TheDigitalGardener said:

I wonder if it ever becomes boring thinking that you're right all the time.

TheDigitalGardener said:

I wonder if it ever becomes boring thinking that you're right all the time.

To chip in here - I don't get why you think Exodus is a shit album.

*

Gold Nigga is a good album - there are some properly good songs on here but I don't enjoy it quite so much as other Prince albums because of Tony M's rapping. It is a style I do not enjoy.

*

Exodus, by contrast, is an astonishing album, to these ears. It is funny, funky, provocative, sexy, challenging and muscially expansive and expressive for Prince...again, to these ears. So, what is it about the record you find shit?

*

NPS I really like some of the songs but I find Push It Up and I Like Funky Music lazy, lazy song writing. However, those two songs are arguably on the other side of the coin to Freaks On This Side and Return of the Bump Squad/Good Love (Exodus) and I adore those two tunes. I think that being dismissive without explanation in a discussion leave you open to contradiction and short contradiction too.

*

So, feel free to hve your opinion (you're welcome ) but do expand on it so people can engage with you.

*closeseyesandwaitsforsomeonetofrindathreadthathighlightsmyhopelesshypocrisy*

[Edited 2/25/18 11:18am]

SimonCharles said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

I wonder if it ever becomes boring thinking that you're right all the time.

To chip in here - I don't get why you think Exodus is a shit album.

*

Gold Nigga is a good album - there are some properly good songs on here but I don't enjoy it quite so much as other Prince albums because of Tony M's rapping. It is a style I do not enjoy.

*

Exodus, by contrast, is an astonishing album, to these ears. It is funny, funky, provocative, sexy, challenging and muscially expansive and expressive for Prince...again, to these ears. So, what is it about the record you find shit?

*

NPS I really like some of the songs but I find Push It Up and I Like Funky Music lazy, lazy song writing. However, those two songs are arguably on the other side of the coin to Freaks On This Side and Return of the Bump Squad/Good Love (Exodus) and I adore those two tunes. I think that being dismissive without explanation in a discussion leave you open to contradiction and short contradiction too.

*

So, feel free to hve your opinion (you're welcome ) but do expand on it so people can engage with you.

*closeseyesandwaitsforsomeonetofrindathreadthathighlightsmyhopelesshypocrisy*

[Edited 2/25/18 11:18am]

I guess, what I'm asking is, what do you mean by, "Gold Nigga and Exodus are embarrassing pseudo gangster twaddle and Newpower Soul is the aural equivalent of wading waist high through wallpaper paste." - beautiful image though that is.

TheDigitalGardener said:

Having an opinion here unless it meets the specific requirements of a certain few is becoming quite difficult. It's considered "trolling" and harmful to others idea's of what a fan is and should be.

There is a huge amount of things that I'm repeatedly fed up with reading, but you know what? That's life.

Good day to you all, and those albums are still shit.

OK, but when an opinion is "I hate the shitty rapping on 'Exodus'", referring to an album with pretty much ZERO rap on it, I wonder if we're critiquing the same record. It's like saying I hate all the electric guitar work on the ONA Piano album or all of the salsa on 1999.

herb4 said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

Having an opinion here unless it meets the specific requirements of a certain few is becoming quite difficult. It's considered "trolling" and harmful to others idea's of what a fan is and should be.

There is a huge amount of things that I'm repeatedly fed up with reading, but you know what? That's life.

Good day to you all, and those albums are still shit.

OK, but when an opinion is "I hate the shitty rapping on 'Exodus'", referring to an album with pretty much ZERO rap on it, I wonder if we're critiquing the same record. It's like saying I hate all the electric guitar work on the ONA Piano album or all of the salsa on 1999.

Yeah, well you can take that up with the person who actually said that.

TheDigitalGardener said:

I wonder if it ever becomes boring thinking that you're right all the time.

I'm only right until proven wrong. By all means do it.

.

Slightly off-topic I see you've joined in 2015. Are you THE Digital Gardener (the historical orger) with a new account, or someone else who took on that orgname?

databank said:

NorthC said:

databank said:

Incidentally, Morris Hayes explained in the Peach and Black podcast that those segues reflect humorous conversations Prince and the band were having all the time, playing characters and having fun. One may dislike them but if we're to believe Morris, there are everything but posture.

So what? I'm sure other bands also have great fun backstage, but they don't put that nonsense on record. Imagine buying a Rolling Stones album and hearing Mick & Keith talk blabla for twenty minutes! Who needs that? Wasting so much time on an album while you have songs like Mad and Funky Design and Superhero in the vault... It shows that Prince wasn't always the best judge of what makes a good Prince album! [Edited 2/27/18 1:57am]

Perhaps he thought he'd be alive to be able to release them? Perhaps he thought the skits reflected who he was at the time and the other songs did not? Who can say? Trying to second guess Prince is fruitless. I'm as frustrated as you that these and other songs did not see the light of day through official release. Prince released what he wanted to because he believed it was good...he used that line of argument in an interview about NPS. That it doesn't always match our tastes is not his fault.

SimonCharles said:

NorthC said:

databank said: So what? I'm sure other bands also have great fun backstage, but they don't put that nonsense on record. Imagine buying a Rolling Stones album and hearing Mick & Keith talk blabla for twenty minutes! Who needs that? Wasting so much time on an album while you have songs like Mad and Funky Design and Superhero in the vault... It shows that Prince wasn't always the best judge of what makes a good Prince album! [Edited 2/27/18 1:57am]

Perhaps he thought he'd be alive to be able to release them? Perhaps he thought the skits reflected who he was at the time and the other songs did not? Who can say? Trying to second guess Prince is fruitless. I'm as frustrated as you that these and other songs did not see the light of day through official release. Prince released what he wanted to because he believed it was good...he used that line of argument in an interview about NPS. That it doesn't always match our tastes is not his fault.

Yeah.

I've never minded the skits. While I don't find them hilarious I find them funny and they somehow reflect a certain state of mind that I like, very much a continuation of The Time's spirit. Now I'm cool with people disliking them, or feeling the album would have been better off without that additionnal narrative, but I've always thought it worked well in the context of that particular record.

.

However, believing the skits took the place of the outtakes is a grave misunderstanding of Prince's intentions, for the simple reason that the album is 65 minutes-long and that Prince did NOT choose to use those extra 10/15 minutes to put a few other songs. For reasons his own that are hard to second-guess, he decided that the songs he left out simply didn't belong there and even without the skits you'd have a 53 or so minutes-long record consisting of 9 tracks. And however painful it is for me to see awesome tracks remain locked in the vault, I have to admit that I respect P's decision not to fill CD's for the sake of filling CD space just because it's there when assembling albums.

.

There was at the time a rumor that the soon to be cancelled American reissue by WB would have contained a whole second CD with those outtakes, and Prince could indeed have assembled a very interesting second album out of them, but I've never ever seen that rumor addressed again ever since, so IDK if any of it is true.

NPS is a remix album. Freaks on this Side and Push it Up are Face Down and Jam of the Year. I feel like the rest of the tracks are Emancipation outtakes. It's a little disingenuous to call it a NPG album. I like it a lot though.

herb4 said:

Exodus is in my top 5 Prince albums, minus the segues.

Exodus is...... brilliant..

I agree here

databank said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

I wonder if it ever becomes boring thinking that you're right all the time.

I'm only right until proven wrong. By all means do it.

.

Slightly off-topic I see you've joined in 2015. Are you THE Digital Gardener (the historical orger) with a new account, or someone else who took on that orgname?

Yeah, I've been here a few years Left, came back etc. MikeyB71 before that too.

The skits on Exodus are perfectly fine...


THE FIRST TIME.

Yoiu can listen to albums full fo music hundreds...maybe thousands of times. Comedy? Not so much. Even my favorite comedy records and movies I may have seen or listened to ten times tops.

TrivialPursuit said:

Adorecream said:

To be honest it is not very high.

Exodus - Has a few good songs like The Good Life and get wild, but a very uneven album, ruined by a lot of pointless skits, way below average rapping and grunting and not good enough to like - 3/10

Errmm, rapping? On Exodus? It's the most funk-heavy of the three records. Goldnigga, even in its visual elements, is quasi-hip-hop-heavy. I'd challenge you to listen to it again, and actually take out the segue skits, and just let the music happen. While there are one or two fluff songs on there that go on too long. But if you aren't movin' your keister by the middle of the record, check yo' pulse.

Sorry I tried, but I just can't get into it. Get Wild is the only dancey and groovy song and that really is a Prince cut shoved in there (Toratora my foot), Cherry Cherry is a nice ballad, despite the dark themes, and Good Life is nice, but I can't dance to it. Count the days is ruined by all the motherfuckers. Same with Goldnigga - too much swearing, generic beats and sad rapping. In the early/mid 90s I got heavily into G funk and Jermaine Dupri type stuff and judge my booty shaking beats to those standards. This does not match up.

.

We agree on a lot, but we can't here, I must have 2 left feet and a lead butt I guess. Which is strange as I can move my ass very freely to most his stuff. I am just not feeling these records and I know its strange as so many of my Prince friends just love them.

[Edited 2/27/18 21:44pm]

TheDigitalGardener said:

databank said:

I'm only right until proven wrong. By all means do it.

.

Slightly off-topic I see you've joined in 2015. Are you THE Digital Gardener (the historical orger) with a new account, or someone else who took on that orgname?

