RodeoSchro said:

Y'all are asking questions that have no wrong or right answers. People like what they like.

That was exactly my point. It's all subjective. People hate "The Arms of Orion" for some reason. I find it beautiful. I can still play it on the piano.

I've always said I could take Musicology, 3121, Planet Earth and make one good album. Lotta crap on all of them (although 3121 is the strongest, IMO, followed by PE). I think Lotusflow3r and MPLSound could be whittled down to one good disk as well. Again, that's all subjective.

Is there something redeeming even on the worst Prince albums? I could probably list one song on any album past 1997 and say yes to the question, should it be an album I don't enjoy.

TrivialPursuit said:

RodeoSchro said:

Yeah...I can't think of any albums that don't have something in there somewhere.

So: True

jaawwnn said:

True, it's all about getting into his mindset on an album. If you go in wanting your own previous favourite Prince album then you're going to be disappointed, as every critic discovered from 1988 until his death.

[Edited 1/16/18 4:47am]

That is one of the truest points of view I've seen on the org. The albums are so different sometimes that it takes a good while to shake off the last album you were in love with and were hoping for more. Because with every new Prince album he seemed to say, "The last album was the last album. If you want more of that, play the last album. Catch up when you have opened your mind to something new." And odds are, it wouldn't be long before you loved the new one too! And on the cycle goes...

I agree, every album no matter how bad it is, has at least one song I would consider at least good and many have classic songs or several good ones.

.

Like Matty Jam says, you can not really include Kamasutra as it is muzak and even Xpectation and NEWS are hard to choose a gem from. I can't with Xpectation - snore, but NEWS I do really like the sound of East and the rest is pleasant. I would add C Note to the unchoosable list - its lift music.

.

But the below average/sub rosa albums (Well albums I consider that) have several gems.

Batman - Scandalous, Electric Chair

Chaos and Disorder - Ilike it there, Into the light

NPS - Come On, The One

TRC - Last December, The Work, 1 + 1 +1 = 3

Chocolate Invasion - Underneath the Cream

Slaughterhouse - Golden Parachute, Y should I do this

20Ten - Future Soul Song

Phase 1 - Hardrocklover, 1000 x's and o's

PLE ELE - Anotherlove, Fixurifeup.

OperatingThetan said:

There are gems on every album without exception.

there coudve been alot more....that son of a gun held back

False, for me. There isn't a single track on any of these that I love:

The Rainbow Children

One Nite Alone...

MPLSound

20Ten

Art Official Age

HITnRUN Phase One

pdiddy2011 said:

jaawwnn said:

True, it's all about getting into his mindset on an album. If you go in wanting your own previous favourite Prince album then you're going to be disappointed, as every critic discovered from 1988 until his death.

[Edited 1/16/18 4:47am]

That is one of the truest points of view I've seen on the org. The albums are so different sometimes that it takes a good while to shake off the last album you were in love with and were hoping for more. Because with every new Prince album he seemed to say, "The last album was the last album. If you want more of that, play the last album. Catch up when you have opened your mind to something new." And odds are, it wouldn't be long before you loved the new one too! And on the cycle goes...

I think you start to appreciate albums previously despised the minute you let go.
You have to strip yourself from most of Prince mythology, imagery, defining and historic albums.
It's not easy, because of the unmistakable voice, guitar and gimmicks.

But with an open mind, without preconceptions, they're really pleasant albums, 20Ten sounds like it's his first album, there's an exuberance, a kind of innocence going through.

At the same time, there are lots of self-references, so we're right in the middle of Paradox Land.
But as with all things Princey, it's a pretty familiar place.

The most blatant case is AOA. First of all, you need a very good source and a very good sound system and you have to accept that it's not the mastering, some sounds are made distorted on purpose, against some others that are plain acoustic. It's a really interesting melange, and you can only fully appreciate it with headphones on (and an EQ curve that makes for your ol' timer deficient ears: here's a tool to adjust it).

AOA, you can either consider it a pile of EDM garbage, or the most concise album of the latter years, in terms of compositions quality.Prince takes the best out of the modern production gimmicks (you can be sure he check-proofed every sound color Joshua proposed) to divert them and serve the songs, and as a result making most of 2014 pop music irrelevant in comparison.

Lianachan said:

False, for me. There isn't a single track on any of these that I love:

The Rainbow Children

One Nite Alone...

MPLSound

20Ten

Art Official Age

HITnRUN Phase One

From those specific albums, I would argue that all of these songs were brilliant:

Last December

She Loves Me 4 Me

The Sensual Everafter

Pearls B4 The Swine

A Case Of U

Ol Skool Company

Dance 4 Me

Here

Future Soul Song

Funknroll

Art Official Cage

1000 xs & os

MattyJam said:

MattyJam said:

Lianachan said:

False, for me. There isn't a single track on any of these that I love:

The Rainbow Children

One Nite Alone...

MPLSound

20Ten

Art Official Age

HITnRUN Phase One

From those specific albums, I would argue that all of these songs were brilliant:

Last December - It's pretty good, the emotion and harmonies

She Loves Me 4 Me - This is great, can't believe I forgot it.

The Sensual Everafter - nah can't agree sorry

Pearls B4 The Swine - I love this, angry cynical Prince

A Case Of U - Its okay, but was amazing when he sang it live to us.

Ol Skool Company - In general, MPLSound is a great album and I love all of it even the ballads

Dance 4 Me - see above

Here

Future Soul Song - Got to be the most underrated song in Prince's history, the gossamer smoove sensual vocals, melody and transcendental feel make this one of his finest pieces ever!

Funknroll - meh

Art Official Cage - can't agree, its an awful selection of sounds and waterboarding in a Prince song.

1000 xs & os - Yeah thats pretty good, along with Hardrocklover the highlight of Phase 1

Bolded - especially so

A pretty good list but I would also add Golden Parachute and Hypnoparadise, I am not a drug person, but love his trippy shit for some reason.

Also Underneath the Cream - is an amazing sexy and creamy ballad, with great melody and one of the last "Sex prince" jams before the Jehovah cloud descended.

bonatoc said:

pdiddy2011 said:

That is one of the truest points of view I've seen on the org. The albums are so different sometimes that it takes a good while to shake off the last album you were in love with and were hoping for more. Because with every new Prince album he seemed to say, "The last album was the last album. If you want more of that, play the last album. Catch up when you have opened your mind to something new." And odds are, it wouldn't be long before you loved the new one too! And on the cycle goes...

The most blatant case is AOA. First of all, you need a very good source and a very good sound system and you have to accept that it's not the mastering, some sounds are made distorted on purpose, against some others that are plain acoustic. It's a really interesting melange, and you can only fully appreciate it with headphones on (and an EQ curve that makes for your ol' timer deficient ears: here's a tool to adjust it).

AOA, you can either consider it a pile of EDM garbage, or the most concise album of the latter years, in terms of compositions quality.Prince takes the best out of the modern production gimmicks (you can be sure he check-proofed every sound color Joshua proposed) to divert them and serve the songs, and as a result making most of 2014 pop music irrelevant in comparison.

What do YOU think about AOA? I know you know your shit and I think it's fantastic so curious about your opinion.

To me, it's sublime. It just needs another banger/funk number/up-tempo track to vary the pace a bit. You're right about the headphones too. A lot of Prince's records reveal their layering and complex genius that way. Combined with some weed. To this day 1999 continues to reveal itself to me. That's a thick fucking onion right there.

I honestly can't think of one record that didn't have SOMETHING on it somewhere that grabbed me and it's true that, over time, as Prince was more and more free to release material, the consistency suffered and the skip button came out more and more. After the Love Symbol album, I found myself compiling my own records from the increased output, making records like Chocolate Slaughterhouse and NewPowerCome. NEWS and Planet Earth are the 2 discs I spin the least but but that's just because I find them boring and not to my taste. I wouldn't call them garbage though, even though the songwriting on both (and Planet Earth in particular) were far, far below Prince's normal standard and were the first times I honestly felt Prince had nothing really new left to say.

Turns out I was wrong, of course, and AoA and H&R 2 surprised me a bit.

I would never ever take serious anyone who would consider The Rainbow Children just an album without a single good track.

bonatoc said:

But with an open mind, without preconceptions, they're really pleasant albums, 20Ten sounds like it's his first album, there's an exuberance, a kind of innocence going through.

And Lyrics! Just when one thought that Prince lost himself in some form of monism, he is going totally opposite preaching full futuristic, pluralistic and multiverse way:

.

"Why should you be satisfied with just heaven and earth?
When if you look around there's so much more to the universe
Maybe every shining star, is just another part
If you and I could ever open up our dirty hearts'

True for the albums that I've heard, I believe I've heard them all except Kamasutra & if I did hear I don't remember. I didn't care for NEWS of C-Note before he passed & now WOW!!! I love those CDs