Someone said this before, and I agree. Lovesexy would have been the shit if Prince had released it as a double album with the Black Album, his bad and good side or whatever- superb!

Lovesexy isnt all that for me either, but it has stood the test of time amongst fans...

Musicology? I haven't said anything about it yet, cause I really wanted to listen.

Its a real grower, that is the one common thread most people have said that is true. I thought it was just ok on the first listen. But its growing more and more for me

And its got that mid album track five into track six peak like Parade (Girls and Boys to Life can be so nice and Call My Name into Cinnamon Girl ). And Parade is my all time fave Prince album. So it has real plusses

BUT..... Life 'O' The Party is torture, its the new jughead, but with less intelligence. I had it on my ipod today and i nearly tripped up trying to change the track crossing the road. And the Italian reminds me of the Mayte's Spanish shite on TGE (the Italian sounds so contrived too)

But its better than I thought or even hoped for, and I'm still playing it. So the jury is still out

Agreeing with lmas

It's been a long time since Prince has moved me like he does with the music on Musicology. I'm a believer again. It's funk again.

Prince, and thank you.

hehe , I'm still holding out until April 20th before listening to Musicology but I'm betting I'll end up enjoying it more than I will Lovesexy . The reasons people here like to over-rate lovesexy I think are

a) They're trying to extend Prince's "golden" period to as long as possible , by including Lovesexy and The Black Album , neither of which are classic albums in the vein of SOTT or the albums that preceded it .Obviously it'd be sacrilege to say Batman was in his golden period because he jumped on a huge commercial bandwagon , sold out etc , but what can I say, I'll take the Batman soundtrack over Lovesexy's jumbled contrivances any day of the week.

b) I do think some people are eager to swallow Prince's "spiritual rebirth" and really make out they feel what Prince was (apparently) going through and relating with Lovesexy . Basically , a lot of fans want to relate to Prince's music on a spiritual level , and as there was a wholly spiritual side to that album then they're maybe placing more importance on the message than the music itself . Just cos Prince talks to God in a song doesnt make it any better to my ears , I've always enjoyed his sexually centred songs more than his spiritual ones really. The musics funkier as a rule too when hes singing from the groin and not the soul

Okay, I like Musicology, but I have to say I disagree. In fact, I disagree with everyone who said that Lovesexy is over-rated. Y'all are entitled to your opinion, of course, no matter how wrong it is!

moonshine said:

Somebody just said it, If Lovesexy had of been a double LP with the Black album than Prince would have perhaps given me a whole different opinion of the "Lovesexy" project. As it stands, he did not so that is that.

Musicology is so much more listenable than LoveSexy. To me Lovesexy was a lot of jumbled songs (hell it was even trackless for a while. Did they change that?) It had breaks with a couple of classics like "Anna Stastia" and "When 2 R in Love" and "Alphabet St.", but the "messy" songs just turned me off. Quiet as it is kept I actually played "Batman" on my tape deck more than I did "Lovesexy" (especially the Batdance (#1 Dance) Remix I incorporated into my version of the LP). Graffitti Bridge and it's WB successors got my attention more.

lmas said:

Not that I know of. Amazon still lists it as one track.

The Lovesexy area is the highlight in Prince carreer...the Lovesexy
Tour the Black and Lovesexy album....Lovesexy is a unique album since it shows a genius artist on a spiritual profound journey. In this way Lovesexy is uncomparable to anything i have ever heard...

as for Musicology, what a mistake. My goodness. I mean Prince knew about the disaster of Rave...why then come with a sequel of Rave? It is so dissapointing. I love ONA Live and ONA. TRC,NEWS and Xpectation has great stuff too. Then why come out with Musicology? It doesn't sound like music from the heart. And the worst thing of all it isn't commercial either...while we all know this is Prince trying to go mainstream...only he is forgetting this is year 2004 not 1990....

Sorry bout this negativity people. But u must understand my dissapointment i thought after ONA, ONA Live, TRC, NEWS and Xpectation we would be getting more then what Musicology is offering.

101 said:

What is commercial these days? Music that is either laced with Rap or music that is sung over a computerized techono beat. I mean come on Britney's "Toxic" is commercial but is it considered groudbreaking material or just another attempt to turn around her falling star. Don't get me wrong I like Techno too, but "real music played by real musicians" tend to excite me more.