Yeah, I've been here a few years Left, came back etc. MikeyB71 before that too.

Well, welcome back I've always liked your contributions so regardless of our disagreement on this specific thread, we're cool as far as I'm concerned

databank said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

Yeah, I've been here a few years Left, came back etc. MikeyB71 before that too.

Well, welcome back I've always liked your contributions so regardless of our disagreement on this specific thread, we're cool as far as I'm concerned

Yeah, me too. Life's too short.

Adorecream said:

Sorry I tried, but I just can't get into it.

I love Exodus, it's my favourite of the NPG albums. I think some of the segues are a little unnecessary but I still laugh at some (NPG Bum Rush The Ship especially). Hallucination rain is criminally underrated. One of my absolute favourite tracks right there.

Adorecream said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Errmm, rapping? On Exodus? It's the most funk-heavy of the three records. Goldnigga, even in its visual elements, is quasi-hip-hop-heavy. I'd challenge you to listen to it again, and actually take out the segue skits, and just let the music happen. While there are one or two fluff songs on there that go on too long. But if you aren't movin' your keister by the middle of the record, check yo' pulse.

Sorry I tried, but I just can't get into it. Get Wild is the only dancey and groovy song and that really is a Prince cut shoved in there (Toratora my foot), Cherry Cherry is a nice ballad, despite the dark themes, and Good Life is nice, but I can't dance to it. Count the days is ruined by all the motherfuckers. Same with Goldnigga - too much swearing, generic beats and sad rapping. In the early/mid 90s I got heavily into G funk and Jermaine Dupri type stuff and judge my booty shaking beats to those standards. This does not match up.

.

We agree on a lot, but we can't here, I must have 2 left feet and a lead butt I guess. Which is strange as I can move my ass very freely to most his stuff. I am just not feeling these records and I know its strange as so many of my Prince friends just love them.

[Edited 2/27/18 21:44pm]

Im right there with you. Good for Private P listens but doesnt make me dance even when I was a kid. Good Life is okay...Return Of The Bump Squad ok....even Exodus Has Begun to me is aiight but I don't get the hoopla over it. Maybe I was only 13 or 14 when it came out, just didnt speak to me even at that time at that age like Gold Experience did.

Exodus is crazy great. Prince's best funk album hands down. I got rid of the segues and swapped in Days of Wild on my version. Play it to death and everyone I've turned on to it fucking love it.

By the time someone calls for the loop to be turned off in Return of the Bump Squad, I'm ready for it to end too.

PPResident said:

By the time someone calls for the loop to be turned off in Return of the Bump Squad, I'm ready for it to end too.

I wish you could spoiler on this forum but fuck that chirping loop on Return of the Bump Squad will forever be ingrained onto my memory for the time I once ingested some slightly funky mushrooms and all I could hear during the trip was that fucking chirping

dewmass said:

Exodus is absolutely stunning in my opinion. If there was anyway I could articulate quickly why I was such a fan of the man, it would be to say that Count The Days and Return of the Bump squad are on the same album. I mean come on, who does that?

^^^My man.^^^

Yeah, that album just crushes IMO. It's even paced properly once you get the segues out. Only thing I might do is drop Cherry Cherry, add Days of Wild or The Ride and PERHAPS push some guitar up front somewhere, which including The Ride would accomplish. I don't get the hate for Hallucination Rain either. I'd never really heard Prince take on Pink Floyd.

Exodus felt like it had some real passion behing it and sounded like an album Prince really wanted to make and for WB to relese, if that makes any sense. Big Fun, Exodus, Bump Squad, Good Life are thick and really bottom heavy. I can't think of another record I'd compare it to except maybe TBA but Exodus is better. More organic. It's a fucking banger.

Everyone I know who likes funk loves the hell out of it. It's one of those "why has noone heard this?" records.

herb4 said:

TrivialPursuit said:

...

The War - it is trippy, brilliant, and sort of an extension musically of "Hallucination Rain". You can almost hear it as an extended section on the end of "Hallucination Rain", making it a suite similar to "Computer Blue" in structure, or "3 Chains O' Gold". We know the track goes on longer, and it's almost a sin that the whole thing wasn't released. I never paid for my cassette of it. NPG just sent it to me out of the blue one day. People can talk about Prince's conspiracy talk or whatever, but he was way ahead of the curve in his lyrics on "The War". In the past year or two how often have we heard about companies implanting a microchip in their employees, or NSA surveillance through other means? The War was released how long ago before anyone was speaking about it on such a broad scale? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Trivial -

What's your take on the relationship between "The War" and Gil Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"? It's clear that Prince was referencing it, and made it obvious enough that you know he wanted you to know that's what he was doing. But I came to Prince long after that was released, and I haven't yet done a deep dive into what else was going on with him that might've made him do "The War" when he did.