lurker316 said:

prince could have incorporated hip hop in smarter production ways. like he did on get off and daddy pop (drum samples). he could have got some good hip hop producers to remix the singles. there was no need to have so much (bad) rapping. too obvious.

i like D&P but its sonically too slick overall. prince wanted a hit though. he wasnt going to risk anything that might compromise having a big album at that point.

the weird thing is that D&P was the last time he really put that much care into an album for quite a few years. symbol in 92 was a bit of a rush job and doesnt have the same kind of peaks that D&P had. plenty of good stuff on the 93/94/95 albums, but also a lot of stuff that sounded like he did it very fast. which didnt alwyas work at that point in his career like it used to (eg i love the endorphinmachine music but the lyrics sound like they took about 2 mins to write).

the 90s, and i like plenty from this decade, it was when i got into prince, but this period was when prince stopped being as interested in taking musical risks.

he wanted to show he had polish, that he could really play, that he had a big, professional, less weird sounding band sound, etc. so D&P has a very clean, perfect kind of sound overall.

[Edited 8/19/22 8:44am]

SoulAlive said:

lurker316 said:

Fans are ritical of Tony's raps on the albums, but Rosie's are pretty awful as well.

In "Push" she raps:

. Well, all u people out there,
. You'd better beware
. 'Cause they call me Rosie G
. And I just don't care

That sounds like something that Fat Boyz would have rapped back in 1983. Prince was apparently oblivous to the fact that rap lyrics had become more sophisticated by '91. (Rosie may have written her own rap, but Prince approved it for his album, so I blame him.)

Rosie concludes the rap with the following:

. I said momma don't put me under pressure
. I love u and i think you're fresher

Rapping about her mama? Really?

Rhyming "pressure" with "fresher"? Sweet Jesus, that's terrible.

And when do you call someone "fresher"?

Oh wow,I forgot about some of the bad raps on this album on this same song,doesn’t Prince say “I’m good 2 cream every boy and girl”?? Lol,not one of the album’s best moments.

i always skipped push and jughead so forgot some of these lines being quoted.

making me wonder if a SDE of D&P can really be justified lol

It aged medium in the overall oeuvre. Beneath the candycoated moments of superficial uberpop-cringe there's this cool, very earnest laid-back jazzy R&B chillax vibe bubbling beneath Tony M.'s golden mic bars.

Super Deluxe Diamonds and Pearls is only be of intrigue if Tony M. writes the liner notes.

Vannormal said:

Remember the 'Dead On It' song?

That one song was a far better attempt adn personal (funky) take on hip-hop and rap (never mind the lyrics).

And that was nearly 5 years earlier.

[Edited 8/18/22 5:10am]

Everyone focuses on the diss/parody of hip-hop in the lyrics, but the beats themselves for "Dead on It" and "Bob George" were clearly Prince rolling up his sleeves and trying to school the new school who the king of the beats really was, at least until the last month of 1987.

[Edited 8/22/22 4:44am]

It's always so amusing to come across people saying, that this or that hasn't "aged" well. Listeners may be unlocking different facets of a work with successive listens, but that has no bearing on the music itself, which stands immortal and unchanged, for better or worse. Perhaps it'd be easier to just admit: D&P is crap (and some people even noticed it back in 1991). No reason to be embarrassed though by what one no longer responds to - isn't it wonderful how we sometimes change, re-evaluate, mature?

WhisperingDandelions said:

Vannormal said:

Remember the 'Dead On It' song?

That one song was a far better attempt adn personal (funky) take on hip-hop and rap (never mind the lyrics).

And that was nearly 5 years earlier.

[Edited 8/18/22 5:10am]

Everyone focuses on the diss/parody of hip-hop in the lyrics, but the beats themselves for "Dead on It" and "Bob George" were clearly Prince rolling up his sleeves and trying to school the new school who the king of the beats really was, at least until the last month of 1987.

