I love the following songs from this album (just bought it in its entirety on I-Tunes)

Question of U (one of my favorite songs) Love

Thieves in the Temple--Love

Joy in Repetition--Love

Elephants and Flowers--like a lot

Round and Round (adorable song)--love

We can Funk (but i like the 1983 version much better)-- like

Shake --like

Can't stop this feeling I got.. (it grew on me) starting to really like it

The rest of the Time songs are fun but sound dated to me (unlike the bird, Jungle Love and Cool)

Tick Tick Bang is a guilty pleasure.

The rest of the songs do absolutely nothing for me.

Maybe it would be an even better album if the top 8 I mentioned and the wonderful "grand Progression" were the only songs on the album..or if the Time music was a bit more organic.

[Edited 2/14/17 21:14pm]

To me "Graffiti Bridge" would be a better listening experience if it was a 2CD with a proper P album on one and a "other artists" compilation on the other.

As a proper P album still has its faults ("Tick Tick Bang" is one of the worst P track ever released and the way "Joy In Repetition" is pasted to "We Can Funk" absolutely destroy the magic of the beginning of JIR) but it's nowhere bad as it is described.

Being a re-configurations of the "Rave Un2 Joy Fantastic" album, one could wonder why he left out "God Is Alive" and "Grand Progression".

Think about this tracklist:

Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

New Power Generation

The Question Of U

Elephants & Flowers

We Can Funk (normally faded or with a proper ending)

Joy In Repetition (full drum intro)

The Grand Progression

Thieves In The Temple

God Is Alive

Still Would Stand All Time

purplerabbithole said:

I love the following songs from this album (just bought it in its entirety on I-Tunes)

Question of U (one of my favorite songs) Love

Thieves in the Temple--Love

Joy in Repetition--Love

Elephants and Flowers--like a lot

Round and Round (adorable song)--love

We can Funk (but i like the 1983 version much better)-- like

Shake --like

Can't stop this feeling I got.. (it grew on me) starting to really like it

The rest of the Time songs are fun but sound dated to me (unlike the bird, Jungle Love and Cool)

Tick Tick Bang is a guilty pleasure.

The rest of the songs do absolutely nothing for me.

Maybe it would be an even better album if the top 8 I mentioned and the wonderful "grand Progression" were the only songs on the album..or if the Time music was a bit more organic.

[Edited 2/14/17 21:14pm]

How can you possibly be aware of unreleased songs like The Grand Progression or We Can Funk's 86 version (I assume you meant 86 and typoed since the GB version is the 83 version) BUT be hearing GB, an official release, for the first time?

Great album for sure, so many strong songs.

Although, "Jerk Out" by The Time should have been on the Graffiti Bridge album instead of the crappy song "Shake!", and the song "Still Would Stand On Time" sounds awful weak produced imo, live then its a Prince classic.

The only true bad song is the title cheese-song, oh dear how bad it is..

And, yes I have always loved the singles released, including "New Power Generation" (the song) plus of course Thieves (wow the extended version is superb)..

'The Question of U' and JITR are two of the best he's ever done.

.

'Can't Stop' is no peer to LGC (more of an alternate to 'Play in the Sunshine', which does better most of what this track does, and probably eliminated any consideration for Can't Stop's release during work on what would become CB), the 'Dear Dad' part (added in '89 or '90 for GB obviously to create some parallel to the album/film-opening 'sermon' followed by the Linn kicks in LGC) is lame and has negative replay value, but the song itself is a 'fun' slightly psychedelic-tinged leftover from the Dream Factory sessions (itself updated from '82/'83), with an excellent '89 Blue Angel guitar solo thrown in at the end. The 'hey, this is my world' message (added in '86) here resonates well with the track that follows (NPG).

.

NPG is OK, but arrives to the market about a year or more too late to be taken with any credibility. It's so weakly and insipidly 1989, and does a disservice in that it is not a particularly good go of 'New Jack Swing' (at least the late 80s conception of it), which is supposed to trace part of its lineage back to the Minneapolis Sound; on the other hand, the 'Gett Off'-style guitarwork and swirling synths dress up some of the mediocrity.

.

'Thieves' (a slightly older sibling to 'Thunder') was pulled aside from the burgeoning D&P to rescue this album from commercial despair, and excellent though it is, making the US Billboard Top 10 seems to implicate some radio programming manipulation (its charts in international markets can probably be taken at face value, however); 'Thieves' and 'Thunder', though, reside in too close a space to comfortably cohabit the same record, so it's just as well that it got pulled to the earlier release.

.

