JorisE73 said:

leecaldon said:

Symphony Or Damn wants a word with you. For me, it's one of the most creative, sonically interesting albums of the decade. It also produced several top 20 hits.

Sorry not impressed and a boring listen. Having Top 20 hits doesn't mean anything regarding quality otherwise every autotune rapper would be a musical genius.

I was making two separate points. The first was regarding quality, the second popularity. He mentioned all his other albums flopping, so I was addressing that. We all have our opinions on what we think is good. Songs like Let Her Down Easy and Delicate have endured, which speaks to something.

ludwig said:

Vibrator was one of the best albums of the nineties. Amazing stuff.

Anything that contains Holding On To You has permanent value.

nxx said:

Threads with Sananda Maitreya's name in them seem to be a reliable draw for people wishing to plead the case for his "mediocrity" and share their disdain to the things the man is up to, even when it comes down to his recounting about Prince--as evidenced throughout here.

I look forward to reading more on S.M'.s thoughts about Prince, his musician peer and a friend.(It seems to hurt somebodys butts to acknowledge this, it seems at times, but whatever.)

@ nxx: you shouldn't feel the need apologize about your abiding enjoyment of Sananda Maitreya's music and songwriting ouput among the industry-certified and throughout his ongoing indie career. I find very little of his music to sound "bloated." Oh my crazy ears.

>

The man knows well how to execute unusual creative ideas and is gutsy enough to express his opinions whether not they're in alignment with the masses, the "ad-men" or the industry hacks. I appreciate this, and his self-belief and willingness to be vulnerable in sharing these gifts as an artist. I ESPECIALLY admire his ability to thrive as an independent creative among the graft and craziness of the recording business and most importantly--all of the sounds he gives us.

>

People certainly have their differing tastes relative to preference in personalities, locution, music, songwriting, and whatever else they're aligning their preferences toward. Those here talking their about supposed "shit-talkers" are only showing themselves for the doody they're oozing out themselves, IMO.

nxx said:

Yeah true, I totally admit I have no objectivity here haha. Apple Music told me I was in the top 1% of his listeners haha so I feel like maybe I'm just a fan for life, his work touches my heart even when it's a bit of a miss creatively / commercially.

Lol I'd forgotten that little speech you mentioned tho, you have a good memory! So cringe isn't it!

FWIW my favourite album of his is actually Neither Fish Nor Flesh... I never understood why it got such a kicking in the press at the time, I love every second of it. I was so glad he played "Billie Don't Fall" on the recent tour. Plus the album was recorded in Dublin!

But I also loved Symphony or Damn, I really think those two records are underappreciated.

Since you've all been very gracious indulging my SM / TTD obsession on here I'll just say that his recentish single "Love Is Blind" is such an earworm, I can't get it out of my head. He also did a great song with Jellybean Johnson (RIP) on the current album which is worth checking out.

Love Is Blind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwf7cR44ehI

Walk On feat Jellybean Johnson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWWiTRA_KLg

[Edited 11/22/25 21:38pm]

nxx said:

I'd like to nominate JorisE73 to please find another thread to go be grumpy on, some of us love these albums and you seem to be talking out of your arse

same can be said about you. If you can't stand different opinions then maybe lock yourself up or something and wallow in your own opinions.
You're talking out of your ass regarding TTD's shitty output.

JorisE73 said:

nxx said:

I'd like to nominate JorisE73 to please find another thread to go be grumpy on, some of us love these albums and you seem to be talking out of your arse

same can be said about you. If you can't stand different opinions then maybe lock yourself up or something and wallow in your own opinions.
You're talking out of your ass regarding TTD's shitty output.

At least I'm trying to contribute to open discussion, you just say "it sucks, it was a flop" which is at odds with the truth for those early albums and really tends to shut down conversation. You obviously don't know the first thing about Sananda or his work, your opinions aren't contributing positively to the thread because they don't leave room for any chat, it just shuts things down.

I get that people like different things sometimes, we've all heard your views so feel free to move along now. If you just need to win, well done, you won, now maybe find something better to do?

[Edited 11/27/25 8:47am]

peedub said:

nxx said:

I'd like to nominate JorisE73 to please find another thread to go be grumpy on, some of us love these albums and you seem to be talking out of your arse

Don't sweat it. His characterization of Lenny Kravitz as 'more original' is reason enough to dismiss his opinion.

That was a strange one! I never perceived any connection between these artists tbh.

Germanegro said:

Threads with Sananda Maitreya's name in them seem to be a reliable draw for people wishing to plead the case for his "mediocrity" and share their disdain to the things the man is up to, even when it comes down to his recounting about Prince--as evidenced throughout here.

