controversy99 said:

Shockedelicus said:

Yes. This is the definitive, inarguable, perfect version of a single-disc Emancipation.

1. Jam of the Year

2. Right Back Here in my Arms

3. Somebody's Somebody

4. The Love We Make

5. Style

6. In This Bed I Scream

7. Sex in the Summer

8. White Mansion

9. One Kiss at a Time

10. Sleep Around

11. Damned if Eye Do

12. The Holy River

13. Emancipation

[Edited 8/25/20 21:52pm]

I agree with much of this, but ... any version that includes Jam of the Year has a problem. That is one of the worst openers of his career.

right back here in my arms

new world

in this bed eye scream

somebody's somebody

white mansion

one kiss at a time

soul sanctuary

curious child

dreamin about u

the holy river

da, da, da
emale

lets have a baby
style

my computer

one of us

the love we make

emancipation

Yeah, I just relistened to it and realized that Slave is a way better opener. I actually really dig how dark and moody that track is, especially as an opposite to Emancipation.

I have no problems with Emancipation since i enjoy like 70% of every disc.

I would DEF make Lotus Flow3r a single disc and get rid of MPLSOUND and Elixir.

TrivialPursuit said:

dodger said:

I’ve tried to get into Damned If I Do several times over the years but it just grates me. . The shitty drums sound so un-Michael B, his vocal delivery reminds me of Avril Lavigne and the guitar bits could’ve been used for a Friends interlude

This sort of supports the ongoing notion that sometimes Prince songs sound better live. It was obvious when a song like "Get Yo Groove On" was pretty good on record, but during the Emancipation concert, it was great. It was funky, kinetic. The falsetto on the record thinned it out, but his regular voice live made it a whole different song. I really wish I'd heard "Damned If I Do" live. I think it would've rocked.

Emancipation was also the beginnings of his overly compressed, flat, acrylic production that permeated many of his records in the aughts and beyond. The Rainbow Children sorta stands out like a sore thumb because it doesn't have that flat plastic sound that other albums did, which is weird that he bounced between totally different types of productions like that. TRC is almost an anomoly in that way.

I really believe if he had brought in a band way more often, as he did in the mid 90s with TGE, Come, Exodus, Chaos, that Emancipation would've been a whole different ballgame. I don't hate the record. I just feel like it could've given more if he had nurtured it a bit.

My thoughts exactly on Get Your Groove On. The Emancipation concert version in his lower register is far better than the studio version.

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Also agree on the band point; I've always imagined how Jam Of the Year and Emancipation would have sounded with the 93/95 NPG. Those songs with those titles deserved to be bombastic. The tracks with the NPG on (Saviour, Betcha By Golly Wow and One Of Us) stick out like a sore thumb. In a good way

NouveauDance said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

as next year will be the 25th anniversary of this album

Where did the time go?!

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I think the Emancipation 1CD version wishlists have been done to death so I won't add mine, but just to say I think the album is aging well. The songwriting on Emancipation was never the problem, it was the production that leveled off all the rough edges and interesting nooks and crannies to give a very cohesive, but flat, homogeneous sound that stuck around until The Rainbow Children.

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As I return to the album in recent years, I realise more than ever that the positives outweigh the negatives and there's at least a double album's worth of really good songs here.

Blimey. You'll be coming round to Rave next!!