'We Can Funk', well at least it finally made it to a record; probably not its ideal presentation, the mix here is better than the other GC-involved ones floating around, but it is a shame that the only taste of some vintage keys and W&L vocals on the album is overwhelmed by the 'testing positive for the funk' silliness; to its defense, it would probably be far too dated in 1989 or 1990, without something to modernize it.

.

Corporate World's 'The Latest Fashion' is better (the version here should have been exclusive to the 'wimpy danceoff' in the movie), and the Time tracks in general here are dated in an unempathetic way and mar the overall listening experience.

.

'Release It' would be incredibly funky, 'Cloreen Baconskin'-style as just an instrumental.

.

'The Grand Progression', at least the take that is circulating, is a bootleg favorite, but lacks the production value to make it to an album; SWSAT has a fantastic vocal at the end by P and I feel the studio version is overall undervalued on this site.

.

The title track is unabashedly corny, but partially redeems itself with some nice Clare Fischer work and an OK guitar solo; it ends up feeling like something of a downmarket 'Take Me With U' by way of the Lovesexy album.

.

There are myriad ways to assemble this material into a better listening experience, cutting and pasting, excerpting, omitting as necessary, and drawing from Batman & D&P tracks and Late '87-90 outtakes.

.

[Edited 2/15/17 6:27am]

Leave out 'Release It' and 'Love Machine' and it's a 10/10 album. It's the last album with the classic Prince sound.

The album is great with the exception of 'Shake' and 'Love Machine'. The song Shake is too cheesy for me sounds like a song for kindergarteners.

imprimis said:

imprimis said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

dont know why people dont consider this album up there with his 80-88 albums??

SoulAlive said:

I have mixed feelings about the album.There are some really good songs but also several mediocre tracks ("New Power Generation","The Latest Fashion","Release It").It's simply not one of Prince's strongest albums.Some fans think that if you remove the songs performed by the associated artists,you would have an amazing Prince album but I disagree.

You must be one of them Bob Dylan/Bruce Springsteen fan to call a killer funk jam like Release It mediocre

luvsexy4all said:

dont know why people dont consider this album up there with his 80-88 albums??

Because it was too much of a hit'n'miss?

Maybe also because it adopted some new jack swing sonorities and that was, as Dickens would say, unacceptabobble to some fans who saw it as trendchasing.

And maybe yet again because some other fans have a problem with Prince not doing the vocals on his material.

It seems to try to hard to be cool. Plus, Morris is an average singer in my opinion. NOt bad just something missing for me. He is charismatic though.

I love funk.

Springsteen and Dylan are good lyricists. My favorite dylan song (musically not lyrically) is Lay Lady Lay. Springsteen I can give or take...I like Philadelphia and On Fire and a few others ones, but I am not big on Springsteen's sound overall. I prefer the Rolling Stones. I know you were kidding but I just wanted to answe that.

databank said:

SoulAlive said:

I have mixed feelings about the album.There are some really good songs but also several mediocre tracks ("New Power Generation","The Latest Fashion","Release It").It's simply not one of Prince's strongest albums.Some fans think that if you remove the songs performed by the associated artists,you would have an amazing Prince album but I disagree.

You must be one of them Bob Dylan/Bruce Springsteen fan to call a killer funk jam like Release It mediocre

Listened to it for the first time today on the train, I feel the same way. All these songs feel extremely dated to me, but dated in a bad way. I feel like these songs were "the hottest thing" when they came out and then the very next year, well...were not lol. Strangely, the music here makes me nostalgic about the old 90s cartoons I used to watch as a kid though lol. It just SCREAMS late 80s early 90s to me.

OK I think we should stop having people sharing first impressions on a board where there are people who've been listening to this album for twenty-seven years.

Like guys, take some time, let the shit grow on you, wait for a few months at the very least, then come and chat with us about it.

databank said:

SoulAlive said:

I have mixed feelings about the album.There are some really good songs but also several mediocre tracks ("New Power Generation","The Latest Fashion","Release It").It's simply not one of Prince's strongest albums.Some fans think that if you remove the songs performed by the associated artists,you would have an amazing Prince album but I disagree.

You must be one of them Bob Dylan/Bruce Springsteen fan to call a killer funk jam like Release It mediocre

to me,the song just doesn't go anywhere.

SoulAlive said:

databank said:

You must be one of them Bob Dylan/Bruce Springsteen fan to call a killer funk jam like Release It mediocre

to me,the song just doesn't go anywhere.

I wish I could take u where it goes, I promise u'd be in for a hell of a ride

imprimis said:

'Thieves' (a slightly older sibling to 'Thunder') was pulled aside from the burgeoning D&P to rescue this album from commercial despair, and excellent though it is, making the US Billboard Top 10 seems to implicate some radio programming manipulation (its charts in international markets can probably be taken at face value, however); 'Thieves' and 'Thunder', though, reside in too close a space to comfortably cohabit the same record, so it's just as well that it got pulled to the earlier release.

.

[Edited 2/15/17 6:27am]

I didn't know this - that Thieves In The Temple 'was pulled aside from D&P'

.

Makes sense chronologically as according to PVault it was recorded around the same time as most of D&P and even before Live 4 Love and D&P (the song)

databank said:

luvsexy4all said:

dont know why people dont consider this album up there with his 80-88 albums??

Because it was too much of a hit'n'miss?

Maybe also because it adopted some new jack swing sonorities and that was, as Dickens would say, unacceptabobble to some fans who saw it as trendchasing.

And maybe yet again because some other fans have a problem with Prince not doing the vocals on his material.

the 40 minutes of his tracks r great

databank said:

SoulAlive said:

to me,the song just doesn't go anywhere.

I wish I could take u where it goes, I promise u'd be in for a hell of a ride

LOL!

luvsexy4all said:

databank said:

Because it was too much of a hit'n'miss?

Maybe also because it adopted some new jack swing sonorities and that was, as Dickens would say, unacceptabobble to some fans who saw it as trendchasing.

And maybe yet again because some other fans have a problem with Prince not doing the vocals on his material.

the 40 minutes of his tracks r great

I think most of it is great, I was merely trying to explain why a lot of people had issues with it. I know a lot felt Prince had sold out by adopting new jack swing sounds, which I find ridiculous because most artists tend to adjust to modernity and it's only a natural thing to do. I'm not convinced keeping only the Prince tracks would have been enough to make people put it on the same pedestal they put his 80-88 albums, though. Graffiti Bridge (the song) alone caused a shitstorm. NPG is rejected by a lot of people as well. We Can Funk and Can't Stop self-destructed by being compared to their 86 counterparts that had unfortunately been bootlegged long before the album was released (ironically a lot of people, then unaware of the fact that WCF was for the most part an 83 recordings, whined about "the original" being better). I agree though that with Pandemonium having become a thing in itself, outside of Prince's control, it would have been wiser to have 3 separate records:

- Pandemonium

- GB with Can't Stop, NPG Pt. 1, The ? Of U, Elephants & Flowers, We Can Funk, Joy In Repetition, Tick Tick Bang, Thieves In The Temple, Still Would Stand All Time, Graffiti Brige and NPG Pt. II

- Some sort of a Paisley Park sampler/additional OST featuring The Time (Release It, Shake!), The Time/Elisa Fiorillo (Love Machine), The Time/Prince (The Latest Fashion), Tevin Campbell (Round & Round), Mavis Staples (Melody Cool), George Clinton (maybe Soul Psychodelicide or My Pony), Ingrid Chavez (7 Corners), Robin Power (Number 1) and T.C Ellis (True Confession if already recorded at the time, or any other song from his forthcoming album)

The Paisley Park sampler would probably have brought some publicity to the label (with Pandemonium and Japan-only Time The Motion Live the only 1990 releases, the market wasn't saturated by PP products that year) and the Prince album, being more condensed, would probably have been better received. It must be remembered though that while fan reception was lukewarm at the time, critics weren't all that bad, and sales remained remarkable, only suffering from the comparison with P's biggest sellers such as Batman or D&P.

In the end GB, as such, remains a very solid record, with a strong narrative if nothing else.

databank said:

OK I think we should stop having people sharing first impressions on a board where there are people who've been listening to this album for twenty-seven years.

Like guys, take some time, let the shit grow on you, wait for a few months at the very least, then come and chat with us about it.

Anything released in this time period for Prince was special although Graffiti Bridge was probably the 1st Prince album I started to skip songs. Listening today "We Can Funk" is epic, "Joy In Repetition" timeless and Thieves, particularly the 12", is amazing. The Time stuff is fun (love Corporate World/Pandemonium period) and the other songs are cool cause it's Prince but overall for me not in my Prince Top 5 Albums.

In my not-so-humble opinion, GB is and always has been a better album than D&P.

Good but spotty. It's better with some editing (adding GP, Theives extended, taking out some of the dated Time songs, and the awful GB title track...which his worst song ever imo).

Really like almost every Prince track....pretty much just okay with the the non-Prince tracks. We Can Funk was so close to being a legendary track, but it missed.

dance4me3121 said:

No love for "Still Would Stand All Time"?

Not from me. I always considered this one the first (of many) mixed bags from Prince. Love Release It, Question of U, and Joy In Repition but hate most of the rest.