I look forward to reading more on S.M'.s thoughts about Prince, his musician peer and a friend.(It seems to hurt somebodys butts to acknowledge this, it seems at times, but whatever.)

@ nxx: you shouldn't feel the need apologize about your abiding enjoyment of Sananda Maitreya's music and songwriting ouput among the industry-certified and throughout his ongoing indie career. I find very little of his music to sound "bloated." Oh my crazy ears.

>

The man knows well how to execute unusual creative ideas and is gutsy enough to express his opinions whether not they're in alignment with the masses, the "ad-men" or the industry hacks. I appreciate this, and his self-belief and willingness to be vulnerable in sharing these gifts as an artist. I ESPECIALLY admire his ability to thrive as an independent creative among the graft and craziness of the recording business and most importantly--all of the sounds he gives us.

>

People certainly have their differing tastes relative to preference in personalities, locution, music, songwriting, and whatever else they're aligning their preferences toward. Those here talking their about supposed "shit-talkers" are only showing themselves for the doody they're oozing out themselves, IMO.

Thank you, and very well expressed!

As you can tell, I really adore Sananda's work, it's been a part of my life since 87. He has a deep reverence for Prince (or as he calls him "the Maestro" haha) and his music, you can hear the influence and my understanding is that there was at least one attempt to work together. Sananda also did some work with other Prince alumni like W&L and Jellybean.

One thing about Sananda is that... after following his music all this time, from The Touch to EG O'Reilly, to Wildcard (both editions), the name change and then to his post-millennium rock era... it's never been a dull moment! He's a funny, unusual character and in some ways this has reminded me of the rollercoaster of trying to follow Prince's output back in the 90s when he was making all sorts of wild moves. I'm also glad SM went the indie route, I have a lot of time for eccentric artists with great reach, who really chart their own path and don't self-censor, that's part of the reason I love Prince's work also.

I can totally understand if some people prefer to stick with the more commercial earlier albums, but I will say that some of his best songs that we all love from those early 5 records... there are songs which are just as great on his later work also. It just takes a bit of unearthing. Even his latest studio album, the Pegasus Project is full of great stuff, even revisiting earlier tracks with string quartet is so gorgeous.

Maybe I just need to write a book about Sananda, I feel like he's been misunderstood or something haha.

[Edited 11/27/25 9:11am]

nxx said:

JorisE73 said:

same can be said about you. If you can't stand different opinions then maybe lock yourself up or something and wallow in your own opinions.
You're talking out of your ass regarding TTD's shitty output.

At least I'm trying to contribute to open discussion, you just say "it sucks, it was a flop" which is at odds with the truth for those early albums and really tends to shut down conversation. You obviously don't know the first thing about Sananda or his work, your opinions aren't contributing positively to the thread because they don't leave room for any chat, it just shuts things down.

I get that people like different things sometimes, we've all heard your views so feel free to move along now. If you just need to win, well done, you won, now maybe find something better to do?

[Edited 11/27/25 8:47am]

No harm done, like I said I don't need to discuss this pretentious guy, you like him and his work, I don't and I'm allowed to say that. I just find it weird that people are praising him and pretending he has some positive connection to Prince. Especially when Prince numerous times either dissed him out right in his face at Paisley Park and even had him kicked out because he wasn't capable contributing anything to a simple jam with the NPG.
Liek I said I like his first album but the rest are just big nothing burgers and here in Europe his albums flopped hard.
This is not some game I'm playing so I don't know whjat you are on about winning things.
I decide how I waste my time, I don't need people like you who don't know me advising me about how to waste my time on here. TTD's pretentiousnes seems to have rubbed off on you.

nxx said:

peedub said:

nxx said: Don't sweat it. His characterization of Lenny Kravitz as 'more original' is reason enough to dismiss his opinion.

That was a strange one! I never perceived any connection between these artists tbh.

They came around about the sme time and I just think Lenny has more skills and talent and I like his music better, nothing deep or sdifficult to understand.

JorisE73 said:

nxx said:

At least I'm trying to contribute to open discussion, you just say "it sucks, it was a flop" which is at odds with the truth for those early albums and really tends to shut down conversation. You obviously don't know the first thing about Sananda or his work, your opinions aren't contributing positively to the thread because they don't leave room for any chat, it just shuts things down.

I get that people like different things sometimes, we've all heard your views so feel free to move along now. If you just need to win, well done, you won, now maybe find something better to do?

[Edited 11/27/25 8:47am]

No harm done, like I said I don't need to discuss this pretentious guy, you like him and his work, I don't and I'm allowed to say that. I just find it weird that people are praising him and pretending he has some positive connection to Prince. Especially when Prince numerous times either dissed him out right in his face at Paisley Park and even had him kicked out because he wasn't capable contributing anything to a simple jam with the NPG.
Liek I said I like his first album but the rest are just big nothing burgers and here in Europe his albums flopped hard.
This is not some game I'm playing so I don't know whjat you are on about winning things.
I decide how I waste my time, I don't need people like you who don't know me advising me about how to waste my time on here. TTD's pretentiousnes seems to have rubbed off on you.

For someone who doesn't need to discuss this "pretentious guy" you sure seem to really want to

That's fine. To your point though, yeah I think we'd all love to know the truth of how that encounter at Paisley really went, I love both artists but I just cannot imagine them finding a way to work together fruitfully. Sananda's musical instinct is kinda unusual sometimes in terms of chord choices and harmonies, I could imagine it not fitting well with Prince's songwriting. But you know what Prince was like... his ego caused him trouble with such collabs, like he even tried to humiliate Miles Davis, or Bruce Springsteen or others when they tried to step onstage with his band, he wasn't always a good-faith collaborator if you know what I mean. Imagine those two egos bouncing off each other haha.

As for flops, I personally don't care about sales figures or commercial things but I'm in Europe as well and I remember some great singles coming off all those early albums, and more to the point I can point to great songs on all of them. I remember singles in rotation on MTV etc. So we carry a different memory of that period clearly.

On Neither Fish Nor Flesh, I remember seeing "To Know Someone Deeply" on MTV pretty often, and also "Billie Don't Fall" and "This Side of Love". Personally I love all those songs. Skipping the singles, I think the run of songs in the second half, from "Roly Poly" through to "I Don't Want to Bring Your Gods Down" is such beautiful sequence of songs, it kinda reminds me of the tail end of Abbey Road maybe, it's perfection.
On Symphony or Damn, I remember "She Kissed Me" being in steady rotation on the radio, the single was everywhere, also "Delicate" duet with Des'ree was a HUGE hit, it was all over the radio and MTV. Also "Let Her Down Easy" got a bit of airplay, I remember seeing the video a lot. It's gorgeous. For album tracks, I actually think this album is up there with Sign O the Times or Innervisions or whatever else, it's so good but stuff like "Seasons" and "Turn the Page" are stand out tracks for me.
On Vibrator, "Holding onto you" was a huge single, I vaguely remember "Supermodel Sandwich" showing up in a movie soundtrack as well? Of the album tracks I would pick "Undeniably" or "if you go before me" and "it's been said". Whatever you may think of the commercial success, he was still a big name at this time and those are all great songs.
Lastly Wildcard... that was around the time of the name change so I don't think it was a big hit or anything, he was kinda kickstarting his indie career but I am often surprised by how many people know this record and love it. Like Symphony, I don't think there's a bad song on there, the whole album is a masterpiece so I'd definitely encourage you to give it a listen. You can refer to it as "a flop" if you want to but it's a great album.

JorisE73 said:

nxx said:

That was a strange one! I never perceived any connection between these artists tbh.

They came around about the sme time and I just think Lenny has more skills and talent and I like his music better, nothing deep or sdifficult to understand.

Sure, I like Lenny too. I don't really view music as a competition, it's OK to enjoy the work of multiple artists, they both do things very differently, using different gifts. Maybe Lenny is a better drummer, maybe Sananda does better close vocal harmonies. I never saw much connection between these artists at all, because their influences are so so different. For me, Lenny was maybe more inspired by 70s rock and soul, while Sananda was maybe more of a Lennon/McCartney disciplle, also loves singers like Rod Stewart, Van Morrison etc. So I never really put them in the same category at all.

nxx said:

JorisE73 said:

No harm done, like I said I don't need to discuss this pretentious guy, you like him and his work, I don't and I'm allowed to say that. I just find it weird that people are praising him and pretending he has some positive connection to Prince. Especially when Prince numerous times either dissed him out right in his face at Paisley Park and even had him kicked out because he wasn't capable contributing anything to a simple jam with the NPG.
Liek I said I like his first album but the rest are just big nothing burgers and here in Europe his albums flopped hard.
This is not some game I'm playing so I don't know whjat you are on about winning things.
I decide how I waste my time, I don't need people like you who don't know me advising me about how to waste my time on here. TTD's pretentiousnes seems to have rubbed off on you.

For someone who doesn't need to discuss this "pretentious guy" you sure seem to really want to

That's fine. To your point though, yeah I think we'd all love to know the truth of how that encounter at Paisley really went, I love both artists but I just cannot imagine them finding a way to work together fruitfully. Sananda's musical instinct is kinda unusual sometimes in terms of chord choices and harmonies, I could imagine it not fitting well with Prince's songwriting. But you know what Prince was like... his ego caused him trouble with such collabs, like he even tried to humiliate Miles Davis, or Bruce Springsteen or others when they tried to step onstage with his band, he wasn't always a good-faith collaborator if you know what I mean. Imagine those two egos bouncing off each other haha.

As for flops, I personally don't care about sales figures or commercial things but I'm in Europe as well and I remember some great singles coming off all those early albums, and more to the point I can point to great songs on all of them. I remember singles in rotation on MTV etc. So we carry a different memory of that period clearly.

On Neither Fish Nor Flesh, I remember seeing "To Know Someone Deeply" on MTV pretty often, and also "Billie Don't Fall" and "This Side of Love". Personally I love all those songs. Skipping the singles, I think the run of songs in the second half, from "Roly Poly" through to "I Don't Want to Bring Your Gods Down" is such beautiful sequence of songs, it kinda reminds me of the tail end of Abbey Road maybe, it's perfection.
On Symphony or Damn, I remember "She Kissed Me" being in steady rotation on the radio, the single was everywhere, also "Delicate" duet with Des'ree was a HUGE hit, it was all over the radio and MTV. Also "Let Her Down Easy" got a bit of airplay, I remember seeing the video a lot. It's gorgeous. For album tracks, I actually think this album is up there with Sign O the Times or Innervisions or whatever else, it's so good but stuff like "Seasons" and "Turn the Page" are stand out tracks for me.
On Vibrator, "Holding onto you" was a huge single, I vaguely remember "Supermodel Sandwich" showing up in a movie soundtrack as well? Of the album tracks I would pick "Undeniably" or "if you go before me" and "it's been said". Whatever you may think of the commercial success, he was still a big name at this time and those are all great songs.
Lastly Wildcard... that was around the time of the name change so I don't think it was a big hit or anything, he was kinda kickstarting his indie career but I am often surprised by how many people know this record and love it. Like Symphony, I don't think there's a bad song on there, the whole album is a masterpiece so I'd definitely encourage you to give it a listen. You can refer to it as "a flop" if you want to but it's a great album.

There were two encounters detrailed by a wellknown guy who was there and one from T.
T. said TTD wanted to join in on a NPG jam but Prince gave him that 'Prince' look and kept staring at him until he left.Another encounter was TTD being high or drunk or something at Paisley Park and trying to kiss Prince but got body slammed and another where Prince just waved him off and had him removed from the premise for some reason.

JorisE73 said:

nxx said:

At least I'm trying to contribute to open discussion, you just say "it sucks, it was a flop" which is at odds with the truth for those early albums and really tends to shut down conversation. You obviously don't know the first thing about Sananda or his work, your opinions aren't contributing positively to the thread because they don't leave room for any chat, it just shuts things down.

I get that people like different things sometimes, we've all heard your views so feel free to move along now. If you just need to win, well done, you won, now maybe find something better to do?

[Edited 11/27/25 8:47am]

No harm done, like I said I don't need to discuss this pretentious guy, you like him and his work, I don't and I'm allowed to say that. I just find it weird that people are praising him and pretending he has some positive connection to Prince. Especially when Prince numerous times either dissed him out right in his face at Paisley Park and even had him kicked out because he wasn't capable contributing anything to a simple jam with the NPG.
Liek I said I like his first album but the rest are just big nothing burgers and here in Europe his albums flopped hard.
This is not some game I'm playing so I don't know whjat you are on about winning things.
I decide how I waste my time, I don't need people like you who don't know me advising me about how to waste my time on here. TTD's pretentiousnes seems to have rubbed off on you.

Is it really so difficult to understand?

JorisE73 said:

I think Sananda made some nice works in the past, but I really love his "underground" phase. He could make money with a copy and paste of Wishing Well or Little Sister, but he began to produce his own crazy album with really heterogeneous material, funky, soul, shit songs, playing all instruments in low-fi, singing in little clubs in Europa performing only his last songs, so I bought The Sphinx and some of the other albums he released in last years, and here and there I found some little gems. I see it after The Sphinx album, in a little club in Genova, and he was very generous. To be honest I'm not in love with his last two album, but The Sphinx was a surprise.

nxx said:

peedub said:

theblueangel said:

Neither Fish Nor Flesh & Symphony or Damn are very easily two of the best pop albums of the 80s/90s. Just stunningly beautiful works of art

Totally agree! I really feel they are under-appreciated masterpieces, up there with the very best.

nxx said:

nxx said:

No idea why some Prince fans love to crap on SM. He's amazing if eccentric talent, and has always spoken of Prince with nothing but love, respect and admiration.

