https://www.waxpoetics.com/article/prince-the-black-album-lovesexy/?

bwaaatch said:

Overall story not really new, but lots of lovely texture and direct or indirect quotes from Prince and the Lovesexy associates. A great read, thanks for posting.

I suspected as much, but there is always the opportunity for some to glean something new.

The in-depth articles are always appreciated, rap.

i was relistening to this recently - one thing about this album is that it mostly ignores princes pop songwriting instincts - a lot of the songs just go on for quite a bit longer than they need, arent really edited well, and dont do anything that interesting with the extra time (unlike the songs on the 1999 album for example) except 2nu4wc id say

its still a fun, often intense album, but i do wonder if the reason prince didnt release it was not some great epiphany on its apparent negativity (though it does have some of his weirdest, most twisted lyrics since 1999 maybe, and bob george is obviously violent, though also one of the best things here - why didnt prince do more songs like this?! lol), but just that its a thrown together album, not one with much consideration behind it

for prince at this point to release something so casually put together, probably would have seemed like a step down, not the kind of thing a proper Artist should be releasing

lovesexy was also quickly made, but its obvious that a bit more care was taken in making that album

(then again, batman, which is actually closer in mood to the black album than lovesexy, and maybe its true sister album, was also a bit of a quickie album, and prince didnt seem to care about putting that one out... maybe the money was too good)

i also find it odd that dead on it criticises rap, and then you have supercali... which is basically a rap song (albeit in prince's own kind of style, like irresistible bitch, aka the peak of prince the rapper)

but the main thing about the black album is that it feels like both a return to the rudeboy (or extra loveable) era of dark, twisted, mostly sexual lyrics like lady cab driver or the second part of lets pretend were married, but stranger, and also maybe the last time we get that from prince until parts of the come album

but the other thing about the black album is that for an album he supposedly wanted to distance himself from, he still performed songs from it every night on the lovesexy tour, so even considering that they worked in the context of thematic opposites in princes music, he could have just ignored it, but he didnt (and it looked like he wasnt hating performing those songs on the 88 live video), so im guessing the reasons he stopped the release are pretty varied, and not necessarily consistent

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

i was relistening to this recently - one thing about this album is that it mostly ignores princes pop songwriting instincts - a lot of the songs just go on for quite a bit longer than they need, arent really edited well, and dont do anything that interesting with the extra time (unlike the songs on the 1999 album for example) except 2nu4wc id say

its still a fun, often intense album, but i do wonder if the reason prince didnt release it was not some great epiphany on its apparent negativity (though it does have some of his weirdest, most twisted lyrics since 1999 maybe, and bob george is obviously violent, though also one of the best things here - why didnt prince do more songs like this?! lol), but just that its a thrown together album, not one with much consideration behind it

for prince at this point to release something so casually put together, probably would have seemed like a step down, not the kind of thing a proper Artist should be releasing

lovesexy was also quickly made, but its obvious that a bit more care was taken in making that album

(then again, batman, which is actually closer in mood to the black album than lovesexy, and maybe its true sister album, was also a bit of a quickie album, and prince didnt seem to care about putting that one out... maybe the money was too good)

i also find it odd that dead on it criticises rap, and then you have supercali... which is basically a rap song (albeit in prince's own kind of style, like irresistible bitch, aka the peak of prince the rapper)

but the main thing about the black album is that it feels like both a return to the rudeboy (or extra loveable) era of dark, twisted, mostly sexual lyrics like lady cab driver or the second part of lets pretend were married, but stranger, and also maybe the last time we get that from prince until parts of the come album

but the other thing about the black album is that for an album he supposedly wanted to distance himself from, he still performed songs from it every night on the lovesexy tour, so even considering that they worked in the context of thematic opposites in princes music, he could have just ignored it, but he didnt (and it looked like he wasnt hating performing those songs on the 88 live video), so im guessing the reasons he stopped the release are pretty varied, and not necessarily consistent

I think all of the songs on the Black Album justify their lengths by doing something different. In fact, I think they're better at justifying their lengths than songs on 1999.

Supercali is not basically a rap song. Neither is irresistable bitch. "Spoken word" and "rap" are related, but not interchangable.