This album is as much a Prince album as any in his output, seeing as he wrote and produced it, plays almost everything on it, sings all the songs and his photograph is portrayed on the cover as prominently as possible (plus it's one of his FUNKIEST albums, and features the essential 'The One', one of his greatest ballads often performed live too), yet it isn't displayed in the album cover chronology at the 'My Name Is Prince' exhibition nor even mentioned in the otherwise thorough 'Prince: The Ultimate Music Guide' recently published by Uncut magazine! Just because it's 'credited' to the New Power Generation? Surely this would be like excluding 'Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs' from any Clapton overview just because technically it's credited to Derek & The Dominos. Do other fans consider 'Newpower Soul' a 'Prince' album more than a New Power Generation 'side project' album (as 'Gold Nigga' and 'Exodus' seem to me to be)?

Definitely sounds more like a true-blue Prince record than either Exodus or Goldnigga. At the time I did like it a lot, definitely deserved better than being bundled alongside the GCS2000 and Chaka albums. Going back to it now, some of the NPS tracks sound really harsh and unmusical to my ears, especially all the crowd-chant bits (Push It Up, Freaks on this Side, Mad Sex). On the other hand, The One and Wasted Kisses are pretty much perfect.

I'd love to hear stripped down versions of those songs without the crowd noises, sampls and such.

Yeah that goes down as a Prince album in my collection. The NPG seemed to not really have any input in this album unlike GN and Exodus. Yeah they are in some songs but it's really a Prince record if anything, whereas the other records Sonny T and the band really shined on.

The album itself is sketchy as much of the NPGMC era (97-99) sound was. I loved Come On, The One, When U Love Somebody and Wasted Kisses. Until You're In My Arms Again is very sweet too talking about losing his child . (I Like) Funky Music is good too actually.

Any album with The One & Come On is worth some attention.

Personally, I file ALL 3 NPG albums amongst Prince's.

databank said:

Any record that was entirely the product of Prince's artistic vision is a Prince record regardless of who is credited on the cover or singing on it. That includes each and every NPG albums (none was the result of a democratic band effort) among many other side projects and NPS no more or less than the other. Believing otherwise demonstrates an immature understanding of the creative process and history behind those projects. [Edited 11/20/17 15:28pm]

I take your point, but understand why side project albums aren't necessarily placed alongside the main Prince albums in such overviews (though definitely worthy of a separate chronology if aiming to present the full measure of the man's output). The 'Newpower Soul' album just stands out to me in particular for all the reasons mentioned and how it was presented/promoted upon its release.

i consider it one of his worst albu

CinnamonBone said:

databank said:

Any record that was entirely the product of Prince's artistic vision is a Prince record regardless of who is credited on the cover or singing on it. That includes each and every NPG albums (none was the result of a democratic band effort) among many other side projects and NPS no more or less than the other. Believing otherwise demonstrates an immature understanding of the creative process and history behind those projects. [Edited 11/20/17 15:28pm]

I take your point, but understand why side project albums aren't necessarily placed alongside the main Prince albums in such overviews (though definitely worthy of a separate chronology if aiming to present the full measure of the man's output). The 'Newpower Soul' album just stands out to me in particular for all the reasons mentioned and how it was presented/promoted upon its release.

IDK, I think when you piece a retrospective together you have to choose to focus on the official "Prince" albums or include side projects, and if u stick to "Prince "albums then there's no real reason to favor NPS over Vanity 6, The Family, 8 or Carmen Electra. Prince is the lead vocalists and his pic is on the cover alright, but he nevertheless chose to release it as a side project so it's what it is. Oppositely, he could have released Elixer for example as a "Prince" record featuring a different vocalist, and put his own face on the cover, and you'd have another "canon" album.

.

And I, like you, worship Newpower Soul: I think it's a wonderful record and that those Dylan/McCartney/Springsteen fans who shit on it clearly don't have a clue what funk is about. Nevertheless, Prince's own fans have managed to create a poor reputation for the record, so that's all the more reason for journalists and curators not to give it a privileged status by comparison to more acclaimed side-projects.

djThunderfunk said:

Any album with The One & Come On is worth some attention.

