214 said:

blacksignparade said:

PeteSilas said: . I don't think many people are gonna agree with you about the sott album. It is perfect the way it is. There's a reason many prince fans think it's the best album he ever blessed us with to make us enjoy life a little more. . As for atwiad, paisley park is the only song on it i didn't like. The b sides are definitely not better than the material on that album in my opinion. .

Shockadelica would have made SOTT a better album. The same with Hello,SAIMH and Girl all of them would have made ATWIAD a much much better album.

the sex of it would ve made it stellar

luvsexy4all said:

214 said:

Shockadelica would have made SOTT a better album. The same with Hello,SAIMH and Girl all of them would have made ATWIAD a much much better album.

the sex of it would ve made it stellar

I don't think so, it's not that good.

214 said:

luvsexy4all said:

the sex of it would ve made it stellar

I don't think so, it's not that good.

i love it, especially the bootleg version i have, kid creole's is pretty good too. I assume he tried to compensate Kid Creole in some way for ripping him off with the Morris character with this song but I don't know. It's obvious P loved him. Kid Creole never got the credit he deserved in the states.

He had some bad-ass b-sides. I was probably more excited to get the singles for the b's.

sulls said:

He had some bad-ass b-sides. I was probably more excited to get the singles for the b's.

me too because you just didn't know what to expect, you know it would be completely new to your ears.

SomeSoldier said:

feeluupp said:

To be honest I think many of his B-Sides were even better than many of his album material songs... B-Sides such as Erotic City, 17 - Days, She's Always In My Hair, are just as strong as everything on his album, if not stronger...

She's Always In My Hair would have made ATWIAD a much stronger album...

I totally agree.That song is too good to be just a B-side.

214 said:

luvsexy4all said:

the sex of it would ve made it stellar

I don't think so, it's not that good.

.

Not to mention that it was recorded about 5 to 6 months after the album was finally sequenced. 'Yo, Mister', 'So Strong', '101' would be even better possible replacements for a more commercially oriented alternate-universe SOTT tracklist, if we're slightly delaying the release date of the album to accommodate them.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 14:23pm]

imprimis said:

214 said:

I don't think so, it's not that good.

.

Not to mention that it was recorded about 5 to 6 months after the album was finally sequenced. 'Yo, Mister', 'So Strong', '101' would be better possible replacements for a more commercially oriented alternate-universe SOTT tracklist.

What are those 3 songs, ti's the very first time i heard about them.

214 said:

imprimis said:

.

Not to mention that it was recorded about 5 to 6 months after the album was finally sequenced. 'Yo, Mister', 'So Strong', '101' would be better possible replacements for a more commercially oriented alternate-universe SOTT tracklist.

What are those 3 songs, ti's the very first time i heard about them.

They were all gifted to associated artists' projects. For purposes of an alternate SOTT tracklist, we're considering a Prince-vocal version of these tracks.

.

'Yo, Mister' appeared on 1989's Be Yourself album. (Originally recorded November 1986)

.

'So Strong' appeared on Dale's 1988 Riot in English album. (Originally recorded March/April 1987)

.

'101' appeared on Sheena Easton's 1989 The Lover in Me album. (Originally recorded January 1987)

.

All of the above associated artist tracks can be heard from official/licensed sources on YouTube.

.

What would be displaced or removed to accommodate them? Perhaps 'Starfish & Coffee', 'Slow Love', and 'It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night'. 'Play in the Sunshine' or 'The Cross' as, possible, but less likely candidates for removal, in the alternative.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 14:30pm]

Similar artists: Bruce Springsteen released several non-album B-Sides around the same time Prince was doing it. One of them, "Pink Cadillac", became a huge hit for Natalie Cole.

imprimis said:

214 said:

What are those 3 songs, ti's the very first time i heard about them.

They were all gifted to associated artists' projects. For purposes of an alternate SOTT tracklist, we're considering a Prince-vocal version of these tracks.

.

'Yo, Mister' appeared on 1989's Be Yourself album. (Originally recorded November 1986)

.

'So Strong' appeared on Dale's 1988 Riot in English album. (Originally recorded March/April 1987)

.

'101' appeared on Sheena Easton's 1989 The Lover in Me album. (Originally recorded January 1987)

.

All of the above associated artist tracks can be heard from official/licensed sources on YouTube.

.

What would be displaced or removed to accommodate them? Perhaps 'Starfish & Coffee', 'Slow Love', and 'It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night'. 'Play in the Sunshine' or 'The Cross' as, possible, but less likely candidates for removal, in the alternative.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 14:30pm]

Not Starfish is a perfect song, in any case would be IGBABN.

renfield said:

Similar artists: Bruce Springsteen released several non-album B-Sides around the same time Prince was doing it. One of them, "Pink Cadillac", became a huge hit for Natalie Cole.

Ya, i was just thinking of that. Both had a lot of similarities, if not musically then in how they controlled their art. Bruce would give away singles if he thought they didn't fit with his current album (Fire) or just stash obvious killer singles like Save My Love or Talk To Me which are as good as anything he's ever written singlewise, he just put them away if they didn't go with what he was working on, which he wasn't. darkness on the edge of town would have been completely different if he even had one pop song on it. It's still a little mysterious why he left The Promise off of it though, maybe because it was just a little too resigned for his most relentless album.

214 said:

imprimis said:

They were all gifted to associated artists' projects. For purposes of an alternate SOTT tracklist, we're considering a Prince-vocal version of these tracks.

.

'Yo, Mister' appeared on 1989's Be Yourself album. (Originally recorded November 1986)

.

'So Strong' appeared on Dale's 1988 Riot in English album. (Originally recorded March/April 1987)

.

'101' appeared on Sheena Easton's 1989 The Lover in Me album. (Originally recorded January 1987)

.

All of the above associated artist tracks can be heard from official/licensed sources on YouTube.

.

What would be displaced or removed to accommodate them? Perhaps 'Starfish & Coffee', 'Slow Love', and 'It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night'. 'Play in the Sunshine' or 'The Cross' as, possible, but less likely candidates for removal, in the alternative.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 14:30pm]

Not Starfish is a perfect song, in any case would be IGBABN.

for me it would be it or forever in my life or play in the sunshine, nothing remarkable about those songs. I've heard people say the same thing about Slow Love though too and I love that one.

PeteSilas said:

214 said:

Not Starfish is a perfect song, in any case would be IGBABN.

for me it would be it or forever in my life or play in the sunshine, nothing remarkable about those songs. I've heard people say the same thing about Slow Love though too and I love that one.

Neither of them, i love Forever In My Life and Play In The Sunshine and It. So for me it would be Slow Love, IGBABN and Hot Thing.

214 said:

PeteSilas said:

for me it would be it or forever in my life or play in the sunshine, nothing remarkable about those songs. I've heard people say the same thing about Slow Love though too and I love that one.

Neither of them, i love Forever In My Life and Play In The Sunshine and It. So for me it would be Slow Love, IGBABN and Hot Thing.

oh ya, hot thing would be on my hitlist too, I never was crazy about it, Prince didn't need filler. I've heard one reviewer say that SOTT had "some flab but it was necessary" why would it be necessary? It wasn't necessary on any of his other great albums. Yes, I get the giving a listener a chance to recuperate but that can be done in many different ways, without halfbaked songs that are nowhere near as good as the best on the album.

PeteSilas said:

214 said:

Neither of them, i love Forever In My Life and Play In The Sunshine and It. So for me it would be Slow Love, IGBABN and Hot Thing.

oh ya, hot thing would be on my hitlist too, I never was crazy about it, Prince didn't need filler. I've heard one reviewer say that SOTT had "some flab but it was necessary" why would it be necessary? It wasn't necessary on any of his other great albums. Yes, I get the giving a listener a chance to recuperate but that can be done in many different ways, without halfbaked songs that are nowhere near as good as the best on the album.

.

'Hot Thing' has nonsense lyric, but a wicked beat, and, despite its other shortcomings, should be spared the axe. 'Starfish & Coffee' should be inducted into the legendary B-Side catalogue. FIML fades early, and therefore could fit comfortably on B-side without loss of lustre, but is a competent album track, as well.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:10pm]

Ain't no filler on Sign O the Times, it's all about the flow. As much as I love the tracks removed from the Crystal Ball set I don't think they add up to a better listening experience in the sequence we have.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:02pm]

jaawwnn said:

Ain't no filler on Sign O the Times, it's all about the flow. As much as I love the tracks removed from the Crystal Ball set I don't think they add up to a better listening experience in the sequence we have.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:02pm]

.

