luv4u said:

lust said:

SoulAlive said: I guess that’s it. I do like the bootleg with the alternative versions though. Guess it’s fresh.

I LOVE Gett Off (damn near 10 minutes). I remember just being floored after one time hearing it on the radio. I was desperate to find out more about this mix but that was long before the internet. I was ecstatic once I found a digital copy. Awesome, awesome... AWESOME!

ThePanther said:

It seems a lot of folks don't rate the song "Diamonds & Pearls", and I understand that because it has a lot of aspects that I normally dislike myself:

- schmaltzy & slick

- mid-tempo

- middle-of-the-road aesthetics

- clearly aiming at mainstream pop radio
- lyrics not particularly interesting by Prince's standards


So, yeah, I get it... BUT I LOVE THIS SONG, and have done so ever since it caught my ear back in 1991. (It was a huge hit, too -- #3 in the USA, and I remember it hanging around the top-5 for several weeks.)

I just like it. It has a really, really strong and indelible melody, and I think the arrangement is fantastic. The little drum 'solo' break in the middle, and especially Rosie's vocals are just great and really elevate the track. It's a 100% score on the "listenable" scale, even if the song itself isn't exactly screaming 'vitality'.


For me, the three most superb tracks on this LP are

- Diamonds & Pearls

- Gett Off

- Money Don't Matter 2Nite

LOL, I agree! On paper I should hate it for the same reasons you mentioned, but there is just something about this song that really sparkles like 'diamonds and pearls'.

FUNKNROLL said:

Prince was always known for synthesizing genres and trends. This album’s sound was a product of mass media tastes at the time which isn’t a good thing. There really weren’t any good options for inspiration. At the time radio shifted toward balladry by default. Diane Warren songs were everywhere. She was the Max Martin of her day and newcomers like Celine Dion were breaking in by riding her overwrought adult contemporary tidal wave. To my ear D&P, the song, will always be Prince making easy cash and mocking Diane Warren. He revisited that well with TMBGITW, too. Meanwhile, Prince’s 80s contemporaries (Madonna, George Michael, Duran Duran, U2) were adopting more mature takes on their sounds. Prince had already done that, in 87, with SOTT. So what did that leave him with? New Jack Swing was already old Jack swing by that point. But that didn’t stop him from emulating it with a very compressed production. His take doesn’t sound like he’s embracing and exploring it so much as turning it into an adult contemporary preset. Muzak Jack Swing if you will. In some ways that’s understandable. Riley’s sound was fresh in its day but it was limited in terms of where it could go. So it became well rehearsed and widely recited pretty quickly. In terms of content, the album did break some ground by flirting with personal reveals. Prince’s lyrics were expressing more personal experiences and religious views. Unfortunately, he perfected his confessions on 88’s Lovesexy. So D&P’s attempts feel more like commodity than intimacy. Now of you’ll excuse me I have to go return some VHS tapes... [Edited 8/12/20 5:19am]

Wow. This is such an interesting take. I think it really nails it (imo).

.

The music scene was quite boring - he wasn't going to go all Nirvana / GnR. Like how the story goes in 1987 when U2 won the Grammy over SOTT - 'i can do wha tthey do, but they can't do what i do'.

Well, he did what the others did.

.

I also note the live rehearsal footage, and even the tour bits i've seen, he looks like he's phoning it in. Apart from the end of show jam section. - Dr Feelgood, teasing Sexy MF / My Name is Prince.

.

He genuinely looks more enthused doing the 80s stuff than the D&P tracks.

.

-

So the next SDE release is......

(very long drum roll)

-

"Diamonds and Pearls !

a 19 LP's and three dvd SDE box set

with all mono mixes,

edits, radio edits,

a capella and remix versions,

a capella edits, remix edits,

and,

too long essays by

Tony M, Tommy Barbarella, Diamond & Pearl,

Levi, kirk, Damon.

lol.

