lion88 said:

IstenSzek said:

it's not the greatest album, no, but i enjoy it's individual tracks a lot, at different times.

the only track i don't care for at all it "Million $how" but the rest is ok to pretty great imo.

1000 Hugs n Kisses
Hardrock Lover
Xs Face
June
Shut This Down

are the ones i like the most. i feel like if there had been another 5 tracks as strong as
those, it would have been a great album indeed.

Ain't About 2 Stop is ruined by the Bloodclot bit, although i love the rest of it.
Like A Mack is just silly, but in the car is breezes along just fine even if it is prince ultralite.
FallInLove2Nite is just fine, also prince lite, but nothing offensive.

the remixes are cool too, but they do seem a bit out of place.

all in all it feels like an outtakes collection or a sort of bsides collection to "Art Official Age",
especially with the remixes included.

I really love HitnRun 2. HitnRun 1 is a mixed bag, but I agree on

1000 Hugs n Kisses
Hardrock Lover
Xs Face
June

These are great songs

i always wonder what other songs prince had ready to go at the same time as some of his
more 'questionable' choises for some albums.

you just know he and josh had at least a dozen other tracks completed but somehow this
is what prince settled on. i just wish we would know a bit more about the why and how of
some inclusions on later albums.

like josh goes 'that track we did last week, people need to hear that! it's amazing! will you
put in on the album?' and then prince goes 'you know, i don't think people are ready for it
right now. besides, people need to hear this Mr Nelson remix and this song with judith on
lead vox will be a great opening track'

i'm not being catty, i genuinely mean that i would love to hear prince explain some of the
song choices for albums. it would be so fascinating to get an insight into that. perhaps in
future we will be treated to a plethora of 'alternate' or 'early draft' tracklists from the archives.

Agree. The collaboration would make sense as a side project under a different moniker (like Madhouse).

Huh?

cheap ..i think only done with welton so no one will say he never let anyone produce him

EmmaMcG said:

luvsexy4all said:

Its something of a remix album imo. AOA leftovers.
I don't think the HitNRun albums were meant to be 'real' albums as all of them were previously unreleased amterial. A Crystal Ball of sorts.

My fav is #2 for these exact reasons. It is Prince in his own regalia. No outside influences.

OperatingThetan said:

luvsexy4all said:

cheap ..i think only done with welton so no one will say he never let anyone produce him

Prince had already let Kirk Johnson produce him years earlier.

not an album ..just those remix tracks

luv2tha99s said:

i liked both alot, and never listened to any of the "critics" of his work here, i make up my own mind.

PeteSilas said:

i liked both alot, and never listened to any of the "critics" of his work here, i make up my own mind.

I remember being out at the Park and it coming right from Prince's mouth that HNR One was Josh Welton's work. Prince sang and played some bass and that is about all. Majority of that was Josh.

I also remember the small ting of disappointment in Josh's voice when he talked about HNR2 being something that Prince was working on. HAHA! I remember hearing FREEURSELF and thinking yeah I like that better but actually I do like some of HNR1 but from Prince's mouth that is mostly Josh.

luvsexy4all said:

This is totally just my own thinking. I'm wondering if, possibly, Prince gave Joshua Welton as much credit on HNR1 as he did because of their close relationship.

.

Why Prince decided to work with Joshua Welton

http://prince.org/msg/5/428942

.

Here's what Judith had to say about Prince's relationship with Josh and Hannah Welton with Carver County detectives.

.

Interview with Judith Glory Hill

pp. 48-49

Unk: The Welton's. Do you know who they are?

JH: They're very .. yeah.

Unk: Okay tell me a little bit about them um their connection.

JH: Oh they're um well Hannah was his drummer..

Unk: Okay.

JH: .. and Joshua is ah did a lot of production in, on the records and was also auxiliary keyboardist in the show so they had a big role, they were very close to Prince. Prince liked them a lot. They .. he thought they were like his kids.

Unk: Okay.

JH: Yeah.

Unk: And .. any .. ever discussion, disparaging discussions between the other staff about them or concerns about them or..

JH: No I think it was difficult when Hannah decided to have a baby and that's when 3rdeyegirl kind of fell apart ..

Unk: ( Okay.

JH: .. and I know he really wanted 3rdeyegirl to continue but she felt like it was a time for her to .. to move on and .. or not move on, they were still living in the house and he really loved them to pieces so ..

Unk: Uh-hum.

JH: .. they were still very much involved even though 3rdeyegirl had kind of disbanded ..

Unk: Uh-hum.

JH: .. um but they were still very much a part of his life.

Unk: So did the Welton's live in a house that Prince owned?

JH: Uh-hum.

Unk: Okay ..

JH: They live next to Kirk, yeah they both ..

Unk: Oh they, they live next to Kirk, okay.

JH: .. their two houses are like this.

.

Source: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4442869-Judith-Hill-statement.html#text/p48

Here's what Hannah Welton had to say about Prince on her instagram account:

[Edited 5/9/18 20:02pm]

206Michelle said:

This is totally just my own thinking. I'm wondering if, possibly, Prince gave Joshua Welton as much credit on HNR1 as he did because of their close relationship.

I agree with you and I have wondered whether P allowed/wanted Josh to get co-writing credit to make sure Josh and Hannah would be taken care of in the future by getting royalties.

AOA is my favorite album, and I also like Phase 1 and Phase 2 with the exception of Million$Show...for reasons I cannot explain the song irritates me.