Part of the flow gives the not incorrect impression that this is a but an excerpted (and somewhat arbitrary) compilation of his late 1985-early 1987 studio work, handed out in Baskin-Robbins taste samples, or worse (and less correctly), with weakened confidence his desire to show off that he can still do it and do it all, across the genres. These ideas or impressions do not necessarily implicate 'filler'.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:08pm]

imprimis said:

PeteSilas said:

oh ya, hot thing would be on my hitlist too, I never was crazy about it, Prince didn't need filler. I've heard one reviewer say that SOTT had "some flab but it was necessary" why would it be necessary? It wasn't necessary on any of his other great albums. Yes, I get the giving a listener a chance to recuperate but that can be done in many different ways, without halfbaked songs that are nowhere near as good as the best on the album.

.

'Hot Thing' has nonsense lyric, but a wicked beat, and, despite its other shortcomings, should be spared the axe. 'Starfish & Coffee' should be inducted into the legendary B-Side catalogue. FIML fades early, and therefore could fit comfortably on B-side without loss of lustre, but works well on the album as well.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:02pm]

maybe warners' knew what they were doing, this album, had it been just a single disc would have maybe been his best, of course many of us already think that but it's always the tracks that I think of that shouldn't even be there that make me hesitate about giving it that status. The image, the movie, he was still bursting with creativity at this point but I think some of those tracks are pretty pedestrian and not just for Prince, I never saw anything remarkable about them especially when placed side by side with U Got The Look, IIWYG, Adore.

funny thing, Susan rogers said that he was trying to win back his black audience but then says he made the fatal mistake of releasing if I was your girlfriend which would make most of that audience go "WTF" and killed the album's momentum. Great track, probably asking too fucking much of the r&b crowd. Why not Adore? The song, who was it, Tavis Smiley? called it the "black national anthem"? Why not that one?

imprimis said:

jaawwnn said:

Ain't no filler on Sign O the Times, it's all about the flow. As much as I love the tracks removed from the Crystal Ball set I don't think they add up to a better listening experience in the sequence we have.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:02pm]

.

Part of the flow gives the not incorrect impression that this is a but an excerpted compilation of his Late 1985-early 1987 studio work, or worse, with weakened confidence his desire to show off that he can still do it and do it all, across the genres.

I suppose personally (with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight) i'd have preferred a joint release Dream Factory and Camille, pushing both directions he was going in to their furthest points but he had commercial issues to think of & SOTT makes sense (even if he moved on too soon from promoting it).

Robert Christgau's 1987 review is pretty on point, "No formal breakthrough" indeed. It almost plays like a greatest hits except its all new songs.

PeteSilas said:

imprimis said:

.

'Hot Thing' has nonsense lyric, but a wicked beat, and, despite its other shortcomings, should be spared the axe. 'Starfish & Coffee' should be inducted into the legendary B-Side catalogue. FIML fades early, and therefore could fit comfortably on B-side without loss of lustre, but works well on the album as well.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:02pm]

maybe warners' knew what they were doing, this album, had it been just a single disc would have maybe been his best, of course many of us already think that but it's always the tracks that I think of that shouldn't even be there that make me hesitate about giving it that status. The image, the movie, he was still bursting with creativity at this point but I think some of those tracks are pretty pedestrian and not just for Prince, I never saw anything remarkable about them especially when placed side by side with U Got The Look, IIWYG, Adore.

funny thing, Susan rogers said that he was trying to win back his black audience but then says he made the fatal mistake of releasing if I was your girlfriend which would make most of that audience go "WTF" and killed the album's momentum. Great track, probably asking too fucking much of the r&b crowd. Why not Adore? The song, who was it, Tavis Smiley? called it the "black national anthem"? Why not that one?

.