-

I have the right of having my own fun, right ?

Peace.

-

Milty2 said:

Vannormal said:

-

So the next SDE release is......

(very long drum roll)

-

"Diamonds and Pearls !

a 19 LP's and three dvd SDE box set

with all mono mixes,

edits, radio edits,

a capella and remix versions,

a capella edits, remix edits,

and,

too long essays by

Tony M, Tommy Barbarella, Diamond & Pearl,

Levi, kirk, Damon.

lol.

-

I have the right of having my own fun, right ?

Peace.

-

I'm ok with that (a CD set as well), but I could do without long essays by Tony M, Tommy Barbarella,Levi, kirk, Damon.

Throw in some B-sides/ unreleased songs during that era. And yes I'm ok with Diamond and Pearl interviews

[Edited 8/20/20 12:25pm]

Not a great album, not in 1991 and not now. It was a great album for fair-weather Prince fans. Even though the album's dearth of quality was depressing, it was still cool (sometimes) to see everyone become a Prince fan again. For the last time, on that mass-appeal level.

.

It's not all bad. In fact, nobody cares what I think but I still say "Jughead" is one of the funkiest, tightest, most danceable grooves the NPG ever kicked out. Incorporating Tony M. was ill-advised on D&P and even more so on Symbol. But I've gotten past that to enjoy "Jughead" as the funk bomb that it is. (Similar with the entirety of 'Goldn****'; "Deuce and a Quarter?" oh... my... GOD is that funky!).

.

Some of my perspective has shifted over the many years since its release. At the time I think I ignored "Insatiable" because I was so bummed out over the album as a whole. It's at absolutely masterful seduction ballad and, maybe in part because the SiriusXM Prince Channel seemed to almost overplay it, it has emerged as a personal favorite among his ballads.

.

The video version of "Willing and Able" makes the album track sound like a demo. God, how I wish that was the version on the album. I don't even mind that Tony is on it, it's that good.

.

Much of the album finds Prince, sadly, reliquishing a lot of his personality. A lot of his idiosyncracies. As others have said, it was an album of its time, for its time. It was the sound of someone crafting an intended pop blockbuster - and achieving it. But at the expense of his one-of-a-kind artistry. Most music fans are middle-of-the-road, and D&P is a MOR pop/R&B album. The hip-hop influence wasn't a good fit (and never really fit any better in future projects). Can you imagine what "Kiss" would be like if Tony M (or a Tony M type) popped in for a rap, however short? What if he'd brought in Chuck D on "Sign o the Times" etc etc? Yet for the rest of his career/life, Prince continued to graft ill-fitting hip hop artists onto songs that simply didn't benefit from it.

.

And that's a not a knock against the genre. Just that it didn't fit Prince's music, no matter how hard he tried to shoehorn it in.

.

"Strollin'" is a lot more pleasant of a pop-jazz effort now than it felt like back then. Part of that is due to how tasty it was rendered live, many years later.

.

"Push" was a throwaway time-filler then and remains so... BUT... my GOD, it's a densely-packed forest of FUNK and I don't care if I'm in the minority - or even the only one - I stand by it as AT LEAST an interesting listen. Great "song?" Absolutely no way in hell. But interesting.

.

"Money Don't Matter Tonight" is one of the dullest puddles of musical dishwater Prince EVER served up, let alone released as a single, let alone actually went TOP 40 with it! Prince's social commentary was best served as esoteric, freaky, fantastical, and open to interpretation... think "Crystal Ball." But this dreadfully boring ode to the proletariat is a slog. Not just lyrically (serving as a precursor for yet-to-come travesties like "Dear Mr. Man" et al) but musically. I'd forgive it if the band had ANYTHING to say. But the melody doesn't change significantly between the verses and the chorus, and the band sloooooogs through it like they've got something far funkier on their minds.

.

