WhisperingDandelions said:

Is employment at Pitchfork contingent on 40 paragraphs of preamble before getting to five sentences of actual review?

I thought about that. I hate when reviewers go through the artist's history, having to note this album or that album or whatever. Just review the fucking record! The whole piece was about 80% rehash garbage. He barely even talked about the album or the songs. I would expect more from someone like Alan Light.

dodger07 said:

Surely Days Of Wild should make the cut..

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TGE is my favourite album, tied with Love Symbol, but it'll always be tinged with 'can't believe he left DOW off it.' And to a lesser extent Acknowledge Me.

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I couldn't get enough of those 2 on my The Beautiful Experience VHS and was gutted they didn't make the album.

I don't disagree about DOW. You could almost format an album, twice. Start both "sides" with his version of hip-hop, go into a rocker, then a ballad, then etc etc.

I also greatly enjoy . I love it more because I edited Tony M. out of about 98% of it. I removed "Arrogance" because it's the "Jughead" of that album. haha (Fite me.)

"Acknowledge Me" on the BEAUTIFUL experience was so manic and fun.

Almost feels like "Interactive" should be on there, too. It's akin to "Endorphinmachine."

It's funny this topic came up because I just re-re-evaluated TGE and was going to start my own thread.

When the album was released I thought it was amazing. I had some friends who'd been big Prince fans in the '80s but had stopped following in in the '90s. I remember begging them to list to TGE, insisting that the Prince they'd loved was back and better than ever.

However, sometime in the twenty-teens I re-evaluated it, with my opinion dropping. I thought it was overproduced, dated and had some super cringy lyrics. I'd gone from one extreme (loving it) to the other (strongly disliking it).

But this weekend I went on a long road trip and decided to give TGE another listen, to re-re-evaluated it. I liked what I heard. Lots of energy and very catchy hooks. I still think it's overproduced and has some cringy lyrics, but I can overlook that stuff. So I like it again. I don't love it as much as I did in the '90s, but now I regret being so dimissive of it in the twenty-teens.

TrivialPursuit said:

dodger07 said:

Surely Days Of Wild should make the cut..

.

TGE is my favourite album, tied with Love Symbol, but it'll always be tinged with 'can't believe he left DOW off it.' And to a lesser extent Acknowledge Me.

.

I couldn't get enough of those 2 on my The Beautiful Experience VHS and was gutted they didn't make the album.

I don't disagree about DOW. You could almost format an album, twice. Start both "sides" with his version of hip-hop, go into a rocker, then a ballad, then etc etc.

I also greatly enjoy . I love it more because I edited Tony M. out of about 98% of it. I removed "Arrogance" because it's the "Jughead" of that album. haha (Fite me.)

"Acknowledge Me" on the BEAUTIFUL experience was so manic and fun.

Almost feels like "Interactive" should be on there, too. It's akin to "Endorphinmachine."

I love the studio version of DOW. I agree it doesn't have as much energy as the live version, but I still think it's great, and I think the studio veresion would fit on TGE better than the live version. It's a shame it was left off.

I like Interactive, but I've always assume it was left off TGE specifically because it sounds too much like Endorphine Machine. If they were both on it, he'd be repeating himself on the same album.

With all of that said, I've never understood the love for Acknowledge Me. I really dislike that song.

IanRG said:

What excess of religious themed albums other than TRC? Despite your claim that "we don't even need to call 'em by name", you do need to name the excess of these.

"Shy" is in no way Prince's last weird or cutting edge song - it was not weird, not cutting edge and there were subsequent weird and cutting edge songs that followed. I assume you are trying to be sarcy with the claim that Shy is every orgers #1 favourite Gold track.

yes. I used hyperbole to emphasize what a dumbass the reviewer is.

.

Obviously TRC is his only overt religious LP (that only the overtly religious even define that way, to non-belivers it's an elastic jazz LP foremost). Obviously "Shy" wasn't his last bit of experimentation.

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Thx for emphasizing what an ill-informed jackass the reviewer is for stating both quotes. You made my point better than me.

TrivialPursuit said:

LoveGalore said:

Yes but you and everyone with a copy of Crystal Ball knows that the similarities between EM and Interactive are exactly why he chose to leave it off. Interactive was also a Come song and would've fit there just as well.

Of course that's why he left it off.

And maybe. It was recorded June 1993, but stuff like "Endorphin" was Jan 1993. In the same sessions as "Come" and "Dark" he did "Dolphin."

"Now," "319," "Shy, "BJB," and "Gold" were all 1993 tracks at some point. Most of Come was too of course. A few 1994 tracks in there. I just think it's a lot of crossover. And sure, "Interactive" was on Come for a hot minute. But the open and bold nature of it plants it more on TGE.

He rightly divided all those songs into cohesive albums.

Also, I noticed "Race" was originally done in 1991, then re-recorded in 1993. I didn't know it dated back to D&P and days.

TrivialPursuit said:

And sure, "Interactive" was on Come for a hot minute. But the open and bold nature of it plants it more on TGE.

He rightly divided all those songs into cohesive albums.

yes. The modern Prince in general gets sloshing drunk with their "alternate configuration" factoids where they just go around reciting shit like the gospel when it wouldn't have made any sense in actual practice.

These Glam Slam Ulysses configs where Come and TGE combine to form some miraculous ultimate lost album that org'ers harp on would have been a hot mess in practice. It was much better to have the more low-key chill vibe tracks on one project and the candy-coated cheese-powdered popcorn bin tracks on the other. "Interactive" would have crapped all over the vibe of Come. These rock nerds will take more geetar anywhere they can get it, gel'ing with the actual project at-large be damned.

It's a rock fan thing, some genuinely can't seem to process a track without a prominent guitar to follow.

Focus less on what he was gonna do and focus more on what he actually did, famzz. Prince knew how to Prince far better than his fans armed with their Google browsers.

[Edited 3/7/23 0:53am]

WhisperingDandelions said:

TrivialPursuit said:

And sure, "Interactive" was on Come for a hot minute. But the open and bold nature of it plants it more on TGE.

He rightly divided all those songs into cohesive albums.

yes. The modern Prince in general gets sloshing drunk with their "alternate configuration" factoids where they just go around reciting shit like the gospel when it wouldn't have made any sense in actual practice.

These Glam Slam Ulysses configs where Come and TGE combine to form some miraculous ultimate lost album that org'ers harp on would have been a hot mess in practice. It was much better to have the more low-key chill vibe tracks on one project and the candy-coated cheese-powdered popcorn bin tracks on the other. "Interactive" would have crapped all over the vibe of Come. These rock nerds will take more geetar anywhere they can get it, gel'ing with the actual project at-large be damned.

Focus less on what he was gonna do and focus more on what he actually did, famzz. Prince knew how to Prince far better than his fans armed with their Google browsers.

You mean what WB wanted him to do.

TrivialPursuit said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

Is employment at Pitchfork contingent on 40 paragraphs of preamble before getting to five sentences of actual review?

I thought about that. I hate when reviewers go through the artist's history, having to note this album or that album or whatever. Just review the fucking record! The whole piece was about 80% rehash garbage. He barely even talked about the album or the songs. I would expect more from someone like Alan Light.

Pitchfork wanted Brownie points from the Prince community knowing damn well 95% of them are just going to nod along at a publication acknowledging Prince without actually reading the 70-paragraph soliloquy contained within.

Hopefully Alan Light can inform the community about all those phantom "religious-themed albums" he's referring to someday. Dude makes it seem like he had a decade-long phase of Jehova's witness propaganda concept pieces album after album.

JorisE73 said:

You mean what WB wanted him to do.

It's still what he did, regardless of outside forces compelling or influencing. You can sit and play "what if" with Jill Jones hypothetically getting caught in traffic to hypothetically never converse with him about removing the bass track to "When Doves Cry" if you want. It's still not what happened.

WhisperingDandelions said:

JorisE73 said:

You mean what WB wanted him to do.

It's still what he did, regardless of outside forces compelling or influencing. You can sit and play "what if" with Jill Jones hypothetically getting caught in traffic to hypothetically never converse with him about removing the bass track to "When Doves Cry" if you want. It's still not what happened.

What are you on about?!
Prince just had to do what WB ordered him to do, that was his whole hang up back then. If you were around back then and followed the whole back and forth between him and WB regarding GS Ulysses, Come and TGE you would now better.
And what does having a rock guitar song have anything to do with it?? So you don't like rock guitar, good for you no need to make up assumptions regarding things Prince himself liked just so he can fit your limited musical views.

