IstenSzek said:

dodger said:

TrivialPursuit said: Yes, that live version on the D&P Video Collection was addictive for me back in the day

isn't that the one he released the audio for on the npgmc?

The one on the D&P Video collection was London. The audio/video on NPGMC that you mentioned was from an earlier date in Sydney. Just for a note: the NPGMC released version was a separate mp3 file, not part of the monthly Ahdio shows. It was Ahdio #10, November 2001.

In that Ahdio show, btw, there was a good chunk of a show from Radio City in 1993. It was so great to hear it.

TrivialPursuit said:

IstenSzek said:

isn't that the one he released the audio for on the npgmc?

The one on the D&P Video collection was London. The audio/video on NPGMC that you mentioned was from an earlier date in Sydney. Just for a note: the NPGMC released version was a separate mp3 file, not part of the monthly Ahdio shows. It was Ahdio #10, November 2001.

In that Ahdio show, btw, there was a good chunk of a show from Radio City in 1993. It was so great to hear it.

thanks!

This.

[Edited 7/9/18 21:36pm]

Also, I love the tidbit that this is an album he recorded 'fresh'. aka, he did not polish old compositions, but was composing while building/rehearsing his new band.

And you can hear it; besides the obvious duds, the album as a whole flows really well. I always kept missing Something Funky, even if it would be considered a dud by most of you.

And for me to like this album is something pretty special, as I personally do not like Rosie Gaines' or Tony M's contributions on Prince recordings much, but maybe I am growing nostalgic in my old age, as I cannot imagine this album without them; both their voices are an inegral part of Prince's focus on writing. And D&P as a song is rather flat without Rosie belting.

Also, I love how this is an album where we can follow it's creation through the early versions of the songs and the outtakes. Prince was an amazing producer, if he cared to cater to certain audiences.

HamsterHuey said:

This.

[video snip]

...will always be the best version of this song.

TrivialPursuit said:

HamsterHuey said:

This.

[video snip]

...will always be the best version of this song.

He had a knack of fleshing studio versions out in a live environment. See Electric Intercourse (live 83). See Forever In My Life (live 87)

After the GB fiasco in 1990,Prince needed to come back with a strong,hit-filled album and he succeeded.He hired Michael Jackson's manager Frank Dileo to help out with the promotion strategy,and that was a wise move.The album has alot going for it: "Cream","Gett Off","Strollin","Insatiable" and "Live 4 Love" are top-notch songs,imo.There are a few duds ("Jughead" is obvious filler (lol) and "Push" isn't too exciting) but overall,this is a strong album.

To me, Prince never sounded happier than on this record

Near classic. Very, very near.

Not sure how it sounds dated thou?

HamsterHuey said:

Also, I love the tidbit that this is an album he recorded 'fresh'. aka, he did not polish old compositions, but was composing while building/rehearsing his new band.

And you can hear it; besides the obvious duds, the album as a whole flows really well. I always kept missing Something Funky, even if it would be considered a dud by most of you.

And for me to like this album is something pretty special, as I personally do not like Rosie Gaines' or Tony M's contributions on Prince recordings much, but maybe I am growing nostalgic in my old age, as I cannot imagine this album without them; both their voices are an inegral part of Prince's focus on writing. And D&P as a song is rather flat without Rosie belting.

i love that track! such great, fun energy

i also really like 'schoolyard'

1. The album IS a classic.

-

2. All music sounds dated.

this thread begs the question .. who is worse at rapping ... tony m .. or prince?

for me it is a real toss up ... they both have excruciatingly bad rapping .. they both have a couple good moments here and there ... i can enjoy the goldnigga album more than i can enjoy tony on a prince album ..

prince did ok on days of wild and i cant help but sing along during spectacula more legend than a new accura ...

over all .. i think i cringe more during a prince rap than tony m so for me ... prince wins the worst rapper award ... altho he gets bonus points for the balls in ever releasing dead on it, even if only briefly, during the raps rise to fame era

skywalker said:

1. The album IS a classic.

-

2. All music sounds dated.

1. are you sure? Outside of the Prince fan community it's a few hit singles that go on playlists and a vague idea that it's too long.

2. yeah, true.

Both a classic, and a bit of a turkey.

Dazza said:

Dazza said:

I’m liking the love for Walk Don’t Walk. I always thought he should have released it as a single. I always imagined a colourful street party style video

Before the album was released,I read somewhere that Lisa Bonet was chosen to direct a video for this song.Not sure what happened with those plans.

I could never decide if 'Live 4 Love' was great or terrible (much like this album in general!).

I finallly decided it's terrible (the song, that is). There's a hook there, but it goes on way too long and gets annoyingly repetitive.

I think the poster, above, who said this album should be taken as simply a pop album of well-crafted tunes is correct. That's all it is. It's not a grand artistic statement.

Like a pro-athlete in his contract year, Prince wanted to show Warners he could still be a bankable A-list superstar (on the pop charts), and he succeeded.

ThePanther said:

I could never decide if 'Live 4 Love' was great or terrible (much like this album in general!).

I finallly decided it's terrible (the song, that is). There's a hook there, but it goes on way too long and gets annoyingly repetitive.

I think the poster, above, who said this album should be taken as simply a pop album of well-crafted tunes is correct. That's all it is. It's not a grand artistic statement.

Like a pro-athlete in his contract year, Prince wanted to show Warners he could still be a bankable A-list superstar (on the pop charts), and he succeeded.

I agree... I think the paradox of this album is because the image, the performance, the era was so iconic... I mean just the look alone, I think when most pop culture media outlets write articles and illustrate Prince two images immediatley come to mind as his most iconic look. The "Purple" era and the D&P era.

I believe the album is average, I think it goes a lot higher on his top albums list due to the fact he had many far worse albums in the 90's after Diamonds & Pearls. It had it's good songs, but to be honest Diamonds & Pearls as an album as a whole was never an artistic statement. If you compare it artistically with his 80's works that's your proof right there.

However what overshadowed everything was the promotion and the performance. As stated in the previous threads, Prince hired Frank Dileo MJ's manager at the time, he and WB wanted a "big" hit... Commercially he was in a seasaw, Lovesexy flopped in the U.S. Batman was a commerciall success selling over 4 million, GB was a flop both the album and the movie... Diamonds & Pearls saw the biggest media blitz for Prince, the magazines he was featured in, on the front cover of SPIN and many other major magazines. The Aresnio Hall performances, the MTV video music awards, performing at the special olympics, making a music video and VHS collection for Diamonds & Pearls, he was literally "forced" into the mainstream again, he was everywhere in a time where he really shouldn't have been. With the popularity of gangster rap, grundge and the new jack swing movement, Prince really followed the trends for this album. Don't get me wrong, the album still had it's great moments, but it was far from genius. What was genius is behind the scenes how Prince would create and record the album, but the outcome of the album was far from that... It was an album that followed the trends, promoted like it should have, and when the year was over, the album quickly faded away after generating the commercial sales. Ultimately this became Prince's second biggest selling album at the time with a total over 6.7 million copies sold, with 1999 right behind (although it might have even surpassed D&P's sales by now after his death)

But Diamonds & Pearls was a calculated promotion blitz, and it worked. To be honest the promotion and performance was far better than the music.

Like stated in my above post, this album was a PARADOX for PRINCE at the time...

On one hand it gave him the commercial success WB wanted, it sold over 6.7 million copies, and with that success came the infamous "100 MILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT"...

Commercially WB were expecting every album to sell 5 million or more, and expected Prince to do that type of promotion for every album... We all know the end result of that... The promotion for D&P was a one time thing, the only time Prince ever promoted an album that much was for Musicology.

feeluupp said:

Like stated in my above post, this album was a PARADOX for PRINCE at the time...

On one hand it gave him the commercial success WB wanted, it sold over 6.7 million copies, and with that success came the infamous "100 MILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT"...

Commercially WB were expecting every album to sell 5 million or more, and expected Prince to do that type of promotion for every album... We all know the end result of that... The promotion for D&P was a one time thing, the only time Prince ever promoted an album that much was for Musicology.

He did it for the album, too. Similar plan, with the Sexy MF VHS single lead-in, Aresenio appearance, tour, plus the Ryde Dyvine/Act I TV special, not to mention the record store appearances where he sat and autographed records. If anything, he worked harder to promote

SchlomoThaHomo said:

feeluupp said:

Like stated in my above post, this album was a PARADOX for PRINCE at the time...

On one hand it gave him the commercial success WB wanted, it sold over 6.7 million copies, and with that success came the infamous "100 MILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT"...

Commercially WB were expecting every album to sell 5 million or more, and expected Prince to do that type of promotion for every album... We all know the end result of that... The promotion for D&P was a one time thing, the only time Prince ever promoted an album that much was for Musicology.

He did it for the album, too. Similar plan, with the Sexy MF VHS single lead-in, Aresenio appearance, tour, plus the Ryde Dyvine/Act I TV special, not to mention the record store appearances where he sat and autographed records. If anything, he worked harder to promote

He did promote yes... But it wasn't the extent or a calculated plan like D&P... I mean the promotion felt more of Prince doing the stuff that he felt comfortable with, hence being back on Aresenio show since they were friends at the time, and the Ryde Dyvine was at Paisley Park... For D&P it was more mainstream obligated promotion due to the fact Frank Dileo basically booked all the promotion... With Love Symbol it was Prince promoting but promoting by his own standards...

There was a huge mainstream difference in the way those two albums were promoted... A small example is the huge difference in sales as well.

With Prince and his commercial ability to capitalize on big selling albums has always been a curse.

Which is why his sales figures have always been up and down and why it confused his label so much at the time.

When an album like Purple Rain sells over 20 million but you choose to sacrifice mass commercial appeal for artistic express, ala ATWIAD....

Or when you have a big commercial #1 album BATMAN then follow up with a commercial flop with GB album and movie...

Diamonds & Pearls, Musicology little promotion with 3121... Prince was never good at capitalizing off big selling albums, he seemd to always "kill" the momentum to sacrifice his artistic vision or image for a certain album and time period.

Classic turkey sub, for mine. Got a lot of love for the organic sound and the gospel influence on many of the songs, but I have to skip past Thunder and I don't like Jughead and Strollin, I rarely 5-star an album where the first track is a hurdle.

feeluupp said:

With Prince and his commercial ability to capitalize on big selling albums has always been a curse.

Which is why his sales figures have always been up and down and why it confused his label so much at the time.

When an album like Purple Rain sells over 20 million but you choose to sacrifice mass commercial appeal for artistic express, ala ATWIAD....

Or when you have a big commercial #1 album BATMAN then follow up with a commercial flop with GB album and movie...

Diamonds & Pearls, Musicology little promotion with 3121... Prince was never good at capitalizing off big selling albums, he seemd to always "kill" the momentum to sacrifice his artistic vision or image for a certain album and time period.

You bring up a good point.His actions must have drove Warner Bros. crazy It's frustrating to think that Prince could have easily kept that Purple Rain audience for several more years,if he had just done some things differently.

[Edited 7/11/18 1:16am]

feeluupp said:

SchlomoThaHomo said:

He did it for the album, too. Similar plan, with the Sexy MF VHS single lead-in, Aresenio appearance, tour, plus the Ryde Dyvine/Act I TV special, not to mention the record store appearances where he sat and autographed records. If anything, he worked harder to promote

He did promote yes... But it wasn't the extent or a calculated plan like D&P... I mean the promotion felt more of Prince doing the stuff that he felt comfortable with, hence being back on Aresenio show since they were friends at the time, and the Ryde Dyvine was at Paisley Park... For D&P it was more mainstream obligated promotion due to the fact Frank Dileo basically booked all the promotion... With Love Symbol it was Prince promoting but promoting by his own standards...

There was a huge mainstream difference in the way those two albums were promoted... A small example is the huge difference in sales as well.

I don't think you can say he promoted Love Symbol any less than D&P. He was previewing some Symbol tracks on the D&P tour and would play most of the album on the Act I tour.

.

The sales for Symbol would have been affected by:

1) The old 'over saturating the market' argument. It was only one year after D&P.

2) The single choices. It was reported WB wanted to release 7 first, which may have fared better on the radio/charts than P's first 2 choices of Sexy M.F followed by My Name Is Prince.

3) The 3 Chains O' Gold movie being released nearly 2 years after the album.

dodger said:

feeluupp said:

He did promote yes... But it wasn't the extent or a calculated plan like D&P... I mean the promotion felt more of Prince doing the stuff that he felt comfortable with, hence being back on Aresenio show since they were friends at the time, and the Ryde Dyvine was at Paisley Park... For D&P it was more mainstream obligated promotion due to the fact Frank Dileo basically booked all the promotion... With Love Symbol it was Prince promoting but promoting by his own standards...

There was a huge mainstream difference in the way those two albums were promoted... A small example is the huge difference in sales as well.

I don't think you can say he promoted Love Symbol any less than D&P. He was previewing some Symbol tracks on the D&P tour and would play most of the album on the Act I tour.

.

The sales for Symbol would have been affected by:

1) The old 'over saturating the market' argument. It was only one year after D&P.

2) The single choices. It was reported WB wanted to release 7 first, which may have fared better on the radio/charts than P's first 2 choices of Sexy M.F followed by My Name Is Prince.

3) The 3 Chains O' Gold movie being released nearly 2 years after the album.

That delay may have helped