Oh yeah, the album closer... maybe the single biggest disaster Prince ever committed to an otherwise passably sucessful album. I'm not even going to dignifiy it by typing the title. The instrumental section at the beginning is half-cool. Repeat, HALF-cool. Then it goes off the rails and never recovers. It's overlong, chaotic, has no hooks of any kind, and essentially inspires me to regard "Insatiable" as the album closer instead.

.

I could say more, oh man I could say more. But I was in a relatively good mood when I started typing this and I don't want to ruin it anymore than I already have.

.

(Plus I bet no one read this far!)

CAL3 said:

Not a great album, not in 1991 and not now. It was a great album for fair-weather Prince fans. Even though the album's dearth of quality was depressing, it was still cool (sometimes) to see everyone become a Prince fan again. For the last time, on that mass-appeal level.

.

It's not all bad. In fact, nobody cares what I think but I still say "Jughead" is one of the funkiest, tightest, most danceable grooves the NPG ever kicked out. Incorporating Tony M.

kpowers said:

CAL3 said:

Not a great album, not in 1991 and not now. It was a great album for fair-weather Prince fans. Even though the album's dearth of quality was depressing, it was still cool (sometimes) to see everyone become a Prince fan again. For the last time, on that mass-appeal level.

.

It's not all bad. In fact, nobody cares what I think but I still say "Jughead" is one of the funkiest, tightest, most danceable grooves the NPG ever kicked out. Incorporating Tony M.

.

YES - I SAID IT - I STAND BY IT - I LIVE IT LOUD AND PROUD

.

The NPG is - as Arsenio might say - "FUNKY LIKE DOO-DOO" on that track.

.

I TURN IT WAY UP every time!

there's a really great vocal harmony/part in money don't matter on the early mix version that he turned way down in the final product "we're controlling all the oil"

anyway

[Edited 8/20/20 18:31pm]

CAL3 said:

kpowers said:

.

YES - I SAID IT - I STAND BY IT - I LIVE IT LOUD AND PROUD

.

The NPG is - as Arsenio might say - "FUNKY LIKE DOO-DOO" on that track.

.

I TURN IT WAY UP every time!

CAL3 said:

kpowers said:

.

YES - I SAID IT - I STAND BY IT - I LIVE IT LOUD AND PROUD

.

The NPG is - as Arsenio might say - "FUNKY LIKE DOO-DOO" on that track.

.

I TURN IT WAY UP every time!

You despise MDMT and DM but praise Jughead, therefore I can't take that seriously.

slyjackson said:

kpowers said:

Vannormal said:

-

So the next SDE release is......

(very long drum roll)

-

"Diamonds and Pearls !

a 19 LP's and three dvd SDE box set

with all mono mixes,

edits, radio edits,

a capella and remix versions,

a capella edits, remix edits,

and,

too long essays by

Tony M, Tommy Barbarella, Diamond & Pearl,

Levi, kirk, Damon.

lol.

-

I have the right of having my own fun, right ?

Peace.

-

I'm ok with that (a CD set as well), but I could do without long essays by Tony M, Tommy Barbarella,Levi, kirk, Damon.

Throw in some B-sides/ unreleased songs during that era. And yes I'm ok with Diamond and Pearl interviews

[Edited 8/20/20 12:25p-

-

My post was a 99,99 % joke.

-

Vannormal said:

kpowers said:

I'm ok with that (a CD set as well), but I could do without long essays by Tony M, Tommy Barbarella,Levi, kirk, Damon.

Throw in some B-sides/ unreleased songs during that era. And yes I'm ok with Diamond and Pearl interviews

[Edited 8/20/20 12:25p-

-

My post was a 99,99 % joke.

-

I know but I'm really ok with that as a release (minus the long essays by Tony M, Tommy Barbarella,Levi, kirk, Damon.)

I'd happily read a long essay about this album by Tony M.

CAL3 said:

slyjackson said:

You despise MDMT and DM but praise Jughead, therefore I can't take that seriously.

