Come is miles ahead of the as far as listenability, but i'll concede that of the 1993-1995 stuff from the Gold/Come/Ulysses sessions, this seems to be the disc of relatively second-rate stuff.


i hated this album when it came out, but in retrospect, it's one of his best of the 90's.



oh, and it tanked because neither he or the label promoted it.

phunkadelic said:

and yes, the Truth sucks too.

joyinrepetition said:

I disagree.The 'Symbol' CD received a tremendous amount of promotion.There were big,expensive,lavish videos for (almost) every song on the album...the videos "My Name Is Prince","7" and "The Morning Papers" were shown on MTV,there was the 'Ryde Dyvine' TV special and the Act 1 tour in early 1993.The songs were widely heard on the radio too.This album was the rare instance where Prince and Warners both did an exceptional job with promoting and marketing a project.And if the sales weren't spectacular,you certainly can't blame it on a lack of effort on Warner's part.

AaronUniversal said:

No it doesn't.

Cloudbuster said:

yes it does

What damn decline? As an artist, one of my hopes would be that I could have a career as fruitful as Prince's has been and it's gets better by the minute. Not because of album sales and critic acclaim, but because day by day, Prince is able to grow, define, mess-up, triumph, and create with no limitations and now, on his own terms. I would think that Prince is in a state of bliss right about now because he is the master of his artistry. "Decline" implies that he has in some way fallen, but that is only in the eyes of those who, during the duration of Prince's career, have no longer liked the direction he was heading. They feel the music sucked, so to these people, Prince's career must be headed for a downfall. These people fail to realize that Prince's downfall is nonexistant. In the eyes of the artist themselves, it is and always will be about making music. As long as he is able to do this and even after HE decides to retire (not release anymore music, but I doubt he will EVER stop creating music), there will never be a decline for Prince, the artist that is. Now for those who define an artist based off of how prominent they are on the radio or billboard charts, you can use whatever criteria you would like to explain why you feel Prince has "fallen." But there are too many of us who define an artist by their music, their longetivity, their originality,by their damn talent, by their courage to do the music THEY would like to do, and to us, Prince is in his prime. No decline, in his prime.

Idais said:

no, they're talking about him putting out nothing but shitty albums from 1996-1999.

I got cha and that is based off of opinion and I respect everyone's right to that. I like "Come" myself. I really enjoy it. I forgot to say that earliar LOL I guess I was too busy ranting about Prince's "decline".

on second thought, the person did mention this was about commercial decline, so i see your point.



commercial decline means nothing to me when it comes to prince. but it just so happens that when his music started sucking, he stopped selling albums.



the decline in quality is infinitely more important to me, and while TRC and all of these jazz noodlings of the last 2 years have been a nice display of his musicianship and a glimmer of hope that he's actually interested in making music, i won't be convinced until he puts out a real album capitalizing on it, instead of these middling side projects... like ONA/X/NEWS/CNOTE/ONAL, etc.


a real album, with real lyrics, and real production, and not collections of demoes, live rehashes, and instrumentals will be the true test. i hope he pulls through.

AaronUniversal said:

No it doesn't.

Cloudbuster said:

listen to it. it does

AaronUniversal said:

I agree with that. But one thing I will say is how much I thoroughly enjoyed the Las Vegas DVD music-wise. I put that on when my friends come over and dammit, we gets funky for real. That DVD shows his musicianship, that wonderful stage presence of his, he was light-hearted and funny at times, and put on a hell of a show as a whole (see, this is off topic, I know LOL) I, like you, would like to see another full album from Prince. Maybe he will surprise us and do something of that nature.

AaronUniversal said:

I listen to it loads. It's my fave 90's album of his.

Cloudbuster said:

well maybe you suck too

AaronUniversal said:

If you ask nicely.

Cloudbuster said:

i don't need to if you're playing the Truth

AaronUniversal said:

Please don't tell me you favour The Rainbow Children.

Cloudbuster said:

i do. but it's only marginally better, because it sounds like he actually had a thought going through his head while he was working on it, whereas, the Truth sounds like some stale left-overs he'd had lying around and decided to pick up an acoustic guitar and strum out for 30 minutes one boring afternoon


now, that thought going through his head while putting together TRC is an incredibly stupid one, but thought went into it nonetheless

AaronUniversal said:

I'll and and a broom handle until it really hurts!!!

That feels better.

Cloudbuster said:

i know i'm in the minority, and listening to the Truth, i'm filled with nostalgia for that feeling i had when it came out... "maybe there's still hope"


perhaps that's why i hate that album. it didn't come with toast, as advertised.


plus, acoustic guitar isn't really my favorite way to present music.

Loved "Come" at first, thought he was really experimenting with new sounds. Over time, though, the lack of good songwriting overwhelmed that. I play Chaos and Disorder more now.

It's not so much the album that started a commercial decline (at least here in the UK) it was all the silliness that Prince allowing to influence his business and artistic activities at the time.

Namely the name change and WB battle.

Romance1600 said:

Definitely true. The media surrounding the name change/WB arguement really overshadowed the music and started the commercial decline. His actions during this period pissed a lot of people off and it was hard to make amends after. It became increasingly difficult to take him seriously as an artist/musician. The WB battle also resulted in albums not being promoted well (IMO) in the UK. There was alot of confusion about what was released where, when and by whom (Prince vs. o+>). I think that people found it exhausting trying to keep up with everything.

I think that BBC Radio 1 even had a "Come Day" when the album was released and they played tracks from the album all day.

Come is still my favorite album.

Purple Rain was actually the start of his commercial decline.Before that album,he scraped and fought and preened all he could to reach the top.After he reached it he did all he could to rebel against it.This rebelliousness became more and more pronounced over the subsequent years and albums.

I'm not saying that he didn't release really good music or anything,it's just it was a conscious effort not to make them too big.I remember reading an interview wher he said he was gonna give people "what they need" and not necessarily what they want.So,it was a two-fold rebellion:1 aganinst being too big(manageable) and 2,fighting to be a pure artist and not just a pop star.Prince still doesn't give us all we ask for because he doesn't want to be limited by anything other than his artistsic whims.He realized that the true fans would still be there to support.He isn't surprised by any sales declines.Critics and casuals have been.Prince orchestrated most of this.

blackboab said:

Actually, to be honest, the first album Prince released that thoroughly disappointed me was Lovesexy -- not that Diamonds and Pearls was much better...

IMO, Prince had a few redeeming albums in the 90's. I thought o(+> was one of his best, and I truly enjoyed 1994 -- between Come and the official release of The Black Album, I must have played Prince music almost exclusively all year long.

Glad I enjoyed it while I could. Little did I know at the time that four years would elapse before Captain No-Name would release another compelling set (Crystal Ball and The Truth).

What artist has managed to stay on top commercially over a 25 year period? Once you are number one and flavour of the month it's pretty hard to go anywhere but downwards, with opportunities for comebacks here and there. Unless you try desperately to stay in the limelight (at the expense of your musical freedom to stay in fashion) what choice do you have? IMHO, Purple Rain's incredible success and popularity was pure coincidence - right place, right time.

On the other hand, if Prince wanted some commercial success he should've put out "wherever u go, whatever u do" as a single, sounds like a number 1 hit to me