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PrintableAerogram said: Namepeace said :
I have reserved judgment on whether Prince is back or the merits of the album,
I have heard it and those reviewers who did hear it seems to agree. Perhaps the author of this thread did make an informed assessment. No, I'm not going to say "his best since..." -- I know too much about Prince music to hasten sujch comparisons so early. The author is "informed," my post was intended as an historical perspective on recent developments, and you are definitely not alone in the "Princeophiles reserving judgment" camp . . . 
Have you seen the Musicology tour grosses? This is in a different category altogether.
If you say so, I trust you've seen them. And I am glad to hear of it. But, sadly, I am a skeptic when it comes to the masses' receptiveness to Prince, and I think that folks are flocking to see him for 2 good reasons: 1) his unparallelled talent as a performer, and 2) his signature hits. But not for his current fare. As I said in my second post, the success of the new album will mark the effectiveness of the comeback. The Rolling Stones sell out everywhere they go but their new stuff doesn't sell as well. Sometimes even commercial success doesn't prevent the onset of revisionism. Emancipation moved 2 million units (or 600,000+ triple-albums sold) and it's been forgotten. had a top ten hit in "7" and a top-40 hit in "Sexy MF" and it might as well have not existed either. You are right on the fickle nature of pop culture, but the issue for the purposes of this post is whether Prince can maintain his momentum so as to "prevail" over his "haters". The author of this thread deemed his "triumph" inevitable. I simply am pointing out that history indicates that the key component to a full-fledged comeback is having a commercially successful album. And that's not a sure thing. No more, no less.
We all know what happened to Emancipation -- you can't say it was a true mainstream success because less than one million people bought it worldwide, the company went bellyup, etc. As for the Symbol album, Sexy MF was out months before the record and 7 was a late surprise hit in its promotion that did nothing for the album, or very little. With Musicology, things are textbook : video, single, viable record company, backing tour, critical acclaim, good press. The stars are aligned for this one, and having heard the album, I believe Prince is definitely "back" in a mainstream way. The next three weeks will make it clear one way or another. You make some good points. I guess my use of "commercial success" was more economic in that context than "mainstream." And even though the albums were successful from a purely commercial standpoint, they are shunned on their merits altogether by critics so as to be invisible to music history. Heck, even D&P is rarely discussed. It yielded Top-40 hits in Gett Off, Diamonds and Pearls, Money Don't Matter Tonight and the #1 Cream, and how often is that LP mentioned for its merits or success? Rarely, if ever. I really hope I can share your optimism. By buying blocks of tix for concerts in 2 different cities and buying this LP, I am gonna do my part to keep the momentum going! As for the rest, haters and "asskissers" get on my nerves equally because it's mostly all or nothing for them. Even as I discuss Prince's return to the mainstream, it's not really the criteria on me. As many more level-headed fans have said, there are songs that match some of the underrated 90's songs. The difference is image and PR (both Public Relations and Purple Rain - the anniversary). I've explained that Prince has been under the Curse of the Fallen Genius up there and he can carry a lot of the blame for that, but at the end of the day, the critical assessment is largerly superficial -- yes, even the present reviews of Musicology show that. I'm not the hugest champion of Musicology. I like some of it a lot, but that's not really the point. Is Prince "back"? Definitely.
I agree with you wholeheartedly there and I hope I react to the LP in the same manner. I think I can say I am of the same mind in that if Prince only sold 3 records (to Mani, Aerogram and Namepeace), it wouldn't change my opinion one bit. Prince is the finest artist of his generation with tons of classic material from various sources. I have said this tons of times in the past. If he never sold another record or played another lick, he's given us enough to last for a long time. [This message was edited Thu Apr 8 8:05:00 2004 by namepeace] Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016
Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder | |
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POOK said: PRINCE REALLY HOT RIGHT NOW BUT WE SEE HOW ALBUM SELL BEFORE WE DO VICTORY DANCE OK? yes | |
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Aerogram said: I was going to qualify my statement on SOTT. It did NOT get universally positive reviews for all of his songs at first. RS had some choice comments at first. Even Nelson George had problems with stuff like Strange Relationships and said so.
I recall one review criticizing "Strange Relationship" as being a second-rate Stevie Wonder romp and "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" as overlong and meandering--"Who wants to hear Prince jam with himself?" I believe were the exact words. | |
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NakedPreacherLady said: RupertZ said: I agree that there he did some great work in the 90s..especially around '93 and '94...he did some amazing live stuff around then too as well as wrote some great songs. After Emancipation though, he has been extremely dried up as far as great songwriting goes. He still is just about as great as ever when it comes to live performing.
There is no shame in not being able to capture his past genius. Most geniuses do their best work when they are young. His brain just aged like everyone else's and that mad creative spark just burned out. Just think of the years of 1980-1988 and how much totally INCREDIBLE music he produced...not just for himself, but for the Time, Vanity 6, Sheila E, etc and all the superb unreleased songs from that era. He was just almost beyond human during that time. Now he is only human and there's no shame in that. I'd say after The Truth. I hear many say his great songwriting days might have ended with the truth. But I think he still had some at least "good" songwriting up until 2001. His compsitions for an R&B artist are still very good. | |
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