MattyJam said:

BonnieC said:

I love the Man's Work for sure.
This is why I don't mince words
when he takes it too easy.

Yet don't go believing I think he doesn't deserve it.
If anyone earned a relaxed back-catalog career,
it's definitely SKipper.

Rave isn't bad, it's harmless.
I'd rather go with bad because a failed experiment
is still an experiment.

But hey, with the proper bong
I can sincerely love all of Mplsound, so...

You wanna know what my problem with Rave is?
Since I was seventeen, to me,
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic has always been this,
and nothing else. All fifteen minutes of it, and the "No more! No more!" reprise.

You cannot promise me unchained "Positivity" on steroids,
and then deliver ten years later some FM Radio compilation
while having a bad hair year.

[Edited 11/1/25 13:01pm]

It's funny how you constantly accuse the album of being FM radio sludge, but list Wherever U Go as your favourite cut, which, along with So Far So Pleased, is arguably the most MOR adult contemporary FM sludge on the record.

"Whatever U Do, Wherever U Go" is pop elevated to art, in the same league of "Dinner With Delores", "Pearls B4 The Swine", "Don't Talk 2 Strangers".
I call'em Alternate Universes Billboards #1s.
The guts are there, soul is there and so is the craft.

"So Far So Pleased" ain't that.

Germanegro said:

ShellyMcG said:

BonnieC said: Why do you keep calling him Skipper?

Once upon a time--in childhood, I think--Prince had that as a nickname.

IMHO, BonnieC just likes to refer him as that in his own fan-affectionate way.

Anyone can correct me if Im wrong.

Assolutamundo.

It's an homage to "Aye aye, Skipper",
used in Navies roudn the world, with a reference
to Dead Poets Society for the "Captain" in it.

The phrase "aye aye captain" originated from the French word "oui oui capitaine."
The phrase means "yes yes captain."
Sailors would use the phrase to acknowledge and respond to their captains.

Aye, aye literally means yes, yes.
It came from the British Royal navy hundreds of years ago.

Another reference comes from the All My Dreams finale:

You know no child's a failure
Until the blue sailboat sails him away from his dreams

Another obvious reference is "Get On The Boat".

Or maybe it's the very end of Lovesexy, the shores, I dunno,
I employed it to counter the fact Prince himself didn't like the nickname,
when au contraire, I think it's the coolest,
it means Leader of the pack or something to that effect.

Skipper is the person in charge of the operation of the boat.
Captain is a rank or a license.
All Captain can be skippers.
Not all skippers are captains.

I never used it in the way I guess Prince understood it ("shorty").
Ain't no way Prince was or ever will be small.

[Edited 11/8/25 20:18pm]

whodknee said:

Germanegro said:

Just a general comment in response to the spirit of the dialogue, my take also is that the album is not such an "inspired" project as Lovesexy or Purple Rain, but did/does a musical work need to be like that all of the time in the span of one's work?

>

I think that Prince generated his songwriting and music from within the aura of his life at-the-moment, even when tinkering with older songs. I wouldn't imagine that he was tempted to pursue the "youthful magic"--rather, instead, been inspired toward exploring the ranges of production values and capturing a new band sound during the times he would replace his personnel.

For most of his post 80's output I would agree but with this project he seemed to be reaching back to the past rather than for something new.

I believe he wanted to reclaim past glory and went about it formulaically- hence all of the guest spots, obvious mix of slow, uptempo and mid-tempo numbers all coupled with heavy promotion.

I suspect he was always chasing his past but he usually did it on his own terms as in "check out my new style".
Personally, that is what I always admired about him.

He didn't always hit but he usually maintained his artistic integrity.

That said, I don't think any less of him because he made this album and I don't hate the album itself. Hell, without it we might not have gotten the gems we did later down the road.

And neither do I, it's an incredible EP once you remove the too-obvious winks at the latest sonic fashions of 1998, something us fans didn't need, but as it turned out, neither did the public.

I never expected Prince to come back so soon to music, and I certainly don't hate Prince for losing himself into work after Amiir, but I wonder if this time spent in the studio repeating himself was the best cure.

In the end, it probably was his only escape.
But to me, Rave the album, it's Prince playing Prince®.
There's something off.
Even the New Year's Eve concert has something off to it.

There's something off until TRC, when Prince goes back to being honest with himself
and goes back to record out of inspiration again,
not just self-imposed discipline.

Germanegro said:

Yeah, I understand that part of it. I know he had the childhood nickname of Skipper. I just thought it was weird for a fan to refer to an adult Prince by a nickname he had among friends as a child

BonnieC said:

IMHO--I think at this point the general public was tired of the Prince-to-Symbol name change and post-sniping with WB that drove their attentions away from his later recordings and the disinterest was less about a reaction to his song craft or soundcraft of the day. Big fans tend put his output under a magnifying lens to look for percieved cracks in the psyche and to critique against what he had written beforehand or after a given project (pick your era). It's the critic's right to do so. I do believe that the guy had too much music in him to be playing the "guess what fans like" game. He'd experiment with a style to give it a shot and go retro-sound when feeling nostalgic. All that to me is also no biggie worth criticizing. Unless, of course you just dislike a song!
[Edited 11/9/25 21:51pm]