Was reading an article about The Rainbow Children and the topic of the voice modulation came up. Got me to thinking about how many times Prince detracted from his overall output by dragging it down with silly and, at times, nonsensical segues and narration.

He did this often, along with adding story elements in a lot of his video projects, and I can't think of an instance where it ever added anything to a piece overall. Love Symbol, Exodus and TRC would all be better albums without the narration. It doesn't really hurt THE Gold EXPERIENCE but it doesn't add anything either.

The SoTT film gets those goofy plot elements. Then you've got the Love for One Another, Three Chains of Gold, The Undertaker and the Diamonds and Pearls video collections which all have these odd story beats woven into them and interrupting the presentation in ways that are distracting and off putting.

Seems like the more effort Prince put into making a statement or telling a story, the more opaque and convoluted the message got and it always seemed to detract from the music itself.

thoughts?

The Exodus ones were funny the first time I heard them but the disc I listen to strips them all out. The Rainbow Children ones almost render the record unlistenable if the music weren't so good. TGE ones aren't as annoying as they usually are but I don't feel they add much either.

I just figure I'd throw it out there. Don't recall a thread really talking about it before but it probably exists.

It doesn't bother me on TRC, I actually quite enjoy the narration on the title track. The segues on Love Symbol didn't bother me either, they're fun but don't really add anything. They absolutely ruin The Gold Experience for me though. I really hate the cheesy 'wooshing' electronic door opening sound and all the other computer noises he uses throughout the album.

As for SOTT film, I wish he'd cut all the extra bits out and that it had been a pure concert film. The story elements detract from it in a big way.

The only ones I genuinely enjoy are the ones on the Cream cd single. All the others I could take or leave.

Well first let me say I won't comment on The Rainbow Children since it's one of my least favorite albums. Segues or not, no thanks.

Exodus: My favorite NPG album, by far. The segues, for me, really drag down the momentum of the album. The music is fire, but the "Mashed Potato Girl" and the bum-rushing the ship bullshit is just annoying. It's actually one album that I did not rip the segues to my iTunes. So no, the segues did not add anything to this one.

: The segues were cute and all but because of adding "I Wanna Melt With U", and being forced to delete some of the other segues, the quasi-storyline fell to the wayside. At most, they tied in with the "My Name Is Prince" video. They're not nearly as distracting as the ones on Exodus.

the Gold experience: I think these are pretty neat. It ties in with the Beautiful experience video, almost feeling like an extended soundtrack to the video. While they're just silly segues, I do feel more of the narrator's struggle when it comes to commitment. Remember, he keeps hitting the button later when the NPG Operator gets to "commitment" in her message, quickly defaulting to a sequence of sexual songs. In some way, he does commit, yet gets hurt anyway (if you follow a storyline in your head) because he calls her a bitch, and sings about how he hates her despite loving her. I'm sure many of us, I know I have, has edited those segues and used them as an outgoing message on our answering machines.

Funny note about the segues: When I lived in Minneapolis in 1997, I was bored one evening. I called some phone chat line in the back of a magazine. I used the Kirstie segues (queuing them on CD by hand, mind you) to send messages back and forth to men. "How old are you?" "45" "That is not the truth and you know it!" or "Don't sweat it, honey, I'm too young for you." They never EVER caught on that it was Kirstie from a Prince album. I only wish I had recorded the whole thing. I was laughing so hard through the whole thing. It went on with about 5 guys for 30 minutes, back and forth.

I've always enjoyed the segues on Janet records.

the only one i really like is the npg operator segue at the start of the exodus album.

it has the xylophone in the background and the distorted prince vocal.

beyond that, i don't think i'd miss any of the segues if they weren't there on any of
his albums.

i don't mind them on 'the rainbow children' since i don't view it as segues but more
as a narrator guiding you through the album, weaving in and out of the story.

the ones on the gold experience were such fun and so cool in 1994 but even by the
time the album was released they started to sound dated. i like some of them but
they are a bit corny.

i wonder what other segues we're going to get on future vault releases. by the time
the start scraping the bottom of the barrel in 2067 there will be releases with hours
and hours of extra segues for the Exodus album

sonny turns the tv off [version #2]
sonny turns the tv off [version #3]
sonny turns the tv off [version #3 - long take]
sonny turns the tv off [version #3 - alternate]
sonny turns the tv off [version #3 - alternate tv BG]
sonny turns the tv off [version #5]
sonny turns the tv off [version #6]
sonny turns the tv off [version #7]

sonny turns the tv off [version #7 - long intro]

sonny turns the tv off [version #8]

sonny turns the tv off [version #9]

sonny turns the tv off [version #10]
sonny turns the tv off [version #10 - mono]

i mean, listen to that xylophone track on the NPG OPERATOR [INTRO] from exodus.

i love that.

especially the bit from 0:25 till the end. it's only about 9 seconds long and it's such
a neat little bit of music. whenever i hear that it's stuck in my head for days.

i'm always wondering if it's a little tiny bit from another prince song that i simply
fail to recognise and that's why it sound both familiar and beautiful.

anyway. so there's merit in that segue for me. i LOVE that xylophone [it's probably
a keyboard, but hey].

[Edited 10/14/18 12:35pm]

NorthC said:

No. Never. If you have a vault full of music, then it's a crime to waste even one second on a record with this stupid unfunny nonsense. I don't even like the spoken intro of 1999.

Do you feel this way about cover versions too? Personally, I don't mind the segues, they are part of his creative persona and where his head was ... as are the covers, I suppose ... but I more annoyed that Every Day Is A Winding Road has an official release and There's Others Here With Us doesn't.

The only segues that added something to the whole thing were, in my opinion, those Nona Gaye segues in The Beautiful Experience. That was a nice little story with a message.

But segues, even good ones, often make the whole thing age badly.

KoolEaze said:

The only segues that added something to the whole thing were, in my opinion, those Nona Gaye segues in The Beautiful Experience. That was a nice little story with a message.

But segues, even good ones, often make the whole thing age badly.

I agree, it really dates them.

The only one that matters is Mashed Potato Girl (is that considered a segue?). The rest give me a music shuffle headache. They are cheesy. Segueless is the goal.

rdhull said:

The only one that matters is Mashed Potato Girl (is that considered a segue?). The rest give me a music shuffle headache. They are cheesy. Segueless is the goal.

"you eat like a fuckin' parakeet"

yeah, mashed potato girl is a good one

IstenSzek said:

rdhull said:

The only one that matters is Mashed Potato Girl (is that considered a segue?). The rest give me a music shuffle headache. They are cheesy. Segueless is the goal.

"you eat like a fuckin' parakeet"

yeah, mashed potato girl is a good one

I kid you not

rdhull said:

NorthC said:

No. Never. If you have a vault full of music, then it's a crime to waste even one second on a record with this stupid unfunny nonsense. I don't even like the spoken intro of 1999.

There is no connection between this and that, the segues do not take the place of the songs and vice versa.

TrivialPursuit said:

Funny note about the segues: When I lived in Minneapolis in 1997, I was bored one evening. I called some phone chat line in the back of a magazine. I used the Kirstie segues (queuing them on CD by hand, mind you) to send messages back and forth to men. "How old are you?" "45" "That is not the truth and you know it!" or "Don't sweat it, honey, I'm too young for you." They never EVER caught on that it was Kirstie from a Prince album. I only wish I had recorded the whole thing. I was laughing so hard through the whole thing. It went on with about 5 guys for 30 minutes, back and forth.

Brilliant!

herb4 said:

Was reading an article about The Rainbow Children and the topic of the voice modulation came up. Got me to thinking about how many times Prince detracted from his overall output by dragging it down with silly and, at times, nonsensical segues and narration.

He did this often, along with adding story elements in a lot of his video projects, and I can't think of an instance where it ever added anything to a piece overall. Love Symbol, Exodus and TRC would all be better albums without the narration. It doesn't really hurt THE Gold EXPERIENCE but it doesn't add anything either.

The SoTT film gets those goofy plot elements. Then you've got the Love for One Another, Three Chains of Gold, The Undertaker and the Diamonds and Pearls video collections which all have these odd story beats woven into them and interrupting the presentation in ways that are distracting and off putting.

Seems like the more effort Prince put into making a statement or telling a story, the more opaque and convoluted the message got and it always seemed to detract from the music itself.

thoughts?

Those segues created more debate than deserved if you ask me. Most aren't essential but no big deal either. The problem with Prince trying to come-up with a narrative is that Prince wasn't ever much of a storyteller. As said above even Grafitti Bridge feels like a series of segues, and the / 3 Chains O' Gold doesn't make any bloody sense no matter how you take it. In the end the Vanessa Bartholomew segues left on the record were better off alone, because they served as a commentary on the press' attitude, while the rest of the narrative just made a confusing half-story.

The Vanessa Marcil puke is really cool, though, particularly in audio only (when I have guests and I play the audio only, people are always like "WTF?!" ).

The TRC narrative is somewhat less confusing, but I really never understood why all the fuss about the Darth Vader voice, I just accepted the record for what it was, no need for drama there.

The NPG Operator segues were cool at the time, let's not forget how futuristic this whole interactive/internet thing still sounded at the time. They made more sense in video format, though, and removing the song Interactive as an intro to the album somewhat hampered the whole concept.

.

The segues on Exodus and Gold Nigga are there to reflect on the "Black" nature of those records: like The Time a decade earlier, the NPG was Prince's macho, "bros from the hood" side as opposed to the more whitewashed and androgynous character of "Prince". This is actually reflected by The Time themselves, with all the skits in Pandemonium in 1990. Segues were as old as albums, but had become really popular in hip-hop and new jack swing at that time. One may like or dislike them, when it comes to Exodus I guess it depends on your sense of humor, it's a very typical Black sort of humorous tone. I find them funny alright, they give a certain personality to the record and I just got used to them. However the real question, beyond Prince following a trend, is why did this trend happen in the first place? Who began to put segues on rap records and why did it become so popular at the time? Wikipedia has this to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/...p_hop_skit

.

[Edited 10/15/18 1:49am]

Interesting article linked on Wiki.

Segues are best discussed in the absolute more than just in P's music.

https://music.avclub.com/phasing-out-the-skit-how-hip-hop-outgrew-one-of-its-mo-1798229914

.

[Edited 10/15/18 1:53am]

dodger said:

rdhull said:

I kid you not

His voices/accents on it are comedy gold. ‘This broad ate every fuckin thing except the silverware’

You gonna eat that?

Well first let me say I won't comment on The Rainbow Children since it's one of my least favorite albums. Segues or not, no thanks.

Exodus: My favorite NPG album, by far. The segues, for me, really drag down the momentum of the album. The music is fire, but the "Mashed Potato Girl" and the bum-rushing the ship bullshit is just annoying. It's actually one album that I did not rip the segues to my iTunes. So no, the segues did not add anything to this one.

: The segues were cute and all but because of adding "I Wanna Melt With U", and being forced to delete some of the other segues, the quasi-storyline fell to the wayside. At most, they tied in with the "My Name Is Prince" video. They're not nearly as distracting as the ones on Exodus.

the Gold experience: I think these are pretty neat. It ties in with the Beautiful experience video, almost feeling like an extended soundtrack to the video. While they're just silly segues, I do feel more of the narrator's struggle when it comes to commitment. Remember, he keeps hitting the button later when the NPG Operator gets to "commitment" in her message, quickly defaulting to a sequence of sexual songs. In some way, he does commit, yet gets hurt anyway (if you follow a storyline in your head) because he calls her a bitch, and sings about how he hates her despite loving her. I'm sure many of us, I know I have, has edited those segues and used them as an outgoing message on our answering machines.

Funny note about the segues: When I lived in Minneapolis in 1997, I was bored one evening. I called some phone chat line in the back of a magazine. I used the Kirstie segues (queuing them on CD by hand, mind you) to send messages back and forth to men. "How old are you?" "45" "That is not the truth and you know it!" or "Don't sweat it, honey, I'm too young for you." They never EVER caught on that it was Kirstie from a Prince album. I only wish I had recorded the whole thing. I was laughing so hard through the whole thing. It went on with about 5 guys for 30 minutes, back and forth.

I've always enjoyed the segues on Janet records.

rdhull said:

The segues on the original pressing (April of 92) of the Symbol Album make more sense than the released version, which ommited many of them in favor of I WANNA MELT WITH U.

On The Gold Experience, yes they did IMO. I love the computer vibe, the "select your experience" approach to it. It made a somewhat concept album out of disjoined tracks. In this respect, they're not meant as anything more than that. I also like how the segues are different tracks, so you can listen to the song itself without any overlap or "fade-in".

I hate them on Exodus, though. I have never cared for Sonny T's voice. Also, I don't care for the excessive cursing that Sonny does on that album.

databank said:

Interesting article linked on Wiki.

Segues are best discussed in the absolute more than just in P's music.

https://music.avclub.com/phasing-out-the-skit-how-hip-hop-outgrew-one-of-its-mo-1798229914

.

Also relates to the dozens, vaudeville and chitlin circuit traditions.

Se7en said:

On The Gold Experience, yes they did IMO. I love the computer vibe, the "select your experience" approach to it. It made a somewhat concept album out of disjoined tracks. In this respect, they're not meant as anything more than that. I also like how the segues are different tracks, so you can listen to the song itself without any overlap or "fade-in".

I hate them on Exodus, though. I have never cared for Sonny T's voice. Also, I don't care for the excessive cursing that Sonny does on that album.

I agree with all of this. The Exodus segues get worse with each listen, interfering with the overall enjoyment of the album unless you skip over them. It seems like a failed attempt to seem relevant to hip hop culture, but it is just so lame. The fact that they were intermixed with some of his best post 80s songs makes it even more baffling. It would have been a great album without them.

Just wanna jump in and say I was reminded of what I think is an essential segue: the little skit right before 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton!

Totally not, they raped so many albums...