Prince Hoped to 'Redefine Minneapolis Sound'

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Thread started 11/15/17 3:11am

rogifan

Prince Hoped to 'Redefine Minneapolis Sound'

Just came across this in my Twitter feed. Not a new article. I really hope some of this stuff gets released. I loved Shades of Umber at Montreux. Reminded me a bit of 70s Chicago.

http://www.rollingstone.c...h-20160429

A fan of the process, Prince began sending Nelson songs that he wanted what the arranger calls "big orchestrations" on. Nelson estimates he worked on four or five songs with symphonic guitar solos for the artist, though some might have been intended for other artists. One was intended for a new 3rdEyeGirl record (its working title was "New 3rdEyeGirl String Session"), and guitarist Donna Grantis came to the studio where Nelson was recording. "It had a couple of different guitar solos, so we orchestrated around them," he says.

Nelson also recalls getting a pop song that featured another unidentified female singer. "It had this buildup to a great guitar solo," he recalls. "When he sent it, he wrote, 'There's a long build that I want tension for and then when the guitar solo happens, you know what happens next.'" Nelson laughs. "I don't know if it will ever come out but it's one of the most incredible things I ever worked on."

Paisley Park is in your heart
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Reply #1 posted 11/15/17 11:58am

TrivialPursuit

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Thanks for posting this. I remember this article. Some points from it, then my 2 cents:

When Prince began working on the song in his own studio, he played around with the orchestration. He removed his guitar solo from the first part of the song, brought it in in the end and pulled back the horn arrangement. "At 2:28, you actually hear the guitar play with the strings into that string section which originally continued as the guitar solo," he says.

Prince also moved Nelson's work around in the song. "There's this string line at the very beginning of that song that's really interesting and it's not at all where we put it," he says with a laugh. "That's the type of thing he would do. It's like he shifted it by two-and-a-half beats, just something that made it completely different than what was intended. You'd never write it that way as an arranger, but you just go, 'Oh, my God.' It's really cool. He would make that adjustment and make it totally Prince. I tip my cap to the genius and I'm glad I was a part of it."

___________

When I read this article, I found a new appreciation for Prince's music. Many have noted, and rightly so, that in recent years his music had become flat, acrylic, and dead. I agreed. It was just uninspired and felt like he was on auto-pilot or desperately trying to be relevant. (He didn't have to because he's Prince).

When I saw that article I thought it was very enlightening to his process of late. I went back and listened to HnR2 again. Those moments seemed more interesting. While I still think whatever compression he's using on the drums is just terrible, I liked the idea that he was thinking differently about the guitar solos and using orchestrations differently.

Sorry, it's the Hodgkin's talking.