I'm going to disagree a bit with the history being shared here. While Rave came to be viewed as a disappointment, leading up to the album, there was a lot of buzz, as it was to be his first proper album without strange distribution or under another moniker (Newpower Soul was credited to the NPG) since Emancipation. Prince performed a lot of surprise shows as Paisley Park and there was a big buzz. Initial reviews of the album were also positive, calling it his best in years, but the promotion was a flop with the late video for "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold" and the fact that "So Far, So Pleased" couldn't be issued as a single.

I know I'm in the minority, but I really like Rave - it's one of my favorite post-Warner Prince albums.

It didn't live up to the hype. I listened to it once through and remember putting the disc back in the case and thinking 'hmmm... that was... disappointing." There was lots of promo here in the UK but TGRES single release was a mess. The Jason Nevins mix was getting radio play but there was no video to support it. I've come to enjoy the album for what it is but it certainly didn't live up to the hype at the time, it just felt like he was trying to replicate Santana's success... never really understood why he would think that was a good idea.

I was disappointed in the album when it came out, like so many fans and critics at the time. However, I still liked it enough to play it many times. I really can't imagine never playing it or playing it one time only, so I guess I am out of step with many fans here. I started playing it again after he died, and actually liked it better than before. When you hose off the high expectations surrounding it's release, it actually is a pretty good album. It's just not nearly as good as most of his albums that preceded it.

It was the first album I didn't buy right around release date since the early eighties. I bought it only more then ten years later when I found the vinyl really cheap at a second hand store. And I still don't like it at all.

My favourite song on it is TGRES, contrary to popular opinion. But not even that is in the top 100 of my favourite Prince songs. By far, I should add.

I like the remixed version of the Album a lot more because it has Beautiful Strange on it and omits some of the more uninteresting songs. And the Nasty Girl Remix is quite good, too. Still cannot listen to the original version, though. Completely uninteresting.

The undisputed highlight of the whole era is the Septimo Performance that was taped for spanish TV.

That said, the completist I am would really appreciate the official release of the Man O War Remix tape:

http://princevault.com/index.php?title=Sampler:_Man_O_War_(Remix)_Nine_Deep_Trax_Sampler

Some great unreleased gems on there (Madhouse, come on!).

When the Versace experience can be released, why not this?

Yeah, just what others have said - not too well received. More hype and expectation thatn delivered given Prince's and Clive Davis' enthusiasm beforehand.

I liked it then and still like it today. Some of the material is very strong. The main problem, I think, is sequencing. Too many songs, the New Funk commercial tacked on, segues, etc. I would have appreciated a tighter set of 12 or 13 songs.

kindofblue said:

That said, the completist I am would really appreciate the official release of the Man O War Remix tape:

http://princevault.com/index.php?title=Sampler:_Man_O_War_(Remix)_Nine_Deep_Trax_Sampler

Some great unreleased gems on there (Madhouse, come on!).

When the Versace experience can be released, why not this?

What a strange tracklisting.

It's like people were talking about the press for Come affecting people's reactions to the record. I feel the same applies here.

To me, it's superior to about 90% of his 90s work, but because the marketing is all "Prince's return to form" "Symbol produced by Prince", guest appearances, mainstream fanfare, final reaction is like "meh."

"To paraphrase Woody Allen, genius is like a shark; it has to move forward or it dies. And what we have here is a patchily impressive, fleetingly satisfying, but very, very dead shark."NME

Rave was the album with which I finally lost hope that he would recapture his previous form in its entirety... it was mostly due to loyalty that I hadn't already. There were always flashes of brilliance (Beautiful Strange), but yes, it was a pretty depressing album for me. The young guy at the record store (a brooding Nirvana type) almost refused to sell it to me, he despised Prince so much. The title track is the stand-out for me, and even then I was annoyed that he'd truncated it.

TrivialPursuit said:

A small bunch of the songs leaked before the album ever came out. I had a good half-dozen months before. So I was sorta already into it. I liked it. But the problems aren't the songs, because many albums have eh-songs.

The problem was the lead single. Prince has a shitty history of picking a lead single from an album sometimes. "TGRES" should never have been a single, evar. The singles, in any order, should have been:

• So Far, So Pleased
• Baby Knows
• Prettyman
• I Love U But Don't Trust U Anymore
• Wherever U Go, Whatever U Do

Not to say other songs aren't good, but they're not truly radio friendly and single-worthy. Clive & Prince got in a slap fight and the album fell thru the cracks. There was a lot of build-up with no support afterward. (It makes me think about how Island failed on Janet's Discipline for similar differences between artist & record company.)

But I can see where comments by rdhull etc have validity because there was a lot of hype with the then-forthcoming "album by , but produced by Prince," and then - nothing. Even a simple video for TGRES was months after the song had been released. I remember some story about the Neptunes having a hard time remixing the song for the single because it was just a shitty song in general. (Didn't someone else decline to do a remix because they didn't like the song?)

