I like the entire album




http://www.princevault.co...lbum:_3121

jdcxc said:

“3121” the song is extremely underrated...belongs in his brilliantly weird and funky file. Like all Prince albums, some great songs and songwriting in the set...The sophomoric and cringeworthy lyrics to Lolita are the exception tho.

Yes, I agree with you. It's a good album with several great songs, but Lolita is cheesy for sure.

It was the first post-WB album I got. I bought it in 2011 on the same day as ATWIAD. It was a very pleasant surprise and thoroughly disproved the 'everything Prince did after the 80s is shit' prejudice that floats around sometimes.

True, it's not one of Prince's most envelope-pushing records. Contrary to one of the previous posters, I think TRC is his best album of the 2000s, one of his most creative works overall, and WAY less shrill in its religious message than I'd been led to believe. Nonetheless, 3121 is very competently executed. I won't go through every song 'cause no one's asked me to, so I'll just point out a couple of highlights.

The title track was probably his most effective album-opener since Thunder, only outdone afterwards by the 1-2-3 punch of From the Lotus/Boom/Crimson and Clover three years later.

Beautiful, Loved and Blessed has got be one of Prince's best duets. It's no U Got the Look but it is more tasteful than, say, Arms of Orion. Blasphemy warning: Take Me With U is catchier and more "important", but I wouldn't say it's substantially better than Beautiful, Loved and Blessed.

I'll say something bad too, fear not. I know Incense and Candles tends to be the most derided song on the album, but I'm more bothered by Get On the Boat. It's ok, and that's the problem: it's fine, but nothing more. I'd argue that ending on a good song is more important than starting on one, and Get On the Boat is a perfectly serviceable but ultimately uninspiring funk song. It's not funny like Prettyman and it hasn't got the energy of FunkNRoll. Shame, really.

Best Prince album of the 21st century.

Probably my favourite album from his post-WB years... funk and funky. Loads better than Musicology and Planet Earth, plus the era reminded me of 1994-1995 with the magazine, movie, concepts etc, quite a creative time.

It's probably one of his better balanced 21st century albums, along with Art Official Age. The title track always sounded like it should have been a hit, at least to me. It might be trying a little hard to please everyone - I'd say as fans we'd prefer the raw tracks that ended up being the bulk of this, Planet Earth and Lotusflow3r - but it doesn't lose itself the way some of his other commercial attempts do.

As far as Prince albums, I only like select songs here or there, since Crystal Ball in 1998. I did buy Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum, though there are several songs on each that I don't like. As far as 3121, I didn't buy it, nor did I like any songs off the album.

The songs were corny adult contemporary not the experimental, edgy, try new things Prince that I like.

[Edited 7/21/20 9:32am]

I really like most of it. Not a big fan of BLAB though, goes on for far too long for me.

Listened to it a lot when it was first out, and really liked it. That cooled off pretty quickly and I hadn't listened to it for probably 10+ years.

Then took it out for a spin in the car a couple of years back and really got in to it.

Biggest surprise was The Dance. I never cared for it first time, but this time round, I think its incredible. For me 8/12 tracks are great. Couple that are ok, and a couple of stinkers.

Outside the top 10 for me but def top 15.

TheEnglishGent said:

sexton said:

Best Prince album of the 21st century.

I agree. It's my 10th favorite Prince album and my favorite of the 21st century. It improved on Musicology in many ways, managing a great balance between contemporary RnB sounds and Princely weirdness.

jdcxc said:

“3121” the song is extremely underrated...belongs in his brilliantly weird and funky file. Like all Prince albums, some great songs and songwriting in the set...The sophomoric and cringeworthy lyrics to Lolita are the exception tho.

Yeah, that was the track with which Prince recaptured my interest after years of not really listening. I heard that old minilmalist, experimental magic again. The dissonant guitar stuff which underpins the whole track is just brilliant - Camille was back in duet. Same with Black Sweat - not as strong, but showed a restraint that I hadn't heard in his music for a while. The standouts on 3121 are great, but some of the rest reminded me of why I'd stopped listening in the first place unfortunately. I didn't appreciate his use of auto-pitch-correction at all.

jaawwnn said:

It's probably one of his better balanced 21st century albums, along with Art Official Age. The title track always sounded like it should have been a hit, at least to me. It might be trying a little hard to please everyone - I'd say as fans we'd prefer the raw tracks that ended up being the bulk of this, Planet Earth and Lotusflow3r - but it doesn't lose itself the way some of his other commercial attempts do.

Bit strange to have been a mainstream hit I think.

"Love" is the gem here. And it's not production, it's the lyrics. I've never felt a Prince lyric (at least not in a long while to that point) as I did "Love." We've all had many, many moments with his lyrics, but he was just speaking to my spirit in that song.

Again, Prince was really ahead of the curve here. And while he sort of addressed drama and haters in the past (eg: "Hello," "Pearls B4 The Swine," "I Hate U," "Billy Jack Bitch,"), this could really be a song now talking about wannabe influencers, wannabe gurus and other social media types who get caught up in subtweeting this person or making apology videos about that, or spillin' tea, being fake, etc etc. Millennials and Gen Z get caught up in that. Yet 14 years ago, Prince was laying that shit out and telling people what not to get distracted with or by.

I wish the production was better but maybe that would've taken away from the message. It's truly a message that needs to be heard in 2020.

"3121" is a funk workout that goes unplayed and unmentioned way too often.It's almost like something that could have been on Come. "Te Amo Corazon," "The Dance," "Fury" also stand outs. "Satisfied" really throws back to shit like "International Lover" and "Do Me, Baby." Oddly, my least favorite is "Black Sweat." It's piercing to the ears, and I don't like it in the falsetto. "Get On The Boat" is fun musically, but lyrically he starts to lose me a bit w/ the leftover Rainbow Children dogma. Same with "The Word," although it's interesting to hear him harken back to spiders as he did on Lovesexy.

I used to have a Planet:3121 playlist that took the absolute best from Musicology, 3121, & Planet Earth and made one stellar album. They're definitely a trilogy of sorts, and it's sort of cool that his next album actually was a trilogy set.

The track "3121" is probably the most 80s Prince track since the 80s

jdcxc said:

“3121” the song is extremely underrated...belongs in his brilliantly weird and funky file. Like all Prince albums, some great songs and songwriting in the set...The sophomoric and cringeworthy lyrics to Lolita are the exception tho.

And it's a whole different brilliant when it's live. Probably the song I looked forward to most on 21 Nights in London run.

fen said:

jaawwnn said:

It's probably one of his better balanced 21st century albums, along with Art Official Age. The title track always sounded like it should have been a hit, at least to me. It might be trying a little hard to please everyone - I'd say as fans we'd prefer the raw tracks that ended up being the bulk of this, Planet Earth and Lotusflow3r - but it doesn't lose itself the way some of his other commercial attempts do.

Bit strange to have been a mainstream hit I think.

Yeah probably, and I wouldn't be a big fan of US pop music circa 2006 so I suppose I mean an "alt" hit.

Not a whole lot of good memories for me from this list.

[Edited 7/22/20 1:49am]

TrivialPursuit said:

"Love" is the gem here. And it's not production, it's the lyrics. I've never felt a Prince lyric (at least not in a long while to that point) as I did "Love." We've all had many, many moments with his lyrics, but he was just speaking to my spirit in that song.

Again, Prince was really ahead of the curve here. And while he sort of addressed drama and haters in the past (eg: "Hello," "Pearls B4 The Swine," "I Hate U," "Billy Jack Bitch,"), this could really be a song now talking about wannabe influencers, wannabe gurus and other social media types who get caught up in subtweeting this person or making apology videos about that, or spillin' tea, being fake, etc etc. Millennials and Gen Z get caught up in that. Yet 14 years ago, Prince was laying that shit out and telling people what not to get distracted with or by.

I wish the production was better but maybe that would've taken away from the message. It's truly a message that needs to be heard in 2020.

"3121" is a funk workout that goes unplayed and unmentioned way too often.It's almost like something that could have been on Come. "Te Amo Corazon," "The Dance," "Fury" also stand outs. "Satisfied" really throws back to shit like "International Lover" and "Do Me, Baby." Oddly, my least favorite is "Black Sweat." It's piercing to the ears, and I don't like it in the falsetto. "Get On The Boat" is fun musically, but lyrically he starts to lose me a bit w/ the leftover Rainbow Children dogma. Same with "The Word," although it's interesting to hear him harken back to spiders as he did on Lovesexy.

I used to have a Planet:3121 playlist that took the absolute best from Musicology, 3121, & Planet Earth and made one stellar album. They're definitely a trilogy of sorts, and it's sort of cool that his next album actually was a trilogy set.

I forgot about Love. Agree, that is a great track.

.

A DJ here in Liverpool made a cool mix of it back then. I was in my friends car, who was into dance music, and was stunned to hear 'I see you standing with your back on the wall...' getting mixed into another track

A better effort at the same idea as Musicology, but still largely flat and dull except for a couple of obvious standouts. A perfunctory pop album that fulfilled its intended job commercially, but failed to go barely one step beyond that musically.

.

The goodwill it receives is largely down to home turf fans' rose-tinted glasses for the commercial comeback of the era, there were much better albums released after it.

Not crazy about the album, but I did like "Black Sweat"....a good return to some nasty sounding funk from him. I also liked the video.....I enjoyed his "3121" TV appearances on SNL and the BET awards show too.

Everyone seems to agree that it's better than Musicology, so I'm just piping up to disasgree. I like Musicology better. Then again, I've always preferred a warm 'band' sound. The title track on 3121 is sublime, but I don't have a lot of time for the rest. I don't DISlike the album, but when it comes to Prince, there are 1000 better songs to be listening to.

"Black Sweat" is the only thing on it that I'd still listen to today. Never cared for the rest of it at all.