. Despise? Where did I say that? And... what’s DM? . Anyway, if my appreciation of kickin’ the Jughead invalidates everything else I said, so be it. I’ll continue to GET STOOPID, GET STOOPID!

I see you are succeeding at that

homesquid said:

Because you've grown to be a miserablly unhappy prick....u, kidding I don;t know you.

It may just be a phase. Different Prince eras coem and go for me. In fact there's been times where I've sold some cds thinking I didn't like them anymore..only to buy them back!

LMAO @

Because you've grown to be a miserablly unhappy prick....u, kidding I don;t know you. !!!!!

Hmmmm...not one of my Prince GO-to's, BUT...yeah, the hits were tight. I thought the cover was really awful until it was reissued (U.K. maybe?) with the blue version of the hologram. Otherwise, it was a step up from "Grafitti Bridge" and a precursor 4 what was 2 cum, which I didn't care 4 either until "Musicology" changed my mind. Lots of waves in his catalog; some higher than others, some lower. Musically, D&P had "hit" and "mainstream" all over it, but gone was the Poetry he was known 4 at that time.

nextedition said:

Milty2 said:

And yet there is some pretty loose responses (justification) on their part. God bless them

Because parts are also genius, doesnt mean everything is genius. Its pretty healthy not to consider everything amazing from one person

And I certainly don't consider everything that Prince did as genius. But I wouldn't say that there is any one song that I truly don't like...except maybe Purple & Gold. I've never listened to it all the way through however.

I've been thinking about this . . . how D&P feels different from other albums (and not just sonically) . . . the best way I can describe it is that for the first time it feels like a WB-led effort instead of a Prince-led effort.

I'm not saying that's necessarily the case, but it just feels like it to me.

Milty2 said:

nextedition said:

Milty2 said: Because parts are also genius, doesnt mean everything is genius. Its pretty healthy not to consider everything amazing from one person

And I certainly don't consider everything that Prince did as genius. But I wouldn't say that there is any one song that I truly don't like...except maybe Purple & Gold. I've never listened to it all the way through however.

Anything? how so?

or how you claim to be a fan of a man with a 40 year career but only like the first 10 lol

Milty2 said:

I love how people call parts of Prince's output garbage yet spend quite a bit of time on this website.

I would love to know what people liked or listened to outside of prince in the 90's and maybe then i'll understand how you can "critique" and or hate d&P. It's a great album. It's not boring. The band he had was better than the one that came before it. The music was pushing forward. Wanting him to keep doing the same ol pop/rock/folky music from the mid 80's says a lot more about you than it does him.

Gett Off was/is a banger. Insatiable is a great ballad. Money don't matter tonight is great. Diamonds and Pearls the song was a great song and more. He was making new power soul music. it was a good r&b/funk/soul record with hip-hop influences as well as him just putting his Prince spin on current music.

tab32792 said:

or how you claim to be a fan of a man with a 40 year career but only like the first 10 lol

Milty2 said:

I love how people call parts of Prince's output garbage yet spend quite a bit of time on this website.

I claim to like his entire career.

slyjackson said:

Milty2 said:

And I certainly don't consider everything that Prince did as genius. But I wouldn't say that there is any one song that I truly don't like...except maybe Purple & Gold. I've never listened to it all the way through however.

Anything? how so?

Like I said....Purple & Gold. Having said that, I have heard the hits so much I actually skip them if they come on my shuffle playlist. That includes WDC, 1999, LGC and U Got The Look.

CAL3 said:

Not a great album, not in 1991 and not now. It was a great album for fair-weather Prince fans. Even though the album's dearth of quality was depressing, it was still cool (sometimes) to see everyone become a Prince fan again. For the last time, on that mass-appeal level.

.

