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]

The lyrics in Rainbow Children never bothered me. I hadn't thought much about it, other than to broadly say I don't care about lyrics in general, be they religous or otherwise. But I think you raise another good point:

Being a non-religous (aethist) myself, all Jesus-talk sounds the same to me. I don't really differentiate between a song like Anastasia and Rainbow Children. If I can ignore one, I can ignore the other.

With that said, I can see how someone who closely examins religous dogma might make a distinction. Perhaps Anna Stesia's version of God is an inclusive one, while TRC's is an exclusive diety. Either way, it all silly superstious nonsense to me. I have no interest in trying to understand the subtle nuances between the two fairy tales. If I took religon seriously I might, but I don't.

lurker316 said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

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]

The lyrics in Rainbow Children never bothered me. I hadn't thought much about it, other than to broadly say I don't care about lyrics in general, be they religous or otherwise. But I think you raise another good point:

Being a non-religous (aethist) myself, all Jesus-talk sounds the same to me. I don't really differentiate between a song like Anastasia and Rainbow Children. If I can ignore one, I can ignore the other.

With that said, I can see how someone who closely examins religous dogma might make a distinction. Perhaps Anna Stesia's version of God is an inclusive one, while TRC's is an exclusive diety. Either way, it all silly superstious nonsense to me. I have no interest in trying to understand the subtle nuances between the two fairy tales. If I took religon seriously I might, but I don't.

.

As someone who takes religion seriously, once I have examined the differences between the theology in Anna Stesia vs TRC, then it can just be songs to be enjoyed based on whether you like the music or not. The music is good on TRC and the theology is easy to treat as this is just the JW view - the hard bit to ignore is the annoying voice between the songs - But even this can be mostly snipped out.

AvocadosMax said:

nosajd said:

Which one would it be?

Too difficult, too many candiates.

I'd start with Emancipation.

[Edited 8/22/22 8:50am]

LoveGalore said:

NoSwan said:

LoveGalore said:

NoSwan said:

NoSwan said:

LoveGalore said:

Out of curiosity, what album made you a fan first?

The Gold Experience, I felt electrocuted after hearing the song "Gold".

I used to request "Gold" on The Box all the time.

LoveGalore said:

AvocadosMax said:

Yo problem is that you’re comparing these songs to peak Prince (1979–1987) Let them stand on their own and they’re great tracks And if Prince recorded these tracks in the 80s with the sound like it was recorded back at Sunset or wherever, then i’m sure you’d change your mind. These are great songs.

Prince isn't the only artist I listen to, though. He's my favorite, but not sole. And AOA has a few middling songs I think are neat (Time, WBH) but the rest is not good. It's Prince on autopilot. Clouds, Breakfast, This Could Be Us, FOLD STANDARD? These are not good songs for a variety of reasons. Some of them sound half baked (Clouds coulda been cooler with better, less repetitive and trite lyrics), I like Time and WBH like I like Supercute, Props N Pounds, Peace, and High. Are they good songs? Probably not by most standards, but at worst they are corny. Prince has always been corny to me - he has a corny moment in every album from any era. But that's it. The rest is damn near indistinguishable from anything on HNR1 to me and those could've been a double album and I wouldn't have bat an eyelash. HNR2 saved the day and at least he went out on a banger. Had he died with AOA and HNR1 being his swansong.... Oh fuck. My other idol, Bowie, went out with purpose and meaning and delivered a handful of his best albums IN A 50 YEAR CAREER. Hard to top that and HNR2 was just a compilation of random tracks but it redeemed his studio material in my eyes after 4 albums that nearly killed his entire artistic momentum (20TEN, AOA, PR, HNR1).

bowie knew the end was coming so he had that in mind when making black star.

prince had no clue.

whether he really would or could have made his own black star though, who knows.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

None, they are all a part of the Musical Journey through Prince's eyes and I love many songs on every album .

Purple Rain. It caused him trouble the rest of his life and he tried to be both an interesting artist and a superstar, which made his output spotty.

.

If Prince didn't have that albatros and had decided to focus on artistry over megastardom, he wouldn't have had the "biggest" contract that made him feel enslaved, it would have stopped him from constantly trying to make the "next" Purple Rain and, most importantly, it would stop the estate from only mining Purple Rain adjacent material for posthumous release.

Without any doubt...."1999 The New Master", I think it's an offense to the iconic "1999" album & I hate Larry's voice!!

Of course I own it for my collection & try to listen to it anyway.

Ramzoo said:

Without any doubt...."1999 The New Master", I think it's an offense to the iconic "1999" album & I hate Larry's voice!!

Of course I own it for my collection & try to listen to it anyway.

More than a decent choice, for sure. And that whole "Christmas means, get this, send the Christ away," is some JW-level bullshit if I ever heard it.

mediumdry said:

Purple Rain. It caused him trouble the rest of his life and he tried to be both an interesting artist and a superstar, which made his output spotty.

.

If Prince didn't have that albatros and had decided to focus on artistry over megastardom, he wouldn't have had the "biggest" contract that made him feel enslaved, it would have stopped him from constantly trying to make the "next" Purple Rain and, most importantly, it would stop the estate from only mining Purple Rain adjacent material for posthumous release.

You have a point there but then he would not have been the icon he is today. A lot of millenials and Gen-Z got into him after his death and that's because of all the Purple Rain noise. He wanted his music to be remembered and to outlive him.

also, he always wanted to be a star, not just an 'artist'. he never wanted to be obscure. the whole ambition was to make it big. he had no desire to be a cult item.

Ramzoo said:

Without any doubt...."1999 The New Master", I think it's an offense to the iconic "1999" album & I hate Larry's voice!!

Of course I own it for my collection & try to listen to it anyway.

I have blocked this out of my brain. Yes. This is the one I would erase (I said none before).