I cannot say enough about Lovesexy. Masterpiece, start to finish.

I don't know if Alphabet St. reset his career path . . . I mean, you could argue it did, after his experience leading to The Black Album being pulled . . . but The Black Album DIDN'T actually come out.

For the general public, Lovesexy directly followed SOTT that was critically praised. Not much of a reset needed to the public.

Se7en said:

I cannot say enough about Lovesexy. Masterpiece, start to finish.

I don't know if Alphabet St. reset his career path . . . I mean, you could argue it did, after his experience leading to The Black Album being pulled . . . but The Black Album DIDN'T actually come out.

For the general public, Lovesexy directly followed SOTT that was critically praised. Not much of a reset needed to the public.

I agree. Lovesexy is my favorite album and Alphabet St is very good, but I don't understand why the person who wrote this article thinks it reset Prince's career. He through that idea out there without supporting it. What little case he made wasn't persausive.

lurker316 said:

Se7en said:

I cannot say enough about Lovesexy. Masterpiece, start to finish.

I don't know if Alphabet St. reset his career path . . . I mean, you could argue it did, after his experience leading to The Black Album being pulled . . . but The Black Album DIDN'T actually come out.

For the general public, Lovesexy directly followed SOTT that was critically praised. Not much of a reset needed to the public.

I agree. Lovesexy is my favorite album and Alphabet St is very good, but I don't understand why the person who wrote this article thinks it reset Prince's career. He through that idea out there without supporting it. What little case he made wasn't persausive.

this is the way more and more articles are written these days. it's a sort of click bait,
coupled with poor research and a whole lot of 'what I think about this is fact and i'll
do the world a huge service by putting my opinions out there as fact'.

nice for a discussion forum but so weird for everywhere else.

LILpoundCAKE said:

lurker316 said:

I agree. Lovesexy is my favorite album and Alphabet St is very good, but I don't understand why the person who wrote this article thinks it reset Prince's career. He through that idea out there without supporting it. What little case he made wasn't persausive.

this is the way more and more articles are written these days. it's a sort of click bait,
coupled with poor research and a whole lot of 'what I think about this is fact and i'll
do the world a huge service by putting my opinions out there as fact'.

nice for a discussion forum but so weird for everywhere else.

Agreed.

I mean, I do agree that Prince made the right decision in pulling The Black Album. As funky and cool as it is, it's a big step down from SOTT. While I don't think Lovesexy is as good as SOTT (my favorite album), it's definitely close.

Prince had a pretty good filter early on as to what to release and what not to release.

Se7en said:

I cannot say enough about Lovesexy. Masterpiece, start to finish.

I don't know if Alphabet St. reset his career path . . . I mean, you could argue it did, after his experience leading to The Black Album being pulled . . . but The Black Album DIDN'T actually come out.

For the general public, Lovesexy directly followed SOTT that was critically praised. Not much of a reset needed to the public.

Not wanting to release The BLack Album was the most unwanted and best PR stunt Prince caused all by himself since his sefl created and hard worked on superstardom of 1984.

Untill it's official release in 1994, it remained The Most Legendary Black Album!

I mean, how many unofficial bootleg versions only were available between end of 1987 and 1994?

Even after that...

It was even covered completely by a French group, The Black Albumnd i believe they were called; I have that album.

Never heard anyone doing this in the history of covering an unavailable pulled back bootleg.

-

True, about the critically praise, and for me this too is a fucking masterpiece of an album.

Not so much because of the song writing, but rather the overall sound, feel, the album as a whole, and compared with SOTT completely different. Sex and God as themes throughout every song. It was completley new, had an uplifting sound (still to this day), and has stunning arrangements -, freshness, vocal harmonies to die for, squeeling guitars, good synths!, and wonderful horn parts. Very joyful.

And Alphabet St, remained a live classic. prince kept on playing this live for a very long time.

But it did not reset Prince's career path the way the song SOTT did for instance.

At least that what i think.

And it indeed didn't need much of a reset to the public.

I love the whole song and particularly love the transition (in Part 2) at 4:56 to the "alphabet" at the end

DotsofU said:

One more, One more!

Besides the fact the SOTT maybe should have still been busting out singles in the spring of 88

(Please don't call me a Lovesexy hater - I love it beyond belief and the tour was one of the best nights of my life!)

But SOTT had legs and it could have gotten to 2,000,000 sales

And who knows - Maybe if WB got a double-platinum double-album from him, the heat would have been off of him a little..... Maybe he didn't want to prove them right after all the back & forth and chopping of CB ... we know he was a little devil that way!

ANYWAY, then he should have just taken a BREAK.

EVERYTHING began to change in 88.

Hairbands, Alternative/College,Rap and a little of that Mariah/Michael Bolton/Kenny G adult contemporary conquered and made the 80's icons obsolete

Duran Duran, Prince, Eurythmics (late 87), Bruce Springsteen (late 87) all underperfomed in 88

The only ones that survived were the ones who TOOK A BREAK and waited until the dust setlled:

Madonna and Janet - SMART MOVE

He should have waited it out, gathered new ideas and come back guns-a-blazing

This is just my very humble opinion, I am not an expert - I just like to follow the Billboard charts (well, used to)

And I am sure that I have gotten some things wrong, please forgive if I did

[Edited 4/19/23 20:29pm]

AGREE

LILpoundCAKE said:

wtf is up with all that 'it didn't need part 2' ?

listen to the music and the interplay between the different instruments in that second part.

it's way way way to overlooked for how freaking brilliant he arranged that.

I agree. People are just jumping on a bandwagon here. Part 2 is all about the music.

LILpoundCAKE said:

Vannormal said:

Se7en said:

I cannot say enough about Lovesexy. Masterpiece, start to finish.

I don't know if Alphabet St. reset his career path . . . I mean, you could argue it did, after his experience leading to The Black Album being pulled . . . but The Black Album DIDN'T actually come out.

For the general public, Lovesexy directly followed SOTT that was critically praised. Not much of a reset needed to the public.

It was even covered completely by a French group, The Black Albumnd i believe they were called; .

must be ''The Black Album Band''

-

https://www.discogs.com/release/3816362-The-Black-Album-Band-The-Black-Album