Personally, I file ALL 3 NPG albums amongst Prince's.

I love "The One." And Prince must have really liked it too because he performed it numerous times in the years after he and Mayte divorced.

Funny,

some people insist on not placing the album on such lists just because it has "New Power Generation" printed on the album cover, but at the same time do not have a problem including "Graffiti Bridge" on the lists, even if that one has almost half of the tracks performed by other vocalists.

novabrkr said:

Funny,

some people insist on not placing the album on such lists just because it has "New Power Generation" printed on the album cover, but at the same time do not have a problem including "Graffiti Bridge" on the lists, even if that one has almost half of the tracks performed by other vocalists.

Oh, come on, you're usually sharper than that! What got into you today?

.

Let's reformulate your statement one way or another, shall we?

.

"Funny,

some people insist on not placing the album on such lists just because it has "New Power Generation" printed on the album cover, but at the same time do not have a problem including "Graffiti Bridge" on the lists, just because it has "Prince" printed on the cover."

.

or...

.

"Funny,

some people insist on excluding all side projects but "Newpower Soul" from such lists just because Prince doesn't performs the vocals, but at the same time do not have a problem including "Graffiti Bridge" on the lists, even if that one has almost half of the tracks performed by other vocalists."

.

Now it's better; though not so funny

.

Honestly I find the whole debate ridiculous. Prince albums are albums made by Prince, regardless of credits and vocals. Now I can respect that journalists try and keep an already complicated discography simple for the sake of casual readers. I can also respect the fact that Prince established a formal "canon" of "Prince works by choosing to label such project Prince and such other something else. But this neverending debate regarding Newpower Soul is absurd. Unless you make a selected discography, Either you list/address side projects -and I think they should be listed/addressed when possible- or you don't, but if you don't then NPS is out, period. Same with live and/or video albums: either you mention them or you don't, but if you don't then you just don't.

The difference is that New Power Generation was always his backing band, and was known only as his backing band to most, while The Time / Sheila E. / The Family / Jill Jones records were marketed as records by those artists. We only got to know years later how much he actually did on his own of the material included on those records.

For that matter, on the NPS album he was performing as a member of the group, not so much on The Time records. He was included as a member of the NPG on the Exodus record too, as "Tora Tora".

In short:

NPG - his own band.
Others - protege acts and artists he collaborated with.

David Bowie wrote most of the stuff on "The Idiot" and "Lust For Life", records released by Iggy Pop, but I don't see them being usually referred to as "David Bowie" records. However, records by Tin Machine usually are, because Bowie was a member of that band. Just like the case was with Prince on the NPG records.

[Edited 11/21/17 7:37am]

databank said:

CinnamonBone said:

I take your point, but understand why side project albums aren't necessarily placed alongside the main Prince albums in such overviews (though definitely worthy of a separate chronology if aiming to present the full measure of the man's output). The 'Newpower Soul' album just stands out to me in particular for all the reasons mentioned and how it was presented/promoted upon its release.

IDK, I think when you piece a retrospective together you have to choose to focus on the official "Prince" albums or include side projects, and if u stick to "Prince "albums then there's no real reason to favor NPS over Vanity 6, The Family, 8 or Carmen Electra. Prince is the lead vocalists and his pic is on the cover alright, but he nevertheless chose to release it as a side project so it's what it is. Oppositely, he could have released Elixer for example as a "Prince" record featuring a different vocalist, and put his own face on the cover, and you'd have another "canon" album.

.

And I, like you, worship Newpower Soul: I think it's a wonderful record and that those Dylan/McCartney/Springsteen fans who shit on it clearly don't have a clue what funk is about. Nevertheless, Prince's own fans have managed to create a poor reputation for the record, so that's all the more reason for journalists and curators not to give it a privileged status by comparison to more acclaimed side-projects.

but i aint one of them D/M/S fans who shit on it.....

I was stone cold guilty of hating on this record when it came out. I bashed everywhere I could when it was released (especially alt.music.prince). I really dig the album now. It just wasn't what I wanted back then and I was angry about the Crystal Ball mess I guess. It's just a fun, funky pop album.

Tom Moon's four star review was spot on. He said why can't Prince have a party album? Why does every P album have to be some masterwork? Just have fun and make good music which he mostly did, especially Come On, Shoo Bed Doo, The One, Wasted Kisses, Mad Sex.

if its so good ....then why did Prince himself take a dump on this album???

2freaky4church1 said:

2freaky4church1 said:

Tom Moon's four star review was spot on. He said why can't Prince have a party album? Why does every P album have to be some masterwork? Just have fun and make good music which he mostly did, especially Come On, Shoo Bed Doo, The One, Wasted Kisses, Mad Sex.

Oh shit I forgot my jam Mad Sex was on there. When Lenka put that on in the club we go crazy!!

novabrkr said:

The difference is that New Power Generation was always his backing band, and was known only as his backing band to most, while The Time / Sheila E. / The Family / Jill Jones records were marketed as records by those artists. We only got to know years later how much he actually did on his own of the material included on those records.

For that matter, on the NPS album he was performing as a member of the group, not so much on The Time records. He was included as a member of the NPG on the Exodus record too, as "Tora Tora".

In short:

NPG - his own band.
Others - protege acts and artists he collaborated with.

David Bowie wrote most of the stuff on "The Idiot" and "Lust For Life", records released by Iggy Pop, but I don't see them being usually referred to as "David Bowie" records. However, records by Tin Machine usually are, because Bowie was a member of that band. Just like the case was with Prince on the NPG records.

[Edited 11/21/17 7:37am]

I have to admit you're making some good points.

.

Because I wasn't there, IDK clearly how much fans and the general public realized that Prince was behind the 80's side projects at the time. I later read some articles from as early as the Jamie Starr years suggesting he had more to do with them than officially acknowledged, so I guess people kind of assumed, but I also know some fans admitted they had no idea at the time.

.

The NPG case is more complex than you suggest though. Bowie was officially a member of Tin Machine indeed (though he was also officially the co-author of those Iggy Pop records), and Prince was officially a member of the NPG from Newpower Soul onwards. However he was not officially a member on GN and Exodus. GN was never widely publicized or released but Exodus was and I'm not sure everyone who saw the band on TV realized that this guy wearing a mask was actually Prince. People who knew nothing about Prince probably didn't realize entirely. Oppositely, many hardcore fans, on this very board, were claiming years later that GN and Exodus were collective efforts from a democratic unit that Prince was a member of, when it has in fact established that the band had no more say on those projects than they had on Prince's own records. So as you can see the confusion also existed regarding the NPG. Now if we follow your reasoning, Prince was indeed and undisputedly an official member of the NPG on NPS, The War and C-Note, so in that sense those records could indeed be considered as having a different status than GN and Exodus. I have to admit I'd never seen it that way. On the other hand Prince was also officially the author or co-author of later side-projects such as Kamasutra, Come 2 My House, GCS 2000 and Elixer, so you're sort of opening a pandora's box. We can draw the line at "officially being a member of" but we could also decide to draw the line at "officially being involved". The solution you offer works, but raises new issues. But I admit your argument is sensible.

.

Regardless, I definitely consider the 3 Pop/Bowie collabs (there was Blah-Blah-Blah, too) as part of Bowie's discography (Pop himself said Blah-Blah-Blah was more a Bowie record than a Pop record), and I think they should definitely, like P's side-projects, be mentioned in Bowie retrospectives (and they sometimes are, I've recently read an article about the Berlin trilogy acknowledging TI and LFL being kind of volume 4 and 5 of what would then become a Berlin pentology).

.