LoveGalore said:

TrivialPursuit said:

I don't disagree about DOW. You could almost format an album, twice. Start both "sides" with his version of hip-hop, go into a rocker, then a ballad, then etc etc.

I also greatly enjoy . I love it more because I edited Tony M. out of about 98% of it. I removed "Arrogance" because it's the "Jughead" of that album. haha (Fite me.)

"Acknowledge Me" on the BEAUTIFUL experience was so manic and fun.

Almost feels like "Interactive" should be on there, too. It's akin to "Endorphinmachine."

Yes but you and everyone with a copy of Crystal Ball knows that the similarities between EM and Interactive are exactly why he chose to leave it off. Interactive was also a Come song and would've fit there just as well.

Yes, agree but you could argue including Interactive was a no brainer since the album had this 'interactive' concept

TGE blew my mind when I was first properly immersing myself in Prince music in the late 90s. Then i heard some of what was left off, and realised it could have been even better. We March is taking up valuable space that could have been replaced by any number of tracks.

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This is a cool review.

I was hoping for this tracklisting to be released back then:

this was the tracklist of the press listening sessions in '94 and after the UK review in I think Mojo where the reviewer blasted Days of Wild as being embarasing pseudo gangster rap Prince removed it and we got the album we got. I thought that was a shame because I LOVE Days of Wild.
In 94 I went to the Bataclan show which was so amazing and was the forst time I heard these songs after reading about them but DOW blew my mind.

TGE was a fuck off to WB .. intentionally weaker songs .. the point being this glittery album is not gold .. opening song with pussy lyrics .. hate u about raping your ex in front of a judge .. cmon this album was intended to flop .. wb did their best to hype it and had to lay down the hammer to get beautiful girl back in their ownership and on the album .. shy is boring trash .. the raps are a cringefest .. billy jack would be great if the he took out the bitch sample every 5 seconds .. interactive is way better than endorphine (altho endorphine has the better guitar riff) .. dolphin has potential but eye still don't know what that chorus supposed to mean .. these are scraps among scraps for WB obligation

TrevorAyer said:

TGE was a fuck off to WB .. intentionally weaker songs .. the point being this glittery album is not gold .. opening song with pussy lyrics .. hate u about raping your ex in front of a judge .. cmon this album was intended to flop .. wb did their best to hype it and had to lay down the hammer to get beautiful girl back in their ownership and on the album .. shy is boring trash .. the raps are a cringefest .. billy jack would be great if the he took out the bitch sample every 5 seconds .. interactive is way better than endorphine (altho endorphine has the better guitar riff) .. dolphin has potential but eye still don't know what that chorus supposed to mean .. these are scraps among scraps for WB obligation

back then TGE was Prince's project he was extremely proud of (that's why he tried to shop it around behind WB back just to get it released ASAP) and absolutly not intentionally weaker songs (see all the hype he created and all the flyers at the Paisley Park parties back then and his promotion of it in '94)
Come was the fuck off album to WB, he already shelved Come until WB wanted to release it.
WB wanted to wait with releasing TGE because it was and album by and Come was and album by Prince and WB thought that would confuse the fans/customers so they decided to release Come in 94 and TGE in 95.

dodger07 said:

I think the guitar solo in Gold in a bit of a let down. There's not much too it. Seem like the whole album, let alone the song, builds to that moment and then... meh. Very anticlimactic.

JorisE73 said:

I was hoping for this tracklisting to be released back then:

this was the tracklist of the press listening sessions in '94 and after the UK review in I think Mojo where the reviewer blasted Days of Wild as being embarasing pseudo gangster rap Prince removed it and we got the album we got. I thought that was a shame because I LOVE Days of Wild.
In 94 I went to the Bataclan show which was so amazing and was the forst time I heard these songs after reading about them but DOW blew my mind.

I think the review was in NME. I recall it also said Shy was the best track on the album and Billy Jack Bitch would be great if remixed.

RJOrion said:

LoveGalore said:

Another great post from RJOrion, everyone. Everyone give him a hand. Another knock it out of the ballpark, real stunner of a post. Come on everyone, stand up and make some noise for RJOrion.

lustmealways said: