LoveGalore said:

LoveGalore said:

But I'm saying that production style from Emancipation to it's evil twin NPS to their bastard mutant child Rave... Same darksided production. TRC was a technicolor beacon of hope that Prince might have changed his style again. And he had!

I don't disagree about the plastic production style he adopted. We've all long since talked about it. Emancipation still has warmer moments on it. And the fluff removed, it's a pretty decent set of songs, etc.

NPS's biggest problem was that it was an NPG record, not Prince. It fails miserably, even more, after something like Exodus. Wasn't shit funky on it, where as Exodus damn near had everyone spooging from the get-go. If Exodus was a funky orgy, NewPowerSoul was someone's mother coming in and breaking up the party. "Hey boy, get out of there!"

The Rainbow Children, sans the lyrics, was technicolor. It was beautiful. It was a new production style and sound. Instrumentally, it was probably a great listen. But he didn't stick with that, and that was the problem. I believe that album could have redefined NeoSoul. It took it to a level that Erykah or Maxwell never did (although, despite people being weird about it, Embrya came close to the same move).

The biggest issue was the lyrics. People just don't want to be preached at on a Prince record. That's the long and short of it. And had he kept that production style instead of scrubbing any bit of warmth, or organic nature from his music, he'd have set a whole new bar.

Don't get me started on Rave. People used to say Controversy was random or experimental. It wasn't, it was just new and fresh and exciting. Rave was a hot mess. Production was okay, but man - some of that stuff has not aged well.

TrivialPursuit said:

LoveGalore said:

rave has tangerine and the title track (which while not exactly a classic, sounds more energetic than anything else on the album) so its not totally worthless.

the whole 'going for that santana money' thing could have worked had he actually followed the supernatural format better/closer, and actually worked with clive davis a little more smoothly.

MIRvmn1 said:

Plectrumelectrum

LoveGalore said:

I am not sure what makes NPS anymore an NPG album than Emancipation. They have the same amount of contributions from band members.

I don't disagree. NPS is not an NPG album, to me. Mostly because of the style of it. The first two had a lot of band member input, NPS didn't. Plus - it just ain't funky! haha

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

rave has tangerine and the title track (which while not exactly a classic, sounds more energetic than anything else on the album) so its not totally worthless.

the whole 'going for that santana money' thing could have worked had he actually followed the supernatural format better/closer, and actually worked with clive davis a little more smoothly.

Clive probably saw that while it's Prince's return to a label, etc etc., it just didn't have the hits it needed on it. Plus Prince threw a fit about TGRES being a single, whereas literally almost any other song would've been a better single. "So Far, So Pleased," "Baby Knows," "Prettyman" being the top 3 choices, in that order. He should've tapped on the hotness of both Gwen and Sheryl at that point, doing more than just having them on a record. Where's the videos? Where's the appearances on a morning show or a late night show? ANYTHING? Clive doesn't make music, he promotes it. But when your artist shows no interest in being a team to sell some records, well - it ain't Clive's fault.

Bouncing off "Tangerine," a lot of the album is a kiss-off to Mayte, which makes it the divorce album, really. It was his Lemonade, in effect. If Emancipation was the wedding album, then Rave was the ink drying on the divorce papers. (Which, by the way, I'd LOVE to see sometime.)

i forgot, rave also has ILUBIDTUA which is an all time classic prince song.

incredible track.

prettyman should have been given to morris day, no question.

[Edited 8/20/22 12:28pm]

RJOrion said:

"Prettyman" definitely should have been the lead single from Rave

Yeah, or the 2nd single. I'd dip in that No Doubt fandom at the time, then after I lured some folks in, I'd spring "Prettyman" on them, then round it out with "Baby Knows."

JorisE73 said:

LoveGalore said:

I am not sure what makes NPS anymore an NPG album than Emancipation. They have the same amount of contributions from band members.

Me neither. I think I read somewhere that Prince was going after R.Kelly with Emancipation. NPS sounds like a compilation of throwaway songs, but at least ot has Wasted Kisses maybe he thought the songs weren't good enough to release under name, but his face and symbol is used prominently on the cover. With Rave he was going after that Santana Supernatural money (never understood why) with Clive Davis and failed. TRC was such a fresh new sound after all those duds I kind of forgive the stupid lyrics and JW nonsense.

Batman.

Quick perusal up-and-down the ole Prince folder and it's as blatant and glaring as it always was--Prince's artistic development has a linear progression and "evolution" that, even if you don't quite dig every twist and turn, one can at least interpret, "okay, this foreshadowed this," or "this was reactionary to this and he ended up here," etc.

Except for Batman. Decent songs maybe, spare the thousandth thesis on how "Batdance" is truly the epitome of cutting-edge definitely, whatever, wherever,

A step-back, running in circles, whatever pejorative you ascribe, it's the least Prince-y from an artistic standpoint. Sure, other times maybe he went for the pop hit here and there, little influx of cashflow Diamonds and Pearls style on occasion, but it seemed like they were pop attempts ensconced in what he was trying to do artistically at the time and where he was trying to ultimately go in that era.

Batman was straight-up put everything on hold and try to hammer out an 80s blockbuster... all the more egregious that a) the attempts at mainstream-coddling are barely even in the movie, and b) 90% of the tracks are completely at odds with the macabre gothic tone director Tim Burton was masterfully trying to set to change the public's perception of WHAM, POW, BAM 1960s camp... then here comes Prince bouncy riffing along the old theme song to the intrepretation Burton's working his ass off to make the public forget.

Didn't P say he visited the set and was trying to pay deference to Burton? Dude saw dailies of that film and was like, "'Dance with the Devil'... nahhh, too dark... hm, yeah, here we go, 'Lemon Crush' baby, now this fits."



Orrr if the criteria is just album with weaker songs, then: 20Ten.... the one the Daily Mirror or whoever put it out even claimed he tried to shelve at the 11th hour.

TrivialPursuit said:

The biggest issue was the lyrics. People just don't want to be preached at on a Prince record. That's the long and short of it. And had he kept that production style instead of scrubbing any bit of warmth, or organic nature from his music, he'd have set a whole new bar.

Silly.

Divisive reactions to The Rainbow Children are only from the overtly religioso dogmatic subsections of his fanbase that felt scorned that Prince finally out-dogma'd them. The man who they nodded along with a smirk as he shocked early 1980s cultural sensibilities dancing around in women's panties finally found a means to shock their own moral sensibilities when they were lulled into reverie 20 years down the pike.

But to the non-religious it was the same interpretation: Prince was always preaching at us on record. wtf you even talking about? "Don't want to be preached at on a Prince record"? What Prince record doesn't have preachy religious tracks? That's basically one of his tride and true artistic trademarks, tantamount to, say, likelihood of a blistering, frenetic, overdriven guitar solo, or a falsetto on his albums.

Reality is, finally he went too far, too shocking for perhaps your sensibilities for the reasons you aforementioned, but for the non-religious it was an impasse that had already been mediated upon, accepted and borderline-embraced by the early 80s.... It was Prince... He was always gonna Prince.

[and he did stick with the new textures for a bit, they were just instrumental albums so somehow they didn't count? again: silly]

[Edited 8/20/22 19:59pm]

WhisperingDandelions said:

TrivialPursuit said:

The biggest issue was the lyrics. People just don't want to be preached at on a Prince record. That's the long and short of it. And had he kept that production style instead of scrubbing any bit of warmth, or organic nature from his music, he'd have set a whole new bar.

Silly.

Divisive reactions to The Rainbow Children are only from the overtly religioso dogmatic subsections of his fanbase that felt scorned that Prince finally out-dogma'd them. The man who they nodded along with a smirk as he shocked early 1980s cultural sensibilities dancing around in women's panties finally found a means to shock their own moral sensibilities when they were lulled into reverie 20 years down the pike.

But to the non-religious it was the same interpretation: Prince was always preaching at us on record. wtf you even talking about? "Don't want to be preached at on a Prince record"? What Prince record doesn't have preachy religious tracks? That's basically one of his tride and true artistic trademarks, tantamount to, say, likelihood of a blistering, frenetic, overdriven guitar solo, or a falsetto on his albums.

Reality is, finally he went too far, too shocking for perhaps your sensibilities for the reasons you aforementioned, but for the non-religious it was an impasse that had already been mediated upon, accepted and borderline-embraced by the early 80s.... It was Prince... He was always gonna Prince.

[and he did stick with the new textures for a bit, they were just instrumental albums so somehow they didn't count? again: silly]

[Edited 8/20/22 19:59pm]

.

Agreed. I always think when people say when Prince became religious - when was that?

.

Was it with Lovesexy with Anna Stesia? No it was before that.

.

Was it with SOTT with The Cross? No it was before that.

.

Was it Purple Rain with Let's Go Crazy? No it was before that.

.

Was it 1999 with a number of references plus God? No it was before that.

.

Controversy includes the Lord's Prayer, the number one Christian Prayer - You don't get much more preachy than this.

.

I was not a fan of the JW theocratic order in RC, but there was so much preaching before this.

prince really leeeeeeaned right into the preacher aspect of his persona as he got older, post 1999 or thereabouts. all that thinking of becoming an elder statesman in music, it seemed to make him think he had accrued wisdom in all areas of life. then again, days of wild seemed to be when that forcefully preachy prince seemed to really begin. and yes i know he was preaching a bit before, but it was never as hard a sell as what came after.

Emancipation - 3 discs with only about 1 good song across them all

TrevorAyer said:

I have erased a few. My wonder is. Is there anyone out there who hasn't erased ANY Prince album from their life?

homesquid said:

I have erased a few. My wonder is. Is there anyone out there who hasn't erased ANY Prince album from their life?

.

Yes.

.

Obviously there are albums I play more than others but there is no album I don't play and none that have been erased from my life.

.

The best way to find the gold in the chaff is to come back and listen again. Having them as files also enables me to not include the segues etc.

There are so many. I would probably choose Exodus. In my opinion, there is better funk on The Black Album, I like my funk a little colder. Sonny T's vocals are appalling, and I don't find the skit things funny either.

I'm not really a fan of the '95 Gold period Exodus thing, in fact I think the majority of both albums are dreadful.

the only one I would gladly go without from this day forward is Kamasutra.

I think I managed to sit through it twice in it's entirety and a couple more
times listening to it's individual tracks.

There's nothing on there I want to return to.

Apart from that, there is no prince album that I find so bad it will never get
my attention again.

mb71 said:

There are so many. I would probably choose Exodus. In my opinion, there is better funk on The Black Album, I like my funk a little colder. Sonny T's vocals are appalling, and I don't find the skit things funny either.

I'm not really a fan of the '95 Gold period Exodus thing, in fact I think the majority of both albums are dreadful.

I would not want to miss out on hearing these tunes again:

The Return Of The Bump Squad
Count The Days
Get Wild
Big Fun
The Exodus Has Begun

I hope there are versions where prince's vox are higher up in the mix and sonny's are just a bit lower.
they vibe off one another pretty well but I would just love to hear them with more clear prince vocals.

Big Fun is so underappreciated anyway. It's a beast of a groove.

LILpoundCAKE said:

I would not want to miss out on hearing these tunes again:

The Return Of The Bump Squad
Count The Days
Get Wild
Big Fun
The Exodus Has Begun

Agreed. There ain't shit funkier than "Return of the Bump Squad" on any of The Black Album. Not by a long shot. Same with "The Exodus Has Begun." That sticks to the roof of ya mouf and ya brain.

LoveGalore said:

LoveGalore said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

Batman.

Quick perusal up-and-down the ole Prince folder and it's as blatant and glaring as it always was--Prince's artistic development has a linear progression and "evolution" that, even if you don't quite dig every twist and turn, one can at least interpret, "okay, this foreshadowed this," or "this was reactionary to this and he ended up here," etc.

Except for Batman. Decent songs maybe, spare the thousandth thesis on how "Batdance" is truly the epitome of cutting-edge definitely, whatever, wherever,

A step-back, running in circles, whatever pejorative you ascribe, it's the least Prince-y from an artistic standpoint. Sure, other times maybe he went for the pop hit here and there, little influx of cashflow Diamonds and Pearls style on occasion, but it seemed like they were pop attempts ensconced in what he was trying to do artistically at the time and where he was trying to ultimately go in that era.

Batman was straight-up put everything on hold and try to hammer out an 80s blockbuster... all the more egregious that a) the attempts at mainstream-coddling are barely even in the movie, and b) 90% of the tracks are completely at odds with the macabre gothic tone director Tim Burton was masterfully trying to set to change the public's perception of WHAM, POW, BAM 1960s camp... then here comes Prince bouncy riffing along the old theme song to the intrepretation Burton's working his ass off to make the public forget.

Didn't P say he visited the set and was trying to pay deference to Burton? Dude saw dailies of that film and was like, "'Dance with the Devil'... nahhh, too dark... hm, yeah, here we go, 'Lemon Crush' baby, now this fits."



Orrr if the criteria is just album with weaker songs, then: 20Ten.... the one the Daily Mirror or whoever put it out even claimed he tried to shelve at the 11th hour.

That's a well thought out analysis. You make a strong case. I've always been disappointed me with Batman myself, but I'd never quite thought of it from that angle.

With D&P, he was clearly going for hits, but at least he evolved his sound, adding the live band feel. With Batman, he was going for hits, but the difference is there was no evolution in his sound. If anything, the production was a step backwards.