IMO.... this album was garbarge... Maybe one or two songs were good, that's it. I remember be really excited buying this and when I was listening to it, I was like WTF is this?!?! To think a couple years before he gave us the brilliant TGE and now that? This started my lack of interest of new Prince music... sad because the early 90s was excellent music, the late 90s and early 00's (the Larry Graham years) was like passing a kidney stone, just painful.

Never did it for me.

Hit and miss

"The One" is one of his best songs, however.

The album is dreadful, with the exception of three songs: "The One," "Come On" and "Wasted Kisses."

I love the title track, Push It Up and Come On. And I like the rest.

RobotFix said:

The album is dreadful, with the exception of three songs: "The One," "Come On" and "Wasted Kisses."

Pretty much, though I think Mad Sex and Until U're In My Arms Again are decent.

.

Also, a mention for the Come On (Remix); which I think is excellent.

KoolEaze said:

Co-sign on all the bolded parts, it´s exactly how I feel about that era and those albums.

By the way, speaking of the "original" NPG sound with Michael B. etc. and how it´s missing on NPS and Emancipation....you tell immediately recognize the few tracks on Emancipation that were recorded with the original NPG. Betcha By Golly Wow starts with that typical Michael B. drumsound, and that powerful Sonny T. bass. I know it´s not everybody´s favorite cover version but I love it, and I wish he would´ve kept that band around a bit longer instead of replacing Michael B, Sonny and Tommy with other musicians. Those others were good, too, but nothing comes close to the tightness and energy that the power trio Sonny, Mike and Prince had.

100% agree. I've always said the tracks on Emancipation with the 'original NPG band/sound' stand out a mile to the rest. I also wish he stuck with them longer as they'd have massively improved tracks like Jam Of The Year and the title track

MIRvmn said:

I like Newpower Soul It's better than albums like C&D, Rave and Musicology

SOOO much better than Rave. I do like Musicology...it's more a complete album.

C&D is decent, but like other contract albums was half-assed.

I think some of these records, like a lot of his catalog, and your enjoyment of them come down to what sort of style you enjoy the most from him. He was so diverse it was almost impossible to satisfy everybody and his records usually had several different songs with different emphasis (funk, pop, ballad, rock, weird...rap for a while). This one leaned more towards r&b, dance and a sort of toned down funk/dance style. Like most of his albums, several songs came off better live.

To this day, I remain perplexed and amused reading what songs/albums/periods people consider to be great/good/mediocre/shitty. There's never really been a consensus and his records were NEVER thematically consistent past, say, 1999, PR and ATWIAD. Unless you count the "one offs" or "side projects like The Truth, N.E.W.S and One Nite Alone (Piano). I guess you could argue TRC was fairly focused stylistically along with AoA but usually what we got was a stew of styles and I'd wager that the "skip it" tracks remained different for most everybody across several releases.

SoTT, largely considered his best work, is all over the fucking place but works for that reason since he was at his peak.

That said, someone posted "Come On", "Wasted Kisses" and "The One" so that right there...hard to call any record "shit" that gave us those. This album is like the majority we got for the most part.

RobotFix said:

... not worthy the energy my cd-player consumes.

jdcxc said:

RobotFix said:

The album is dreadful, with the exception of three songs: "The One," "Come On" and "Wasted Kisses."

Dreadful? Lol. There are albums released by other musicians who are LUCKY to have three cool songs. Add: Mad Sex- Brilliant

People constantly bring this up as means of comparison, but do you really think Prince fans are wasting their time with such artists of fragmentary quality? This sounds like the kind of counterpoint you give a 2019 Top 40 fan.

I have LOVED this since the very first day I heard it.

One of P's greatest albums.

It has passed the test of time because it wasn't commercial sounding.

It's not one of my favourite cd's, but I do like some of the songs. I would give it a 5/10.

NEWPOWER SOUL
New Power Generation
NPG

As for the Artist Everybody Still Calls Prince himself, he's back with another pocketful of Trojans, some of them used, on Newpower Soul, his first all-new album on his own label. Despite this hard-won artistic freedom, Newpower Soul follows the same basic formula as the Artist's other Nineties albums: two great tunes and a buttload of filler. He obviously didn't waste much time on either the songs or the recording -- his real gig these days is on the road, where his recent shows with funk bassman Larry Graham and soul virtuosa Chaka Khan are already the stuff of rock & roll legend.

.

Newpower Soul (which is credited to the Artist's band, New Power Generation) works mainly as an ad for the live show, sort of like a Grateful Dead studio album. One of the two keepers is the unlisted final bonus track, a moody three-minute ballad about two lovers wasting their kisses. The other is "Mad Sex," which proves yet again that women, not girls, rule his world. Over tinkling piano and an obscene bass line, the Artist promises to go "dirty-up another room" with his paramour: "Do it till your tattoo's dizzy/And the stud in your mouth turns gold."

.

After that, the songs are just competent throwaways; the musicians sound bored, waiting to rip it up onstage, and the ballads are flimsy coming from the man who once sang "Adore," the six most blissful minutes of sex ever captured on tape.

.

Newpower Soul also recycles the clunky hip-hop and stale jamming that have cluttered most of the Artist's recent work. As he self-consciously evolves from radio star to cult funk hero, the Artist doesn't see the studio as the place to prove himself. He's still a uniquely vivid cultural presence, showing up in the strangest places - squeaky-clean country teen LeAnn Rimes even sings "Purple Rain" on her new album. In his own music, though, the Artist is just one of many trying to carry on the Princely tradition. The catch is that other people -- Maxwell, for one -- are making better Prince records than he is.

-- ROB SHEFFIELD

Bushy head mulatto breakdown

2 the darkness — let there be light
2 the soundman — turn up my voice real tight
2 the N.P.G. — if U in this mother, scream
Show me how U all get down — 1 2 3, come on

Gemini rising on the 7th day
Makin' MAD SEX, UNTIL U'RE IN MY ARMS, OK?
Cuz WHEN U LOVE SOMEBODY like that, it's cool
U gots no need 4 the SHOO-BED-OOH-bed-ooh
THE GOOD LIFE, yeah, we'll be livin'
PUSHIN' UP on every FREAK THIS SIDE of heaven
COME ON, come on, shake it, come on
U know I be's THE ONE with the FUNKY MUSIC, hon'
And I'm layin' phat claims 2 the booty
Phat claims 2 the Newpower booty
Keepin' the crowd movin', y'all, is my one and only duty, ooh wee!
With the NEWPOWER SOUL
Right on

Q

New Power Generation
Newpower Soul

Yes, it's Prince by yet another nom-de-disc -- this time letting Paisley Park acolytes New Power Generation play some of the instruments, although make no mistake, the diminutive one is in charge of proceedings here. The career of the artist fleetingly known as Victor may have stalled -- "enslavement" by Warner Brothers notwithstanding -- but some things remain immutable in the man's ever-burgeoning canon -- namely the marrying of Sly-meets-Parliament funkadelicism with lashings of lyrical prurience. Thus things kick-off predictably enough with the propulsive groove of Gemini Rising On The Seventh Day and the difficult-to-misinterpret Mad Sex which details a typical litany of groinular encounters over a snapping snare-drum-led, although it's ultimately a pedestrian funk jam. Until Ure In My Arms Again revisits the saccharine pop-soul of The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, while Shoo-Bed-Ooh starts promisingly, like a slippery re-working of Sly & The Family Stone's Family Affair before demurring to an insouciant chorus that The Real Thing might have thought twice about. After such an opening, Push It Up! and Freaks On This Side -- the latter featuring an angular horn arrangement worthy of Neal Hefti -- come as something of a relief, both being easier on the steamhammer rhythmic assault and multi-overdubbed Princely harmonies. Come On, Gett Off's laid-back cousin, contains some deliciously elastic guitar chops and contrastingly cheesy string synthesizers and Prince's apparently helium-assisted vocals describing an unconventional love triangle in London. Further respite arrives on the leatherette-smooth muzak-ballad The One, although its airbrushed blandness is hardly a cause for celebration. Much better, despite the less-than-groundbreaking title, is the closing Funky Music wherein loquacious clavinets and popping percussion vie for dominance over a dance groove. Buried deep in the run-off groove, or CD equivalent thereof, is an uncredited bonus track, possibly titled Why Do I Waste My Kisses On You, that sees our narrator getting into a lather about burgundy stockings over some suitably sleazy jazz-funk stylings. So no change there, then. It's a meticulously executed exercise in treading water. It's been the case for too long now. More artistry next time, please.

***

David Sheppard

like that other thread..The One is the one great claSSIC TRACK...a few others..not much

Always loved the album. Old posts will confirm this!... Thing is... I didn't hear it until like 2001

I don't understand how something that's nearly bad (COME) rates high among y'all...unless it's basically a generational thing..


NPS is awesme and it's basically a stand alone party album, as close to a Pfunk album as he would get. It also took this guy (me) years to understand what the real topic of "Until Ur In mY Arms Again" was...

I used to crank that sheeit in High School and people would hear the falsetto (cause I was neglectful of keeping in ear volume down at the time) and some laughed about it... but hey.. fuck em.


It's a fantastic album, and stellar stuff... Prince's tunes came in all shades

if Pince himself said u got to dig to find the gems....

2045RadicalMattZ said:

NPS is awesme and it's basically a stand alone party album, as close to a Pfunk album as he would get.

Seek out Exodus

This album is worth it for the hidden track. After Emancipation and the death of his child, we have a track called called Wasted Kisses featuring a heart monitor. Prince was always best with heart on his sleeve.

Come on people, this album is the one, we should push it up the album rankings.

herb4 said:

2045RadicalMattZ said:

NPS is awesme and it's basically a stand alone party album, as close to a Pfunk album as he would get.

Seek out Exodus

I've got it. Played parts of it (unfortunately)... It was a tumultuous time when I was moving back and forth.... I put it aside for another day... damn... that was 3 years ago!.. I'll go locate it or just play it from a streamer online.

Thanks for the interaction either way.

andymacfunky said:

This album is worth it for the hidden track. After Emancipation and the death of his child, we have a track called called Wasted Kisses featuring a heart monitor. Prince was always best with heart on his sleeve.

Come on people, this album is the one, we should push it up the album rankings.

Doncha mean :
GEMINI RISIN ON THE 7TH DAY, MAKIN MAD SEX UNTIL UR IN MY ARMS OK? CAUSE WHEN U LOVE SOMEBODY LIKE DAT ITS COOL. YOU GOTS NO NEED 4 THE SHOO-BE-DOO BE DOO THE GOOD LIFE WE'LL BE LIVIN, PUSHIN IT UP ON EVERY FREAK THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN C'MON, C'MON SHAKE IT C'MON,

U KNOW I'S BE THE ONE WITH THE FUNKY MUSIC AND I'M LAYIN FAT CLAIMS TO THE BOOTY, FAT CLAIMS 2 THE NEW POWER BOOTY,

KEEPING THE CROWD MOVIN, Y'ALL

IS MY ONE AND ONLY DUTY... WOO WEE?