His run of albums from Hardline through to Wildcard was insanely great, like... imagine if Prince did 5 or 6 x SoTTs back-to-back. Although the post-millennium work is patchier there have still been some really great work. He's a little underappreciated imho.

I agree, I'm less taken with his later material, but it's respectable and his first 5 albums run is truly mindblowing. So much talent, both lyrically and musically!

And one has to respect how he withdrew from the music industry and managed to live off the money he made in the first decade of his career to just do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. In a way, he did what Prince wanted to do when he left WB, only Prince was too depending on his extravagant lifestyle to be satisfied with lower income, and probably on his ego to accept being under the radar for too long.

That said, the cryptic way Sananda often talks is doing him a disservice: it's hard to relate with the man.

And TBH, Prince did do 5 or 6 SOTTS back to back: his run from 1982 to 1988, including the side projects, remains among the most epic in pop music history (not to mention all the great material he recorded before and after that).

databank said:

nxx said:

No idea why some Prince fans love to crap on SM. He's amazing if eccentric talent, and has always spoken of Prince with nothing but love, respect and admiration.

His run of albums from Hardline through to Wildcard was insanely great, like... imagine if Prince did 5 or 6 x SoTTs back-to-back. Although the post-millennium work is patchier there have still been some really great work. He's a little underappreciated imho.

I agree, I'm less taken with his later material, but it's respectable and his first 5 albums run is truly mindblowing. So much talent, both lyrically and musically!

And one has to respect how he withdrew from the music industry and managed to live off the money he made in the first decade of his career to just do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. In a way, he did what Prince wanted to do when he left WB, only Prince was too depending on his extravagant lifestyle to be satisfied with lower income, and probably on his ego to accept being under the radar for too long.

That said, the cryptic way Sananda often talks is doing him a disservice: it's hard to relate with the man.

And TBH, Prince did do 5 or 6 SOTTS back to back: his run from 1982 to 1988, including the side projects, remains among the most epic in pop music history (not to mention all the great material he recorded before and after that).

Sure, I definitely agree that Prince had an amazing run of albums during that time but I'd maybe pick out 1999, Purple Rain and Sign O The Times as his strongest or most consistent, just my personal opinion. I always wondered if the reason 1999, Purple Rain and SoTT are so strong is because they were edited down from a larger volume of work, following a period of being incredibly prolific. It's almost like these albums came from outer space, they are so unusual and amazing.
Anyway all I'm getting at is that I'd view Sananda's early run from Hardline to Wildcard as being as comparable to Prince's best or any other amazing sequence of great albums like Stevie in the 70s or Bowie or something. It is truly extraordinary, a consistently strong sequence of work.

nxx said:

databank said:

I agree, I'm less taken with his later material, but it's respectable and his first 5 albums run is truly mindblowing. So much talent, both lyrically and musically!

And one has to respect how he withdrew from the music industry and managed to live off the money he made in the first decade of his career to just do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. In a way, he did what Prince wanted to do when he left WB, only Prince was too depending on his extravagant lifestyle to be satisfied with lower income, and probably on his ego to accept being under the radar for too long.

That said, the cryptic way Sananda often talks is doing him a disservice: it's hard to relate with the man.

And TBH, Prince did do 5 or 6 SOTTS back to back: his run from 1982 to 1988, including the side projects, remains among the most epic in pop music history (not to mention all the great material he recorded before and after that).

Sure, I definitely agree that Prince had an amazing run of albums during that time but I'd maybe pick out 1999, Purple Rain and Sign O The Times as his strongest or most consistent, just my personal opinion. I always wondered if the reason 1999, Purple Rain and SoTT are so strong is because they were edited down from a larger volume of work, following a period of being incredibly prolific. It's almost like these albums came from outer space, they are so unusual and amazing.
Anyway all I'm getting at is that I'd view Sananda's early run from Hardline to Wildcard as being as comparable to Prince's best or any other amazing sequence of great albums like Stevie in the 70s or Bowie or something. It is truly extraordinary, a consistently strong sequence of work.

Yeah, it's a pity Sananda's first decade of work isn't widely acknowledged by critics as being the work of genius we think it it. Sadly, many great artists' work flew under the radar...