[Edited 8/22/22 4:44am]

I completely agree. Many people hate Dead On It, but I love it. I enjoy the diss/pariody of hip-hop lyrics, but most of all I love the beat. It kicks ass.

christobole said:

It's always so amusing to come across people saying, that this or that hasn't "aged" well. Listeners may be unlocking different facets of a work with successive listens, but that has no bearing on the music itself, which stands immortal and unchanged, for better or worse. Perhaps it'd be easier to just admit: D&P is crap (and some people even noticed it back in 1991). No reason to be embarrassed though by what one no longer responds to - isn't it wonderful how we sometimes change, re-evaluate, mature?

When people say something hasn't aged well, it's a specific criticism meaning the song, book, movie, TV or other piece of arted seems dated. It comes across as being very much from one specific moment in time, which is the opposite of being immortal or timeless. They're saying it adheres to the most generic, cliched and cheesy conventions of that moment in time.

In contrast, take an album like Parade. That has aged well. It doesn't scream "1986!". If you played it for someone and asked which decade it was recorded, it wouldn't be obivous (except for maybe Kiss). In large part this is because Prince did his own thing, rather than employing the most stereotypcial production techniques of the mid-'80s. Unlike D&P, Parade is timeless. It's immortal.

lurker316 said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

Everyone focuses on the diss/parody of hip-hop in the lyrics, but the beats themselves for "Dead on It" and "Bob George" were clearly Prince rolling up his sleeves and trying to school the new school who the king of the beats really was, at least until the last month of 1987.

[Edited 8/22/22 4:44am]

I completely agree. Many people hate Dead On It, but I love it. I enjoy the diss/pariody of hip-hop lyrics, but most of all I love the beat. It kicks ass.

i seriusly need a remastering of the whole Balck Album! Not D&P.

Gees, that too-much-reverb, and overal Un-Prince sound.

-

Some other super bad lyrics form the D&P album :

-

''Bass thumpin' everybody's doin the bumpin'

oops, I slipped on a move
I think it's time to bust somethin' sleazy

but cool and easy
yeah, this is for the hood
Better keep it greasy''

-

And I just found out/never knew that the Jughead was a dance!

Pfffffffff.

Then again, i looooooove the super-bad...

''WORK THAT FAT'' (or 'Martika Jam Groove')

So bad it's good;

-

''I like 'm fat ‘N’ proud,

cause when they sit down

they sit all around,

the whole house,

sidewalk and everything else.

(...)

Yeah, this is really nice
I betcha my thigh ain't as big as one of these mice
What kind of traps U use?
I know they don't work
Mice take the cheese and say, "D-d-damn, what a jerk!"
U must be nuts - think I'm go'n sleep here
Quiet as it's kept
There's several things 2 fear in this habitat
Let me guess, let me guess
"U like it like that" {x2}
So nobody'll rob ya (...)''

-

))

[Edited 8/24/22 8:22am]

lurker316 said:

JorisE73 said:

I love the album because those earlyu 90s days were awesome. But i do think he was aiming at a 'Hit' after WB probably held him on a leesh and demanded a hit after Graffiti Bridge bombed.

WB was probably demanding a hit because they'd just signed him to a $100 million contract.

And he delivered. Gett Off was hit. Both Cream and Diamonds and Pearls were MONSTER hits. One the many hats Prince wore was producer. The job of a producer in the context of major label activities was to make hits and sell a ton of records. He definitely wore that hat for Diamonds and Pearls.

as an album i dont really rank D&P that highly, but cmon, it has gett off, cream, insatiable, the title song, money dont matter 2nite. if those arent 5 of his best 90s songs, i dont know what are. D&P was the last time prince was still able to really create and deliver multiple bonafide pop classics. if a SDE of this DOES come out, the best thing the estate could do is make sure there are rap-less versions of the songs that had raps on the released versions, and then every fan would be happy lol

[Edited 8/25/22 11:47am]