Too bad. It could've been a moderate hit album for him, especially with it being 1999. But he refused to do any appearances to play "1999" and simultaneously promote Rave. Oh sure, he was on The View, Today, and TRL, but whoopie.

[Edited 9/23/19 11:55am]

Well, I'm fairly certain "So Far So Pleased" and "Baby Knows" would have tanked worse than "Greatest Romance". They are not single worthy to my ears. The melodies don't hook in that pop way.

ufoclub said:

ufoclub said:

Well, I'm fairly certain "So Far So Pleased" and "Baby Knows" would have tanked worse than "Greatest Romance". They are not single worthy to my ears. The melodies don't hook in that pop way.

You can be fairly certain of that, but to compare those two to some tripe like TGRES is insane to me. "So Far, So Pleased" is even more pop friendly than "Baby Knows", which could have straddled both pop and urban markets (as Prince tended to do regularly).

there was some hype about it, I went to a listening party from the record company just before it was released (through some contacts from record stores). There was anticipation in the room before the music started and the energy got lower with every new song. I still don't think of the album as part of his body of work, much like 1-800-newfunk.

.

To add insult to injury, he then proceeds to add Beautiful Strange to an interview with Mel B and then puts a much worse version of that marvelous song on the fan-only release, Rave In2.

.

Clive Davis has done atrocious things to many people, he also killed the music in Harry Connick Jr. for instance. The album and era is best forgotten. Shame it took an unhealthy dose of religion to get him back to music with Rainbow Children. I just wish he had taken a different drug and been able to get the help he needed both physically and mentally.

Rave...

After new power soul, i really hoped that our man would kick ass again...and the first single greatest romance with the funky adam & eve remix was nice. I really like the sound of it, but the middlepart of the song drags it kinda down...anyway. After getting the CD the dissapointment was big. I remember the years around 1999 were all about fat and crazy beats, nice melodies, big productions..And rave had nothing of it. There was nothing on it that u could show your hip friends . most of the songs sounds flat, lifeless..some cool melodies, thats it.

His promotion was very big in europe, but playing baby knows for Teenagers (TOTP) was just a silly idea...and even the fake live performance of Greatest romance was bad. Why the fuck isnt he able to recreate the sound of the Studio version, why those fucking horn in it... And all the interviews were meh...

Even the video for Greatest romance was so fucking boring..man, what a wasted opportunity..

he should have released greatest romance jason nevins remix, that had the balls to reach a wider and younger audience.

Maybe than hot with you, but not that silly nasty girl remix...Hot with u has a great chorus, the melody of the verses is weak, but when Eve kicks in, it gets funky..

Where ever u go, that is disigned for the masses, great melody...this one could smash the charts

and for the soft-poprockers so far so pleased...could get some attention...

1999 was a big let down, i was afraid, that it was his end...then came rainbow-children, that was even worse...but had mostly live-instruments, the only positive point...

i was really happy, that he recovered with musicology...

this what I think of Rave, his look, his style, his associations and his sound and thatwhole era.... I thought new power soul was garbarge, this took it to another level and I checked out on Prince from 1998 to 2004

Prince said "there's alot of craZY GUITAR ON IT"........trim the fat and u got an excellent album about 50 minutes

Moonbeam said:

A lot of interesting thoughts in this thread. I noticed there's many mentions of Greatest Romance's promo being filmed too late, but it was shown in Rave Un2 The Year 2000 (filmed December 1999).

I have two vivid memories of this album.

One was my high school art teacher seeing the album on my desk during class and asking if he could put the album on during the class. Half way through, he shook his head, grimaced and said 'I'm not liking it!'. I do remember one class mate saying they liked 'Strange But True' though.

The second is telling my friend who was a No Doubt fan that Gewn Stefani was on the new Prince album. We sat in my car and I played it for her. Less than half way through she gave me a confused look and silently got out of the car and walked away.

Kinda sums up RAVE for me.

For a long time Prince seemed to be chasing his tail... like he forgot how he used to make music and was trying to recapture that. And he also wanted to keep up the album a year when maybe he should have slowed to one every 3?

Very, very poorly. In a year where Baby Geniuses, The Haunting, Inspector Gadget and Wild Wild West dropped bombs on pop culture, Rave UnDo Career So Tragic was a monumental disaster of unmitigated proportions that wiped away the memory of The Gold Experience and led to a panicked album of 1999 remixes to try and remind us that he once wrote great Pop. Then again, if one were to ever doubt man's inhumanity to man, Rave was but a brief shudder in the horrors of Y2k that subjected those of us stranded in one-radio towns still slowly learning the ways of Napster to cruel, systemic torture...Britney Spears, Christina Aguileria, S Club 7, Mandy Moore, Puff Daddy, A*Teens, Five, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Willenium, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Faith Hill, Limp Bizkit, Westlife, Ricky Martin, Creed, Britney Spears, Enrique, that band who released their only good song "Butterfly" 2 years later, Backstreet Boys, LFO...