Referring to the information I posted in replies 46 and 47 of this thread, Prince considered Josh and Hannah to be his family. The Weltons lived in a house that Prince owned. Judith said that Prince thought of the Weltons like they were his kids. Hannah wrote that Prince was looking forward to being Uncle Prince to she and Josh's daughter.

.

This is not to take anything away from Joshua professionally. He's quite talented and Prince surrounded himself with the best and brightest in the music business. However, Prince was Prince...He was more than capable of producing HNR1 himself and he could have re-mastered Purple Rain Deluxe himself or with someone else who was more renowned. Prince selected Joshua for these endeavors because he wanted Joshua to be involved.

.

Perhaps Prince selected Joshua to be involved with HNR1 and Purple Rain Deluxe in order to take care of the Weltons in a parental/familial manner. Prince didn't have a will, but he took care of the people whom he loved, and the Weltons were among those whom he loved most dearly at the end of his life.

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

206Michelle said:

This is totally just my own thinking. I'm wondering if, possibly, Prince gave Joshua Welton as much credit on HNR1 as he did because of their close relationship.

I agree with you and I have wondered whether P allowed/wanted Josh to get co-writing credit to make sure Josh and Hannah would be taken care of in the future by getting royalties.

AOA is my favorite album, and I also like Phase 1 and Phase 2 with the exception of Million$Show...for reasons I cannot explain the song irritates me.

I totally agree with you ISLIJAG. I wrote basically the same thing in reply 48 of this thread, and I wrote it before reading what you wrote above.

[Edited 5/9/18 20:08pm]

206Michelle said:

BoraBora said:

I still can't accept HitnRun Phase 1 and HitnRun Phase 2 as proper P albums.

I see them more of archive releases (like "The Vault" or "Crystal Ball") than albums.

To me the real P's last album is AOA.

Same here.

The HitnRun albums are compilations. The last words on a Prince album are "way back home" and not "that's it".

KoolEaze said:

RodeoSchro said:

What is amazing to me is that I think Phase 1 is one of the worst albums of all time, and that includes everyone.

And yet, I think Phase 2 is the second-best album Prince ever made, only slightly trailing "Purple Rain".

I only get sad thinking about Prince when I'm listening to Phase 2. What he was doing with pop and rock on Phase 2 was exceptional, and where he would have gone after that would have been incredible.

I like most of the songs on Phase2 but it sounds more like a random collection of songs to me rather than a cohesive album.

As much as I like Phase2, I don´t get some of the praise it gets around here, even though I like it, too.

What exactly do you, especially as a musician, like so much about it that it´s right up there with Purple Rain to you? What makes it so exceptional?

Well first of all, thanks for calling me a "musician"!

And I will say that I get where people who call Phase 2 a "collection of songs" are coming from. But we have to remember - that's what EVERY Prince album was. We know that for the 10 - 12 songs on the released album, there were dozens more recorded at the same time but not picked. With the possible exception of "The Truth", I dont' know that Prince ever used a strategy of "I'm going to record 10 and only 10 songs to tell the story I want to tell".

Now to your question - "What makes it so exceptional?"

Short answer - the musicianship is just so freaking tight and completely on another plane.

Longer answer:

I'll start with "Baltimore" - and of course, it was a one-off song recorded as a reaction to a specific event. I don't know that it was recorded with an intent to build an album around it. But what a great piece of music this is! The coupling of the orchestral and guitar solos was magic. Prince, in fact, told dang it I can't find the guy's name who arranged the orchestral parts! that he thought they'd created a whole new way to mix guitar and orchestra.

And if I recall, he found Erin Allen Kayne on YouTube and brought her to Paisley Park. He played her the song and she asked, "What do you want me to do?" "You just do you!" said Prince. And she did. Boy, did she ever!

I think "RockNRollLoveAffair" is a perfect pop song. And I will fight anyone who says it's a rip-off of "Take Me With U"! Remember - I am a muscian, so I know this stuff! LOL. Anyway, to me it's just pop perfection. (So is "Take Me With U" but don't tell anyone I said that.)

Check out the musicianship on "Black Muse". As you may know, it's actually two songs spliced together, the other being "1,000 Light Years Away". "1,000 Light Yeas" works perfectly as an interlude (I hope that's the right term - after all, I'm not that good of a musician!). And again - the playing of the band is just so incredibly tight.

The album has a re-worked classic - "Xtraoveable". It has a classic worked into another classic - "Kiss" being a part of "Stare". It has a very cool song based on a classic - "2 Y. 2 D." is based on "Proud Mary" and as we know, "Proud Mary" was the first song Prince learned on guitar.

And it has "Big City".

I just love that song. "What's going on? Everything good!" Man, that song inspires me so much.

Conclusion - Phase 2 is, to me, the result of the best musician on the planet at the absolute top of his game.

MIRvmn said:

Well at least Plectrum Electrum is the worst Prince album ever, Phase 1 is the second worst album imo

Oh so we gonna act like Elixer and NEWS was better than Plectrum Electrum now. Stahp.

Love that album. Man, I miss that dude. He had really just begun to embrace the streaming music world. He couldve just went nuts with release after release. Everything he hoped for back in the WB argument days.

This article about the player from Phase 2 bears re-posting. It's great!

https://www.vibe.com/feat...dio-album/

It's his worst album.

jjam said: