Agree with most of what is said here, even though I am a fan of the album as is. True, "I Like Funky Music," goes nowhere, but something about "Freaks On This Side" gets under my skin in the best way, despite and maybe even because of its artificiality: the lazy, almost non-existent drum track, the brittle clipped-out crowd sample... it just feels like kind of a perfect song to me, though yeah a proper arena-sized recording would have been very cool.

TrivialPursuit said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

I often think New Power Soul would have sounded better as a half live album. ...

...

Back to NPS: songs like "Push It Up," or "Freaks on This Side" sound like demos compared to how it could've sounded with a live setting or no drum machines. That dry, compressed, and narrow drum sound in "Freaks On this Side" and "I Like Funky Music" (which is a chant song waiting to happen, but is stillborn) are just boring as hell.

...

I like NPS. Never got the hate for it

herb4 said:

RJOrion said:

herb4 said:

I like NPS. Never got the hate for it

i dont hate it...i just dont hear anything with any real replay value other than "Freaks On This Side"...only Prince lp i can be accused of hating is "Chaos & Disorder"... and even thats starting to grow on me, mainly because the Lil Homie aint here no more.

Wasted Kisses, Come On, Mad Sex, The One...parts of other songs...it's fine.

Better than Planet Earth, NEWS, Rave...2010

I'm not saying it's a masterpiece but I can always find some meat on the bones of most of Prince's records. For a wile there, it was always

1 or 2 great songs
2 or 3 good ones
3 to 5 Ok ones
1 or 2 throwaways
1 or 2 disasters

This was a pattern for a good long while and I always found myself splicing his releases together, editing them into one CD I liked. Sometimes his sheer range and ambition got in the way of making a real, proper album

Really disliked the album when it came out. Put it on the shelf and never listened to it again.

Revisited the album earlier this year and I really like it. Not one of his best, but it definitely doesn't deserve all of the hate that it gets.

MIInsane said:

Really disliked the album when it came out. Put it on the shelf and never listened to it again.

Revisited the album earlier this year and I really like it. Not one of his best, but it definitely doesn't deserve all of the hate that it gets.

Yeah I hated it. Now I like. At the time I wanted what I was used to from Prince. Kirky J just seemed to suck the specialness out of Prince but I like Emancipation and NPS today

RJOrion said:

i cant agree with NPS being better than Rave, NEWS, or 20Ten...at all...its better than C&D, The Gold Experience, Planet Earth and Xpectation though..."Prettyman" alone is better than NPS in its entirety...same with "Sticky Like Glue"...nothing on NPS comes anywhere near close to either of those songs... Rave, NPS, and 20Ten all are loaded with filler, but NPS has no high points as high as the other 2 (IMO)

To each their own and all that I suppose.

Right now, in another thread, a bunch of weirdos are hashing out who gets to have an opinion about an album based on what bootlegs and vault stuff they like so, yeah. How strange.

It's completely OK to like an album, people. Liking "the wrong shit", as if it were a badge of being a proper fan or, conversley, some sort of a scarlet letter, seems weird and off putting to me. Like what you like you bunch of syncophants and self proclaimed guardians of What's Good.

Bunch of fucking snobs trying to litigate what rings someone's bell or otherwise sparks their ears is a huge waste of time. Like what you like.

Also, like Homesquid said, a lot of Prince's material is a grower sort of thing.

herb4 said: