funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

They chose the wrong lead single for this. Should have been so far so pleased. And the neptunes should have been allowed to produce/coproduce actual album tracks, not just a remix. Or had their version be the main one. Prince could have had his version on the maxi single. Timbaland should have co produced something too. Beck also, and questlove/dangelo or stewart matthewman.

Right! Who needs Prince to make a Prince album?

IanRG said:

Doozer said:

I agree a mix of both albums could make for a solid 12 tracks from start to finish. But under no circumstances should his version of Every Day is a Winding Road be one of the 12. It is unlistenable to me. A rare garbage track that somehow found its way onto an album.

There are 16 tracks between the 2 releases:

3 are only on 1 release: Beautiful Strange, Everyday is a Winding Road and Strange But True.

5 have two different mixes: Rave, Undisputed, Greatest Romance, Hot Wit U and Man 'O' War.

The remaining 8 are the just the same mix with 4 of these also being same length.

Hence my comment that it is not like melding 2 separate albums into 1.

To bring it down to 12 songs, you only need to eliminate 4. For 11 of the 16 it is just a choice of include or not and for 4 of these 11, which length. For the 5 with different mixes, there is the additional choice of which mix, and, uniquely, for Man 'O' War whether you include the instrumental introduction.

Originally In2 was only going to be a special edition of Un2 with remixes plus rumoured outtakes like Ain't Gonna Run, R U Ready?, This is Your Life, and U're Still the One. This was initially scheduled to come out only months after Un2 but was cutdown and delayed until April 2001.

You're right it wouldn't be much of a hybridization because there's so much overlap but the exercise could be in the mixing and matching of remixes, original mixes and alternate tracks.

Good grief this album was a mess

A complete and utter disappointment.

When TGRES came out, I knew we were in trouble

Clearly the succubus of Larry Graham has already sunk in

But there are some salvageable moments IMO:
Strange But True

I Love You But I Don't Trust You

Beautiful Strange

Prettyman

Most of Baby Knows

Maybe Tangerine

But the beauty of these is dwarfed by the embarrassment of the other songs...

OMG Hot Wit U is such garbage, what was he thinking !!!!!

And while I actually really like the first part of Undisputed -

Leave it to Prince to feature the worst, most cringey rap of Chuck D's career..

'Put down the smith and wesson'?

OMG, it hurts to even THINK about it!

And holy moly, Every Day is a Winding Road

The low point of his career for me..

"Do you love your brother... do you love GOD?"

GIVE ME A BREAK!

It is actually making me angry!

This period was the nail in the coffin for me - a complete devotee for so many years...

I remember my co-workers, not realizing I was a huge fan, laughing about him at the MTV awards in that outfit

Today, it makes me sad because this marked the time when the Prince who virtually saved my life as a kid began to represent the exact same things that he taught me to rebel against

I remember being very sad to let him go

I know people will disagree but I appreciate the chance to vent about this critical period in my life as a Prince fan.

[Edited 11/15/23 21:55pm]

DotsofU said:

And holy moly, Every Day is a Winding Road

The low point of his career for me..

"Do you love your brother... do you love GOD?"

GIVE ME A BREAK!

It is actually making me angry!

It was very easy to edit that out, and it's so much better. I don't mind the cover in general, and with that stupid ass chant taken out, it's nice.

TrivialPursuit said:

DotsofU said:

And holy moly, Every Day is a Winding Road

The low point of his career for me..

"Do you love your brother... do you love GOD?"

GIVE ME A BREAK!

It is actually making me angry!

It was very easy to edit that out, and it's so much better. I don't mind the cover in general, and with that stupid ass chant taken out, it's nice.

oooh maybe that would be cool...
Is there an app that could censor LG's voice from any song I ever hear and also prevent his face and name from appearing on any web page I ever access?

Million $ invention

[Edited 11/15/23 21:57pm]

whodknee said:

I have a lot of love for these two albums, with my favourite song being Strange But True. It's one of those songs that sounds like something only Prince could make. I often get Everyday Is A Winding Road stuck in my head, and that one performance of Baby Knows where he plays guitar under his leg is stellar. I much prefer In2 over Un2 though, I tried making an "Ultimate Rave" playlist and it's basically just all of In2 with a few other things thrown in from the original. The concert film from the era is a little underwhelming, I would have majorly changed up the setlist, but it was one of the first things I watched when becoming a Prince fan ten years ago. Also wish the box set reissue had it on blu-ray. And the blue bodysuit thing, coupled with the hair and hoop, is one of my favourite Prince looks. It's not my favourite album/era but there is a lot that I love from it

DotsofU said:

Good grief this album was a mess

A complete and utter disappointment.

When TGRES came out, I knew we were in trouble

Clearly the succubus of Larry Graham has already sunk in

But there are some salvageable moments IMO:
Strange But True

I Love You But I Don't Trust You

Beautiful Strange

Most of Baby Knows

Maybe Tangerine

But the beauty of these is dwarfed by the embarrassment of the other songs...

OMG Hot Wit U is such garbage, what was he thinking !!!!!

And while I actually really like the first part of Undisputed -

Leave it to Prince to feature the worst, most cringey rap of Chuck D's career..

'Put down the smith and wesson'?

OMG, it hurts to even THINK about it!

And holy moly, Every Day is a Winding Road

The low point of his career for me..

"Do you love your brother... do you love GOD?"

GIVE ME A BREAK!

It is actually making me angry!

This period was the nail in the coffin for me - a complete devotee for so many years...

I remember my co-workers, not realizing I was a huge fan, laughing about him at the MTV awards in that outfit

Today, it makes me sad because this marked the time when the Prince who virtually saved my life as a kid began to represent the exact same things that he taught me to rebel against

I remember being very sad to let him go

I know people will disagree but I appreciate the chance to vent about this critical period in my life as a Prince fan.

I vent with U.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

luv2tha99s said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

in terms of sound, yeah of course it sounds like the 80s - he was consciously trying to make people think of his classic period with explicit throwbacks to his 80s sound (eg the return of the linn drums). its like hes playing 'ding ding remember that? im the guy who did THOSE records!). pretty much every popular artist seems to do that after a good few decades making music. its like a concious attempt to make people nostalgic, even if the songs dont actually sound like songs he would have cut in the 80s. would 80s prince have done a song that sounds so like another big 80s hit/band (i.e the police-sounding wherever you go whatever you do? prob not). this was maybe the start of modern prince consciously reworking 80s prince.

I'm curious, what Police song sounds like wherever you go whatever you do to you?

So, the plot thickens!

Lenny Kravitz copied The Police through

luv2tha99s said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

in terms of sound, yeah of course it sounds like the 80s - he was consciously trying to make people think of his classic period with explicit throwbacks to his 80s sound (eg the return of the linn drums). its like hes playing 'ding ding remember that? im the guy who did THOSE records!). pretty much every popular artist seems to do that after a good few decades making music. its like a concious attempt to make people nostalgic, even if the songs dont actually sound like songs he would have cut in the 80s. would 80s prince have done a song that sounds so like another big 80s hit/band (i.e the police-sounding wherever you go whatever you do? prob not). this was maybe the start of modern prince consciously reworking 80s prince.

I'm curious, what Police song sounds like wherever you go whatever you do to you?

to paraphrase the notorious BIG, if you dont know, you won't know....

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

(i.e The Police-sounding "Wherever you go, whatever you do," probably not). This was maybe the start of modern Prince consciously reworking 80s Prince.

Stop making things up.

You can't name the Police song.

Prince wasn't "consciously reworking" his 80s self. The producer being "Prince" on a album was a gimmick.

TrivialPursuit said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

whodknee said:

Right! Who needs Prince to make a Prince album?

Whats the difference between collaborations with these guys and all the other artists on the album already?

Prince didn't really collaborate on this album. He had some guest performers but the songs were his creations (except Everyday Is a Winding Road of course). He didn't use co-producers or outside producers on most of his albums (if not all of them). Certainly not high-profile ones like those suggested.

Is there an app that could censor LG's voice from any song I ever hear and also prevent his face and name from appearing on any web page I ever access?

Million $ invention

[Edited 11/15/23 21:57pm]

Ah ah !!! I hate indeed his voice !

Ingrid Chavez's as well...

[Edited 11/16/23 1:40am]

LOSTPASSWORDMAN said:

I do like most of the songs, but the title being called out at the start of every song gets a bit old very quickly.

So I circled back to this idea. I went into iTunes, and edited the start times on the suspect songs. It is kind of nice for the song to just come in. I didn't do it on the title track of course. But I did on the others. It works great in my hybrid playlist. I did flat out remove "The Sun, The Moon and Stars." Just didn't work for me. It's a weird low point in the album, and yesterday I didn't miss it.

My playist (for now) clocks at 63 minutes, which is 1 less than Rave In2, and 6 less than Rave Un2. I do need to edit "Everyday" a bit more. I missed something, and I also want to put the tag ending on "Baby Knows" from Un2.

I do enjoy the title callouts not being there, though. Good idea.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

whodknee said:

Right! Who needs Prince to make a Prince album?

Whats the difference between collaborations with these guys and all the other artists on the album already?

Well for starters the guest features on the record are hardly "collaborations" in the first place. They're barely even guest features. Our man had them show up for glorified backing vocalist sessions.

It's why the guest features are up there with "Clive Davis" as the most baseless criticisms of this album. Apollonia was higher in the mix on PR than Gwen was on this album.

By contrast you seem to want him to go full opposite and show up to the studio for 2 minutes to overdub some Prince yelps over a Pharrell beat.

[Edited 11/19/23 21:17pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

There comes a time in every mans life.... where he has to realise he doesnt have all the answers. That is all. Reason AOA is so good is cos he found josh welton. Collaboration is not a weakness. Outside collaboration with 'names', on one album out of dozens, would not fatally damage the brand, the myth, the control he gad in nearly all his other songs. It would actually show a strength, that he could work that way too. Anyway, that time has passed. If he did reach out, who knows whether it would have been good? Idk if these kinds of star studded things are, unless its done in an imaginative, non blatant way. Id just have been curious to find out. But i dont think you could say all gwen stefani (mentioning her as she was on rave) did on her neptunes collabos was turn up for a few minutes to record on a pharrell beat and leave. Hollaback girl is so good cos it was more than the sum of its parts. [Edited 11/20/23 1:44am]

"Hollaback Girl" was so annoying.

I actually really loved her solo album and I'm a quasi-semi-sorta Neptunes fan, at least for that era. Gwen totally just showed up and did her lemonvoice vocals over a by-the-numbers Neptunes beat. "Rich Girl" is similar. She was going for a plug-in pop diva bootleg Madonna vibe on that entire album.

As for the Prince stuff it's like him doing studio covers on an album. You can argue it adds another multifaceted layer to his palette, I'd argue it only undermines the legacy.

a by-the-numbers Neptunes beat

there are many neptunes beats you could say that about.

hollaback girl is not one of them however.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

a by-the-numbers Neptunes beat

there are many neptunes beats you could say that about.

hollaback girl is not one of them however.

It totally is.

It's like a crappy phoned-in version of the beat Chad Hugo plays at the beginning of this Neptunes doc:

https://www.youtube.com/w...D0dIFKgL0c.