Still better than the last 10 years though

It sold a half a million copies without even one hit single. So I say it served it's purpose. Plus Rave in2 was a nice extra treat.

TrivialPursuit said:

ufoclub said:

Well, I'm fairly certain "So Far So Pleased" and "Baby Knows" would have tanked worse than "Greatest Romance". They are not single worthy to my ears. The melodies don't hook in that pop way.

You can be fairly certain of that, but to compare those two to some tripe like TGRES is insane to me. "So Far, So Pleased" is even more pop friendly than "Baby Knows", which could have straddled both pop and urban markets (as Prince tended to do regularly).

So Far, So Pleased seems to be the template for his next 15 odd years of likeable but forgettable breezy pop-rock songs - The One U Wanna C, The Morning After, RocknRoll Love Affair, Cinnamon Girl, Hot Summer... I like em all a bit but they're hardly When You Were Mine.

I think some of the 80's vault stuff that has leaked/been released in recent years - Everybody Wants, Yah U Know, Velvet Kitty Kat, Katrina's Paper Dolls etc, kind of shows that he was always writing songs like this but they only very occasionally turned into a Cream or Raspberry Beret, or even a Dinner with Delores.

I was aware of the Rave album at the time but wasn't a fan, and So Far, So Pleased wouldn't have done anything to convince me that he was good, it would have just washed over me as generic, bland radio music, but maybe that means it could have been a hit? It may as well be called "Up next, News and Weather." You Get What You Give by the New Radicals (to choose a hit from the time) is an edgier recording than this, and back in 1999 when we were still dependent on radio and mtv we were gasping for something with a bit of edge.

[Edited 9/30/19 6:52am]

jaawwnn said:

So Far, So Pleased seems to be the template for his next 15 odd years of likeable but forgettable breezy pop-rock songs - The One U Wanna C, The Morning After, RocknRoll Love Affair, Cinnamon Girl, Hot Summer... I like em all a bit but they're hardly When You Were Mine.

There is some truth to that, depending on one's perspective. "Hot Summer" is a remake of things like "Shake".

What is more interesting about songs like "The Morning After", "Rock N Roll Love Affair", and "Cinnamon Girl" is that - production aside - they show how great Prince was at crafting a storyline in a song, rather than just blurting a monolog about fucking someone.

And just as a note, there's a jangly janky thing to "The One U Wanna C" that reminds me of The Revolution. Wendy used to play that modified Rickenbacker purple guitar (before it was stolen and never found again) that was known for its janky warbly sound. TOUWC has that twangy sound in it, and could have easily been a Revolution track back in the day.

TrivialPursuit said:

jaawwnn said:

So Far, So Pleased seems to be the template for his next 15 odd years of likeable but forgettable breezy pop-rock songs - The One U Wanna C, The Morning After, RocknRoll Love Affair, Cinnamon Girl, Hot Summer... I like em all a bit but they're hardly When You Were Mine.

There is some truth to that, depending on one's perspective. "Hot Summer" is a remake of things like "Shake".

What is more interesting about songs like "The Morning After", "Rock N Roll Love Affair", and "Cinnamon Girl" is that - production aside - they show how great Prince was at crafting a storyline in a song, rather than just blurting a monolog about fucking someone.

And just as a note, there's a jangly janky thing to "The One U Wanna C" that reminds me of The Revolution. Wendy used to play that modified Rickenbacker purple guitar (before it was stolen and never found again) that was known for its janky warbly sound. TOUWC has that twangy sound in it, and could have easily been a Revolution track back in the day.

i thought it was believed that wendy and lisa are in fact on this track? this one and Resolution, iirc.

IstenSzek said:

TrivialPursuit said:

And just as a note, there's a jangly janky thing to "The One U Wanna C" that reminds me of The Revolution. Wendy used to play that modified Rickenbacker purple guitar (before it was stolen and never found again) that was known for its janky warbly sound. TOUWC has that twangy sound in it, and could have easily been a Revolution track back in the day.

i thought it was believed that wendy and lisa are in fact on this track? this one and Resolution, iirc.

Hmmm, I honestly don't recall if I ever heard that or not. Princevault echoes your statement:

The best thing in The One U Wanna C is probably the Larry Graham-ish bassline, the "janky warbly" sound to my ears places it as the midpoint between RocknRoll Love Affair and Willing and Able, or at least those guitar lines.

SoulAlive said:

ufoclub said:

Well, I'm fairly certain "So Far So Pleased" and "Baby Knows" would have tanked worse than "Greatest Romance". They are not single worthy to my ears. The melodies don't hook in that pop way.

“So Far,So Pleased” would have been a Top 10 pop smash.That song is fun and infectious.

The bit that follows the lyrics, where it goes to the intrumental section with the lead synth, that kind of takes the place of the chorus and repeats after the lyrics, is so bad to my ears... not an infectious melody... but a dead one to me.