As for it being 2004 not 1990. Tell Outcast, D'angelo, MAxwell, Erika Badu, MAcy Gray, the Roots, Beck, No Doubt. I swear being very big Prince admirers they tend to have a lot of his sound and still remain hip and commercial. In fact it has my opinion that No Doubt is actually a reincarnation of the Revolution mixed with the Family with a little bit more wildness, since their sound has always been very 80ish. OutKast clearly was raised on SOTT/Black Album era Prince harkenning back to the 70's as it's inspiration.

As for the Album that is Musicology. Keep an open mind. I did for Purple Rain, ATWIAD, and Parade and look where that got me. Listening to everything from Prince to Nina Simone from Dhjango Reinhart to Belioz from Biggy Small to Herbert etc.

MUsicology is about music
[This message was edited Sat Apr 3 8:02:20 2004 by lmas]

I don't want to trample on anyones opinions but isn't it a little too soon to say where exactly Musicology ranks with Prince's other albums? Personally I find I have to live with an album for a while before I really get it. I used to loathe Rainbow Children but now I enjoy most of it. I really disliked N.E.W.S. but I like it much better now that I've heard it many times. I'm not saying that it's wrong to say that Musicology is better than Lovesexy. If that's your opinion that's great. But I do think we should all listen to Musicology a lot more before we judge it. It's been out for less than a week!

My thoughts on why Lovesexy is so highly regarded. It's kind of between the great albums of the mid '80s and the lesser albums of the late '80s and early '90s. It's definitely very artistic but I agree that maybe it was a little too rushed. Just my opinion.

POOK said:

You are insane and I've had just enough coffee that I love you!

The funny thing about threads like this is it exposes the myths about Prince .

SOTT & LOVEsexy both sold fewer than 2 million copies combined in the US .

They were both panned by the "major" critics.

Lovesexy was doomed from the beginning because of it's cover .Many stores refused to carry the album when first released because of the cover.

The highest charted song from Lovesexy was Alphabet St. It only placed to #7 on the charts.

Lovesexy was a MAJOR hit in the UK & Europe .

SOTT was sabatoged by Prince when he refused to tour the US when the album was selling then slowed momentum with the release of the second single If I WAs Your Girlfriend. This was maybe the worse decision by Prince in the pre Symbol days. U Got the Look should have been the single in the late spring ,early summer of 87 .Adore was a nice choice for a slow jam but was totally ignored by Prince until Urban radio played it straight from the album.

Lovesexy became a favorite of mine in late 1989 and I love the album but when it was released I did not understand the message as well the musical depth the album offered.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Eye No esp. The imagry in that song preaching to the crowd at the pulpit. It starts the redemption process of the album. Can't even skip thru it.

And Positivity has quite a few good lines in it that have become classic Prince sayings. And what about that bath at the end?

IMO it was widely underrated at the time. I'm glad it gets plenty of props around here. It was the first one that I listened to over and over and over. I think it's not necessarily his greatest...but certainly fits in amongst the other classics. It is also one of the last "Purple Albums" that also features much density and complicated tracks that we pretty much did not get again for quite some time.

my 2 cents....

peace

Personally, though, I have to say that the "The Marrying Kind/If I Was The Man In Ur Life/On The Couch" is absolute genius. If you can isolate these three songs and let them segue seemlessly into one another - hoo baby - switch off those lights, daddy wanna dance.

First rule of the Prince world :

Never say anything is better than Lovesexy, Purple Rain, SOTT and Parade, except when comparing them to each other.

If five years from now, Musicology somehow has become a classic, then you may attempt to make this comparison again.
[This message was edited Sat Apr 3 11:44:16 2004 by Aerogram]

bkw said:

Don't get me wrong I looooove Lovesexy, but I can think of a number of officially released albums that are better:

1. Around the World In A Day
2. Sign "O" the Times
3. Parade
4. TRC
5. Gold
6. Purple Rain
7. Lovesexy


But overall The BEST Prince album is:
Dream Factory

muleFunk said:

I don't know about Lovesexy, but SOTT was highly praised by Rolling Stone at the time and received 4 stars (excellent).

Aerogram said:

What about 1999? In any case, the diversity of Prince's music makes it appealing to a broad spectrum of musical tastes. We all have our favorites and it's not surprising that they differ. Having said that, I feel comfortable stating that, overall, this is his best album in over a decade. Musicology has restored my faith in his abilities.

Aerogram said:

Purple Rain

Not even in my top 5, nor is Lovesexy.

johnnyj said:

I just named those four because those are the records that have been championed the most by die-hard fans. Personally, I'm big on early Prince and consider that Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain, Parade, SOTT and Lovesexy* are in his six essential albums, with an asterisk thrown in for Lovesexy to mention people should listen to the Black Album to really get it. Those seven records define Prince, part 1, which is the classic Prince sound(s) and persona(s), the ones music history will acknowledge the most due to its extraordinary succession of groundbreaking artistic achievements. If Prince had only made Dirty Mind and 1999, he would have a place in rock history, but he went on to make trailblazing records until Lovesexy. Anything that follows is an extension of the ideas contained in these records, which are the 80's equivalent of the Beatles catalog.

Prince has made good records since, but few that had as much panache or invention. His records became inconvincing thematically -- the Graffiti Bridge, the Diamonds and Pearls, the bloated Symbol.. all those records have classic Prince songs alongside uninspired or overproduced tracks. TGE and TRC are the closest thing we have to something that could be compared to an album with the musical and thematic balls of Lovesexy, 1999 and all those other records that are forever the benchmarks of Prince music, whether we like it or not.

Does Musicology deserves to be compared to Lovesexy or any of the aformentioned albums? It's Prince most political and topical album ever - he sings about music, racial profiling, the war on Irak, the war on terror "alibi", politicians, poverty, voting... he even mixes sex and politics on Call my name. This aspect is very noteworthy. Musically, it's a very strong effort, with maybe two or three tracks that seem to stick out like a sore thumb for me, Life O the Party being one of them so far. But hey I don't like party songs, so you could end up being right. A classic Prince album is perfect from start to finish, but only after the passage of time. Even the classics had rough spots at first. On the other hand, the rough spots of Diamonds and Pearls have not faded. We'll know in time.
[This message was edited Sat Apr 3 15:14:42 2004 by Aerogram]

I'm diggin this album big time and I love it.....But it aint no Lovesexy. Not even close

johnnyj said:

Nothing can ever fuck with that album

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

It's certainly not the album that needs to be remade -- TRC was that. It's more a descendent of Controversy for its topical approach... with a little bit of /C&D thrown in.

johnnyj said:

did this guy( muleFunk)even check the facts SOTT sold 2 million (ok 1.8mill) in US after the success of UGot the Look and I Could Never Take the Place/Hot Thing. Then of course as it was common Prince abandonned that project for Black Album and then ultimately Lovesexy
[This message was edited Sat Apr 3 16:36:58 2004 by lmas]

I was there in 87 so the facts are clear to me .
The numbers you have are exact and correct but you misunderstand my statement.

I love SOTT & Lovesexy ,but the masses did not buy the albums although many(myself included) consider them to be in the top 5 Prince albums.

2 million albums ???

Black/Lovesexy should have been a 1989 project at the least.

I haven't listened to Musicology yet so i can't compare but what i can say is that Lovesexy is overrated and that's not an opinion, that is a fact! Which doesn't mean it's bad but it's just not the classic many fans claim . "Dance on" and "lovesexy" are filler tracks with no depth ( now try to find any fillers on 1999 or SOTT ! ) ,"eye know" is good but was better in its first version ("the ball", from the dream factory project i think...) and in all honesty even "Anna Stesia" is not THAT great ( too bombastic to truly be music masterpiece...). Now I agree it's probably one of Prince most coherent and conceptual work but it's musically just not strong enough to rank it on the same level as what was released before.

PERIOD

I Wish U Heaven 4 Making That Hasty Conclusion

lmas said:

http://www.prince.org/msg/7/87818

I think Imas might be right but it's still too early to tell. + I was feeling the review until I got the part about Cinnamon Girl being one of the best Prince songs ever. Damn, must a been smoking a For You afro sized crack rock.