This is a thread about reviews of the SuperDeluxe Edition of Diamonds And Pearls that appear in magazines and newspapers and on "respectable" websites (i.e. not fansites or amateur blogs etc.).

.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

The first one I have found is published in the December 2023 issue of UK music monthly Uncut. It is basically one of many reviews, and takes up half of one of four columns on the page (so 1/8 of the page). The rating is 8/10, but that is possibly solely for the album, since the "extras" get rated 7/10 at the end and reviewed as such:

.

"B-sides plus itinerant sessions yielding 33 unreleased tracks, and a ’92 gig revealing the by-now much expanded NPG as a horn-heavy soul revue."

.

The main review is of the album itself.

bizzie said:

This is a thread about reviews of the SuperDeluxe Edition of Diamonds And Pearls that appear in magazines and newspapers and on "respectable" websites (i.e. not fansites or amateur blogs etc.).

.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

The first one I have found is published in the December 2023 issue of UK music monthly Uncut. It is basically one of many reviews, and takes up half of one of four columns on the page (so 1/8 of the page). The rating is 8/10, but that is possibly solely for the album, since the "extras" get rated 7/10 at the end and reviewed as such:

.

"B-sides plus itinerant sessions yielding 33 unreleased tracks, and a ’92 gig revealing the by-now much expanded NPG as a horn-heavy soul revue."

.

The main review is of the album itself.

There's a video of the CD version unboxing over at Super Deluxe Edition. https://superdeluxeeditio...t-unboxed/

The November 2023 issue of the German edition of Classic Rock magazine has a review that isn't a review: it lists the band members, the hit singles, the various configurations this release comes in, and some tech specs for the Blu-ray etc. And then awards it 10/10.

Good idea to put all reviews in a single thread

The December 2023 issue of UK music monthly Mojo has a half-page sized review. They give it 3/5.

.

They think the album wasn't very good. This is how they in part review the outtakes: "Ranging from the ropey – Schoolyard sees him at the age of 32 singing about losing his virginity at 16 to, erk, a 14-year-old girl; Horny Pony features a toe-curling rap – to the bafflingly binned, they nonetheless provide real insight into Prince’s creative mind."

.

They conclude: "the modern-day listener can have fun attempting to compile from its outtakes a stronger and more satisfying album than the original"

bizzie said:

The December 2023 issue of UK music monthly Mojo has a half-page sized review. They give it 3/5.

.

They think the album wasn't very good. This is how they in part review the outtakes: "Ranging from the ropey – Schoolyard sees him at the age of 32 singing about losing his virginity at 16 to, erk, a 14-year-old girl; Horny Pony features a toe-curling rap – to the bafflingly binned, they nonetheless provide real insight into Prince’s creative mind."

.

They conclude: "the modern-day listener can have fun attempting to compile from its outtakes a stronger and more satisfying album than the original"

This sounds about right, the Estate really failed on this one, at the very least should have been combined with the Symbol album and all that material, this just isn't strong enough on its own, sounds so dated, even corny, and not in the good Prince way.

claudemorton said:

claudemorton said:

This sounds about right, the Estate really failed on this one, at the very least should have been combined with the Symbol album and all that material, this just isn't strong enough on its own, sounds so dated, even corny, and not in the good Prince way.

FrankieCoco1 said:

I’m thinking releasing this, at least gets it out of the way, so next year things move onto the start of more important stuff. Saying that, I’ve noticed that the D&P SDE seems to be selling ok, as a few independent ‘wrecka stow’s’/record shops in the UK are now showing as sold out. Anyway, back on topic, let’s hope to see more reviews compiled on this thread. [Edited 10/17/23 8:53am]

Nobody factors in how some newer and even older fans get swept up in the hype with these kind of releases.

Newer and/or "born again" 80s pop fans who might only be familiar with a small % of Prince albums in the first place.

Then they pick up this hyped SDE to his "second biggest seller" and it's like.... this is it? Hm, maybe MJ was better after all...

Choosing an album so mediocre for a release so prominent will stagnate the fanbase and potential audience for other SDEs. "Gets it out of the way," plz, if that's the logic we might as well have started chronological with For You and by now we'd be on Dirty Mind where each successive release would only get the audience more and more excited for what's coming next... And now? Not.

You even see across the internet even the old-school fans are like "well, guess the Vault really didn't have much else in it..." uh, no, it's just this album and era sucked. People are re-visiting Diamonds & Pearls in commemoration of the upcoming SDE, YouTuber's reacting to the D&P singles in anticipation, and for the most part it's like, "yeah, it's.... uh... okay...."

[Edited 10/17/23 18:54pm]

MIRvmn1 said:

Unbelievable that Mojo only gave it 3/5. I haven't heard all the vault songs yet but there's some really good songs on it like, Schoolyard, Open Book, Get Blue, My Tender Heart and Alice Through The Looking Glass. Then we have the amazing Glam Slam show. The set deserves at least 4/5.

In all fairness, I think the 3/5 rating is accurate (based on what we know), and coming from a prestigious magazine as Mojo. I'll give the benefit of the doubt for those previously uncirculating outtakes and we'll see, but honestly I'm not too optimistic about the whole SDE as a set.

A full page and 5/5 stars in the Nov/Dec Classic Pop in the UK. They always love their Prince stuff.

MIRvmn1 said:

My expectations are low. Most of the outtakes seem to be songs Prince never intended for his own album. They sound like the artist style he gave them too. That and I never dug New Jack Swing. The bona fide outtakes are meh at best other than the "Insatiable" track. I'm still going to buy the SDE

EnglishGent2 said:

A full page and 5/5 stars in the Nov/Dec Classic Pop in the UK. They always love their Prince stuff.

.

The actual review is only half a page. It claims Warners told Prince the album needed a single, and thus he created Gett Off, but that seems... incorrect.

.

They say the outtakes "were left off the album for a reason", but mostly because "they didn't fit in".

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Which are the songs mojo thought were bafflingly binned? Thats what id like to know.

none. you can tell the reviewer didn't even listen to the set. it's a boilerplate review.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

The gett off/we need a single story is correct.

I'd say "Cream" and one of the ballads would have been right up WB's street as single releases.

If anything I'd think they would have thought Gett Off was too weird to be a single

Prince just pressed it and put it out there because he was enthousiastic about it, I think when it
took off WB was simply ok with that being on the album as they now had a hit out the gate to
promote the album and didn't care anymore about the 'hit' that they had in mind.

But it's weird that this is claimed to be his most commercial and accessible album by lots of folk
and yet at the same time a story like 'warners wanted him to write a hit' does the rounds.

Maybe they simply said "you know, there's some songs on here we just don't like, we need at
least one more hitsingle to be on there" - hoping that he would cut jughead or horny pony -
and he did cut horny pony for gett off

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

The gett off/we need a single story is correct.

.

Oh look, it is absolute horseshit: https://www.bbc.com/news/...s-67155662 . Why am I not surprised? Oh yeah, because if it were true it would be part of the album's lore and it never has been.

.

either way, it was the very last song recorded for the album.

Review (in Dutch) by Serge Simonart (a longtime Prince fan) in Belgian magazine Humo .

.

https://www.humo.be/muzie...~befe140f/

.

As per usual with review by Simonart, it start of with a blunder when he claims that the album is credited as "composed, performed and produced by Prince", ignoring that all of that is actually credited to "Prince And The New Power Generation".

.

And it doesn't stop there. In his review he labels "Alice Through the Looking Glass" as "the soundtrack to a book" -- why bother reading the lyrics, right? He says the live show included in the box is an "aftershow".

.

He seems to think the "Houstyle" remix of "Gett Off" is unreleased. He's such a big fan he doesn't know about tracks like "The Voice", "Hold Me" or "Tip O’ My Tongue".

.

De lange versies van ‘Get Off’ worden in dank aanvaard (de ‘Houstyle’-mix is nog funkyer). Er zijn schaamteloos sentimentele ballads (‘My Tender Heart’, ‘Hold Me’). Jazzy experimentjes (‘Pain’, ‘Letter 4 Miles’). Funky popsongs (‘The Voice’, ‘Something Funky’). Er zijn riffs en hypnotiserende gitaarsolo’s (‘Blood on the Sheets’). Soundtracks bij boeken (‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’). Op ‘Darkside’ hoor je Prince richtlijnen geven aan zijn muzikanten. En natuurlijk zijn er überseksuele knipogen zoals ‘Tip O’ My Tongue’.

.

The Media review of Diamonds & Pearls SDE from our friends from France = Schkopi Site ...amazing review with exclusive information about the initial project & sessions not included on the final project D&P SDE !

A MUST to read !

https://www-schkopi-com.t...-wrz7b0vDs

[Edited 10/23/23 6:22am]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Mojo review https://www.mojo4music.co...ls-review/ Kind of a lazy review, in the sense it doesn't offer any new ideas on this era. Im interested to see if there really are ten tracks better than the original album like the reviewer thinks. Relistening to d+p in anticipation of the new sde, i think its actually got his strongest 90s material overall, compared to his other 90s albums. He took alot of care with it. Maybe too much but hey. I still dislike tonys parts on daddy pop and live 4 love (willing n able is fine), and jughead sucks, push is funky but the lyrics i find a bit too typical of 90s positivity. Money don't matter i love musically but find it a bit... not corny lyrically but just a tad another day in paradise-ish. The last verse breaks the theme of the other verses. Live 4 love has that incredible guitar line but again i find the lyrics a bit unfocused. But theres a really great ten track album in there. In a weird way, d+p is a bit underrated. [Edited 10/25/23 13:14pm]

Goes without saying, but it's all down to taste. Tom, who wrote that review, is also a musician and a pretty good one (excellent singer as well, if a little too reliant on Billy MacKenzie for inspiration). His tastes lean towards experimental/obtuse/avant-guard. There probably are ten better tracks on the Vault CDs to his perception. But over-familiarity (and decades of post-release consensus that it's a safe, mainstream record when it's really not) has likely ruined some of those D&P songs for him. Freshness and the shock of the new often fools folks - time is the real test. That said, you're not going to read an in-depth MSM review of this set - true music journalism is dead in the dirt. The internet and its myriad bullshit, uninformed takes fucked it. Few have the attention span for long-form analysis of music/lyrics these days - McDonalds mentality prevails. 'music' fans in 2023 want a leaked picture of the singer's cock/fanny, a pair of their branded footwear that they'll keep in a box and a blurred selfie during their VVVIP backstage package where the object of their affections will paint on a smile that doesn't reach their eyes and hope to fuck you don't try to touch them with your filthy peasant fingers.

[Edited 10/25/23 13:42pm]

New Review (in italian) on rockol by Michele Boroni

The album scores a 7/10.

a good, fair review.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/reviews/prince-diamonds-and-pearls-super-deluxe-edition-reviewed/