It's not all bad. In fact, nobody cares what I think but I still say "Jughead" is one of the funkiest, tightest, most danceable grooves the NPG ever kicked out. Incorporating Tony M. was ill-advised on D&P and even more so on Symbol. But I've gotten past that to enjoy "Jughead" as the funk bomb that it is. (Similar with the entirety of 'Goldn****'; "Deuce and a Quarter?" oh... my... GOD is that funky!).

.

Some of my perspective has shifted over the many years since its release. At the time I think I ignored "Insatiable" because I was so bummed out over the album as a whole. It's at absolutely masterful seduction ballad and, maybe in part because the SiriusXM Prince Channel seemed to almost overplay it, it has emerged as a personal favorite among his ballads.

.

The video version of "Willing and Able" makes the album track sound like a demo. God, how I wish that was the version on the album. I don't even mind that Tony is on it, it's that good.

.

Much of the album finds Prince, sadly, reliquishing a lot of his personality. A lot of his idiosyncracies. As others have said, it was an album of its time, for its time. It was the sound of someone crafting an intended pop blockbuster - and achieving it. But at the expense of his one-of-a-kind artistry. Most music fans are middle-of-the-road, and D&P is a MOR pop/R&B album. The hip-hop influence wasn't a good fit (and never really fit any better in future projects). Can you imagine what "Kiss" would be like if Tony M (or a Tony M type) popped in for a rap, however short? What if he'd brought in Chuck D on "Sign o the Times" etc etc? Yet for the rest of his career/life, Prince continued to graft ill-fitting hip hop artists onto songs that simply didn't benefit from it.

.

And that's a not a knock against the genre. Just that it didn't fit Prince's music, no matter how hard he tried to shoehorn it in.

.

"Strollin'" is a lot more pleasant of a pop-jazz effort now than it felt like back then. Part of that is due to how tasty it was rendered live, many years later.

.

"Push" was a throwaway time-filler then and remains so... BUT... my GOD, it's a densely-packed forest of FUNK and I don't care if I'm in the minority - or even the only one - I stand by it as AT LEAST an interesting listen. Great "song?" Absolutely no way in hell. But interesting.

.

"Money Don't Matter Tonight" is one of the dullest puddles of musical dishwater Prince EVER served up, let alone released as a single, let alone actually went TOP 40 with it! Prince's social commentary was best served as esoteric, freaky, fantastical, and open to interpretation... think "Crystal Ball." But this dreadfully boring ode to the proletariat is a slog. Not just lyrically (serving as a precursor for yet-to-come travesties like "Dear Mr. Man" et al) but musically. I'd forgive it if the band had ANYTHING to say. But the melody doesn't change significantly between the verses and the chorus, and the band sloooooogs through it like they've got something far funkier on their minds.

.

Oh yeah, the album closer... maybe the single biggest disaster Prince ever committed to an otherwise passably sucessful album. I'm not even going to dignifiy it by typing the title. The instrumental section at the beginning is half-cool. Repeat, HALF-cool. Then it goes off the rails and never recovers. It's overlong, chaotic, has no hooks of any kind, and essentially inspires me to regard "Insatiable" as the album closer instead.

.

I could say more, oh man I could say more. But I was in a relatively good mood when I started typing this and I don't want to ruin it anymore than I already have.

.

(Plus I bet no one read this far!)

Thanks for this! Well, mostly the comment about the Willing and Able video.... which I watched on the back of this for the first time in close on 28 years.... And yes the acoustics of that version are utterly awesome. His voice. HIS VOICE!!! I love it as much as the album version. I hope we get that on the inevitable D&P SDE.

But what a crap video. It's a shame there are so few truly decent Prince videos.

And sounds like you're being kinder to the album than time and distance (and me) have been but you're spot on about how it attracted MOR pop fans.

Also your comment about the rapping and Prince songs that would have been improved without them, made me think of Da, Da, Da (which I really love) and I wonder if is there a version without Scooby Doo's rapping on it? But that's a question to be answered in a thread entitled 'Emancipation album. A great album. But where is Tony M rapping?'

this is a great album, sorry haters.