It's clear that, circa late 1986-early 1988, he felt the Camille concept to be something remarkable, and was happy to impress it upon potential audiences. The studio issues (anticipating its commercial and reputational impact) with that album are part of how the two-album DF grew to three albums in the first place. I'm certain his confidence in this material guided his decision to make it the second single. The aborted 'Ballad of Dorothy Parker' single release is perhaps an even stranger and more poorly conceived consideration.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:23pm]

jaawwnn said:

imprimis said:

.

Part of the flow gives the not incorrect impression that this is a but an excerpted compilation of his Late 1985-early 1987 studio work, or worse, with weakened confidence his desire to show off that he can still do it and do it all, across the genres.

I suppose personally (with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight) i'd have preferred a joint release Dream Factory and Camille, pushing both directions he was going in to their furthest points but he had commercial issues to think of & SOTT makes sense (even if he moved on too soon from promoting it).

Robert Christgau's 1987 review is pretty on point, "No formal breakthrough" indeed. It almost plays like a greatest hits except its all new songs.

kurt loder said something profound in his RS review of the album, don't know how true it is, but he said that at the time of PR prince was working to a new fusion of black and white music and that ever since that highpoint, he was backing away from that. So he lauded the album but wondered why Prince wasn't doing his Jimi thing or his Sly thing. He surmised that maybe he just didn't like that level of fame and was either scared or bored by it. Which, oddly enough, all these years later find was true at least in terms of his being so sick of the PR project that he couldn't even go to europe with the tour even though that would have meant loads of cash. He did not like that level of fame.

PeteSilas said:

jaawwnn said:

I suppose personally (with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight) i'd have preferred a joint release Dream Factory and Camille, pushing both directions he was going in to their furthest points but he had commercial issues to think of & SOTT makes sense (even if he moved on too soon from promoting it).

Robert Christgau's 1987 review is pretty on point, "No formal breakthrough" indeed. It almost plays like a greatest hits except its all new songs.

kurt loder said something profound in his RS review of the album, don't know how true it is, but he said that at the time of PR prince was working to a new fusion of black and white music and that ever since that highpoint, he was backing away from that. So he lauded the album but wondered why Prince wasn't doing his Jimi thing or his Sly thing. He surmised that maybe he just didn't like that level of fame and was either scared or bored by it. Which, oddly enough, all these years later find was true at least in terms of his being so sick of the PR project that he couldn't even go to europe with the tour even though that would have meant loads of cash. He did not like that level of fame.

There's definitely something in that alright. Look what happened to Jimi and Sly (and MJ), there's been some fair amount of writings about the unbearable pressure of representing the entire of Black America on the world stage.

I'm a white european so i'm only looking in on this from across the waters but I think Prince wasn't interested in giving the Kurt Loder's of this world what they wanted from him, and that's fair enough.

I don't know that the 1999 and PR sound were 'authentically' him. He developed the sound, it's how much of the world came to experience him, and it was highly signature and heavily imitated, but to render everything through that process, I'm not certain he would want to be limited by trappings of his emergent product of late early-1980s cross-currents. He bailed early. He wanted an expansive artistry rather than to be identified strictly through production.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:41pm]

jaawwnn said:

PeteSilas said:

kurt loder said something profound in his RS review of the album, don't know how true it is, but he said that at the time of PR prince was working to a new fusion of black and white music and that ever since that highpoint, he was backing away from that. So he lauded the album but wondered why Prince wasn't doing his Jimi thing or his Sly thing. He surmised that maybe he just didn't like that level of fame and was either scared or bored by it. Which, oddly enough, all these years later find was true at least in terms of his being so sick of the PR project that he couldn't even go to europe with the tour even though that would have meant loads of cash. He did not like that level of fame.

There's definitely something in that alright. Look what happened to Jimi and Sly (and MJ), there's been some fair amount of writings about the unbearable pressure of representing the entire of Black America on the world stage.

