album version just doesn't stand the comparison.

For "Love", I almost wished we had the acoustic version on the album, but it's OK, I don't mind, the ad lib is pure bliss. He could have ditched the useless minute at the end, it's just pattern repeating, it kinda kills it.

There are even days when I find "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" a very good tune.

"The Word" is an interesting development of "7", even if being on the verge of a Rainbow's Children preach. These bouncing acoustic guitar and sax riffs are just pure genius.

"The Dance" is astounding. It may be a little Hollywoodish to your taste, but that's precisely the point. It may be just a tongue-in-cheek "The Beautiful Ones" re-hash, but the flamenco, the guttural piano, the strings and the avalanche of overdubs are almost as crystalline as "And God Created Woman". The coda is brilliant, no big hall reverbs any more, it's just neurotic claps and Prince singing his usual nonsense about how and where they did it.

As usual, there's the lack of post-production that would have helped fix the disparity of moods, and make this collection more cohesive, but that's the problem with every album since "Rave", every album bears a little of "Hey, I'm Prince, I can do that style too".

Still, it was excellent to hear Camille coming back with a vengeance (in japanese robes and sandals), to have SNL's Fury and its out-of-this-world guitar fireworks, to get some euro-dance "Love" and finish with "The Dance". Not immensely great as an album, but sip the cream out of it, and you get one of his best EPs.

bonatoc said:

he NEEDS to rerelease this with bonus DVD of the movie

http://www.metacritic.com...121/prince

http://pitchfork.com/revi...6481-3121/

http://www.theguardian.co....shopping4

http://www.allmusic.com/a...0000351494

luvsexy4all said:

he NEEDS to rerelease this with bonus DVD of the movie

when has he ever rereleased any of his albums

I actually went to the listening party held by Universal Records in London, it was over a month before the album came out.

I quickly rushed here and wrote a review. Little did I know when I was writing it, that actually I was the first person in the world to review the album! So some serious cred for the org was had right there, and I am sure a lot of traffic.

Here it is - 17th February, 2006! The album would be released on March 21st. - http://prince.org/msg/7/178086

If you read my review, you'll see we didn't even get track titles! Most of them were easily guessable, but some weren't.

Wow.... time flies.

Militant said:

My top 5 favorite tracks from 3121

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1. Love

2. Fury

3. The Word

4. 3121

5. Satisfied

EmmaMcG said:

Militant said:

I actually went to the listening party held by Universal Records in London, it was over a month before the album came out.

I quickly rushed here and wrote a review. Little did I know when I was writing it, that actually I was the first person in the world to review the album! So some serious cred for the org was had right there, and I am sure a lot of traffic.

Here it is - 17th February, 2006! The album would be released on March 21st. - http://prince.org/msg/7/178086

If you read my review, you'll see we didn't even get track titles! Most of them were easily guessable, but some weren't.

Wow.... time flies.

Very accurate review considering it was your first listen. One thing that strikes me about that is the other posts responding to your review. I don't recognise most of those usernames. Where did everyone go?

Yeah, there's not too many of us old skool folks left

Militant said:

I actually went to the listening party held by Universal Records in London, it was over a month before the album came out.

I quickly rushed here and wrote a review. Little did I know when I was writing it, that actually I was the first person in the world to review the album! So some serious cred for the org was had right there, and I am sure a lot of traffic.

Here it is - 17th February, 2006! The album would be released on March 21st. - http://prince.org/msg/7/178086

If you read my review, you'll see we didn't even get track titles! Most of them were easily guessable, but some weren't.

Wow.... time flies.

This is cool, thanks

Even I am amazed at how quickly time has flown, I remember being worried about turning 30 after it came out, now I am turning 40. Back then I had good job security, now I don't.

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He always left us guessing back then, not like now with half of the songs on an album being released months and even years in advance.

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Back then we knew only of TAC, Black Sweat and 3121. Original single releases of TAC and Fury had only the one song. Some of us may have thought SST and Brand New Orleans were going to be on it too.

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Don't beat yourself up, you only got the titles to Track 5 (Incense and Candles), Track 6 Love and Track 9 (Lets Do something - the word) mixed up. I love your enthusiasm then and relaised that Love, Lolita and Satisfied were probably his first sex ballads since the 90s. There's almost no sex at all on Musicology and none on TRC. We were all excited back then.

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Trying to imagine your initial feelings when Lolita came on for the first time!

[Edited 3/9/16 16:06pm]