In the end, as far as I'm concerned, the bottom line is "who is/the creator(s) of the work?".

luvsexy4all said:

databank said:

IDK, I think when you piece a retrospective together you have to choose to focus on the official "Prince" albums or include side projects, and if u stick to "Prince "albums then there's no real reason to favor NPS over Vanity 6, The Family, 8 or Carmen Electra. Prince is the lead vocalists and his pic is on the cover alright, but he nevertheless chose to release it as a side project so it's what it is. Oppositely, he could have released Elixer for example as a "Prince" record featuring a different vocalist, and put his own face on the cover, and you'd have another "canon" album.

.

And I, like you, worship Newpower Soul: I think it's a wonderful record and that those Dylan/McCartney/Springsteen fans who shit on it clearly don't have a clue what funk is about. Nevertheless, Prince's own fans have managed to create a poor reputation for the record, so that's all the more reason for journalists and curators not to give it a privileged status by comparison to more acclaimed side-projects.

but i aint one of them D/M/S fans who shit on it.....

The argument of exception isn't valid.

Every time you say "all X people are Y", someone immediately pops-up and says "I'm X and I'm not Y". Yet, because the 1000 D/M/S fans will say nothing, the argument cannot be discarted because of one counter example.

NorthC said:

2freaky4church1 said:

Tom Moon's four star review was spot on. He said why can't Prince have a party album? Why does every P album have to be some masterwork? Just have fun and make good music which he mostly did, especially Come On, Shoo Bed Doo, The One, Wasted Kisses, Mad Sex.

Because he hadn't made a masterwork in ten years! Every 90s Prince album had moments of greatness, but none of them were as powerful as his 80s albums.NPS was the kind of music Prince could do in his sleep. After ten years of "yeah, this one's good, that one's not so good", folks were getting tired of all these less than great Prince albums that showed us nothing he hadn't done before- and better. I don't need Prince doing the Sly Stone/P-FUNK catalogue all over again. Been there done that. It wasn't a bad album, he was just repeating himself and from the artist who used to surprise us with every new album, that was hard to take.

Yes, but by saying so you kind of tacitely acknowledge that at least half of the problem was the listeners, not the work itself. So Prince didn't deserve half the shit he got for that record. Besides, Prince didn't force anyone to buy those records, let alone listen to them. I've met sane people (as in not emotionally unbalanced) who were a lot into Prince in the 80's and just, you know, realized his music didn't speak to them so much anymore, shrugged and moved on listening to other things by other artists. Those people didn't bitch on the new records, they just moved on and occasionally kept an eye on what he was doing from afar, in case they'd end-up digging another P record eventually. No need for drama.

databank said:

NorthC said:

databank said:

Yes, but by saying so you kind of tacitely acknowledge that at least half of the problem was the listeners, not the work itself. So Prince didn't deserve half the shit he got for that record. Besides, Prince didn't force anyone to buy those records, let alone listen to them. I've met sane people (as in not emotionally unbalanced) who were a lot into Prince in the 80's and just, you know, realized his music didn't speak to them so much anymore, shrugged and moved on listening to other things by other artists. Those people didn't bitch on the new records, they just moved on and occasionally kept an eye on what he was doing from afar, in case they'd end-up digging another P record eventually. No need for drama.

You forget a few things, firstly that Prince himself was the biggest drama queen of all in those years and secondly, and maybe I should have included that in my post: whatever I said about his albums, in concert he was still kicking ass. My (and lots of other people's) interest in Prince was kept alive by his concerts rather than his records until he stopped touring Europe and I did what you described. It wasn't until Musicology that I became interested again and it was the North Sea Jazz concerts that really reminded me why I loved the guy so much. (And that's why I chose this username.)

Agree. This was the time I started reading fans reception of this music and it was not all handclaps and cheers. Even I as a big fan was let down by his mediocre output 1996-1999. The lack of funk in his music was rough.

This was right after messy ass Chaos and Disorder, The Vault, Crystal Ball fiasco. Much of the 'new' material was just so under him and uninspired. Crystal Ball only revealed how much of a difference his music changed over the years. It was not until Rainbow Children that we started to see he was on a surprisong new parth again, being weird and thought provoking. New Power Soul as a whole is still bland but has some enjoyable tracks.