I'm a white european so i'm only looking in on this from across the waters but I think Prince wasn't interested in giving the Kurt Loder's of this world what they wanted from him, and that's fair enough.

it's funny but people accuse Prince of goingwhite after PR because yes, he did do the strings, the psychedelia but about the same amount of people will say that he was getting back to R&B and his black audience. I'm mainly referring to his employees here, Fink, Wendy and others have said he started hanging out with black guys or put together an r&b review and then you have people saying that he'd gotten too deep into the classical shit or the psychedelic shit and lost his funk. I always thought he had it right when he'd say things like "ATWIAD is a funky album" and the same goes for Parade, underneath all the strings and the french come ons there was better funk than he ever did before there. I tend to think susan rogers was right, he wanted his black audience with him.

imprimis said:

PeteSilas said:

oh ya, hot thing would be on my hitlist too, I never was crazy about it, Prince didn't need filler. I've heard one reviewer say that SOTT had "some flab but it was necessary" why would it be necessary? It wasn't necessary on any of his other great albums. Yes, I get the giving a listener a chance to recuperate but that can be done in many different ways, without halfbaked songs that are nowhere near as good as the best on the album.

.

'Hot Thing' has nonsense lyric, but a wicked beat, and, despite its other shortcomings, should be spared the axe. 'Starfish & Coffee' should be inducted into the legendary B-Side catalogue. FIML fades early, and therefore could fit comfortably on B-side without loss of lustre, but is a competent album track, as well.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:10pm]

It really does, the accoustic guitar at the end is beautiful it should have lasted much longer.

imprimis said:

PeteSilas said:

maybe warners' knew what they were doing, this album, had it been just a single disc would have maybe been his best, of course many of us already think that but it's always the tracks that I think of that shouldn't even be there that make me hesitate about giving it that status. The image, the movie, he was still bursting with creativity at this point but I think some of those tracks are pretty pedestrian and not just for Prince, I never saw anything remarkable about them especially when placed side by side with U Got The Look, IIWYG, Adore.

funny thing, Susan rogers said that he was trying to win back his black audience but then says he made the fatal mistake of releasing if I was your girlfriend which would make most of that audience go "WTF" and killed the album's momentum. Great track, probably asking too fucking much of the r&b crowd. Why not Adore? The song, who was it, Tavis Smiley? called it the "black national anthem"? Why not that one?

.

It's clear that, circa late 1986-early 1988, he felt the Camille concept to be something remarkable, and was happy to impress it upon potential audiences. The studio issues (anticipating its commercial and reputational impact) with that album are part of how the two-album DF grew to three albums in the first place. I'm certain his confidence in this material guided his decision to make it the second single. The aborted 'Ballad of Dorothy Parker' single release is perhaps an even stranger and more poorly conceived consideration.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:23pm]

TBODP was going to be single? and what do you mean by "even stranger and more poorly conceived consideration"?

214 said:

imprimis said:

.

It's clear that, circa late 1986-early 1988, he felt the Camille concept to be something remarkable, and was happy to impress it upon potential audiences. The studio issues (anticipating its commercial and reputational impact) with that album are part of how the two-album DF grew to three albums in the first place. I'm certain his confidence in this material guided his decision to make it the second single. The aborted 'Ballad of Dorothy Parker' single release is perhaps an even stranger and more poorly conceived consideration.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:23pm]

TBODP was going to be single? and what do you mean by "even stranger and more poorly conceived consideration"?

.

Although an essential album and fan track, it simply isn't a song that converts to radio. Therefore, an unsound choice for an additional single (all at the same time leaving 'Adore' as nothing more than a limited radio promo).

.

A 12" single was planned, with an extended/remixed version of the song (which exists in the Vault); cover art for the single was possibly commissioned, as well.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 16:44pm]

prince seemed to do things to sabotage his albums, it could only have been intentional, maybe he just wanted to test his audience as many have said or maybe he just didn't want the huge success. Either way, i believe susan rogers is right when she mentions 'courage' as his greatest quality.

214 said:

imprimis said:

.

'Hot Thing' has nonsense lyric, but a wicked beat, and, despite its other shortcomings, should be spared the axe. 'Starfish & Coffee' should be inducted into the legendary B-Side catalogue. FIML fades early, and therefore could fit comfortably on B-side without loss of lustre, but is a competent album track, as well.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 15:10pm]

It really does, the accoustic guitar at the end is beautiful it should have lasted much longer.

.

Not merely being an early fadeout on the acoustic playing, there is rumor that the album track is only the first several minutes of a significantly longer one.

.

[Edited 2/28/17 17:19pm]