LilyPhilips said:

it used to be in a different forum

errant said:

OK I didn't know that! Thanx for clearing that up

errant said:

It got moved.

I agree with the pretentious titles. "Supermodel Sandwich with Cheese" is clever. Symphony or Damn, Exploring the Tension Inside the Sweetness is just retarded as a title.

And people still compare him to Prince! Geez. At least his website works, you can buy stuff you want, he converses (to a degree) with his fanbase... And he can certainly still sing...

harveya said:

And he's given a shitload of music away too.

ernestsewell said:

He has also made MANY entire concerts available in their entirety for free online to watch and enjoy.

emilio319 said:

Prince, are you listening?

funksterr said:

I can name MANY incredible songs post-Wildcard... Here are just a few:










[Edited 5/21/10 16:26pm]
[Edited 5/21/10 16:41pm]

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

i agree 100%.

Yes, he is the most unappreciated artist around. His music is sheer genius, streets ahead of all that commercial urban crap we are all into today.

^^ As stated, a lot of his music post-Wildcard is sheer shit. He's delving too much into the "artsy" area, and is taking himself WAY too seriously. There were only a small handful of songs he released for free that were worth listening to.

Sananda is definitely an underrated and overlooked musician today. But given today's market, that's not really a suprise.

And I agree with some that Wildcard was his last album that had at least 1/2 of the tracks being very powerful.

I love Sanada's voice (truly exceptional) and think he is still writing SOME good songs. He's writing what he's writing and maybe some of it isn't as powerful as it used to be years ago.

The one out and out criticism I would level at him isn't necessarily his choice of song. As an overall musician, he is only average at best in all categories. Sometimes an average song becomes special when the performance takes it to new places. Sometimes a beautifully played solo adds a feel or vibe to a song that was otherwise missing.

But worse than either of those, many times an average musical performance can hold a song down. And there are many moments in his recent records where the horses are trying to run, but the reins are being held too tightly because Sananda can't rip on any instrument in particular.

And I don't say any of this to disparage. I would say any of this to his face in a respectful manner. Any songwriter would tell you it's all about servicing your tune to take it to the best place it can go. And in my opinion, Sananda doing the whole "written/arranged/produced and performed" thing isn't the best venue towards getting that done.

Brofie said:

I am not impressed with his angels and demons and the sphix material.
Bring back something like vibrator, symphony or damn, nfnf,ith.

he's spotty at best. i still enjoy greater AMOUNTS of Prince's stuff but last i got was Wildcard and it was like 4 tracks out of 18 i think (O Davina, Designated Fool, Shalom, What Will I Do and perhaps Surrender, so 5). i'll have to tread lightly with the new stuff and definitely try to sample as much of it as possible

ernestsewell said:

gee, no shit!

I like his Greatest Hits album quite a bit. I'd check out some of his newer stuff but it seems a bit overpriced. I still like to buy cd's and his stuff is not cheap enough for me to take a gamble on it. I guess one of the danger's of being an independent artist is that you risk falling off of people's radar. That certainly happened to Prince in the post Emancipation era. I thought it was funny that Musicology was billed as a comeback album.

Sananda Maitreya is indeed brilliant.
In fact, Ill go even farther that and say without hesitation, he was blessed with the finest soul voice of the past 50 years. He is every bit as pure and gifted a singer as Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, etc.
Vocally and technically he is in the same leauge as them, if not better.
But theres one huge difference, between Sananda and those classic singers. And that is he also extremely intellectual. It is this intellectual aspect of his character that unecessarily complicates and perhaps even sabatoges, what would otherwise be (or should be) a powerful and pure gift as a singer.
Also, I think Prince has had an enormous influence on him.
Much, much more than he would probably ever admit.
In as far as Prince setting the bar so incredibly high for solo artists in the late 80's (when Sananda first came out), that his emulating Prince's Do it all/ Have it all work ethic, even further complicated Sanada's perception of where he thought he should be going with his career and as an artist.



In many ways i think this continued emulation along with his strong intellectualism continue to get in the way of the utter purity and simplicity of his massive blessings as a singer, and a songwriter.
[Edited 5/23/10 9:28am]

Well put, Fenwick and FunkyStrange.
Lol@ Emillio for sneaking half of a Sananda concert onto Prince.org. I'm sure Sananda would find that amusing.

Lammastide said:

I watched all of those video's. From what I can see, TTD is wasting his talennt playing with these uninspired musicians.

errant said:

This is exactly how I view him.

It's great all the way up to Wildcard!.

The problem with his self-produced, self-financed material is that it's recorded and produced so badly that it's sometimes bordering on embarrassing. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of unsigned myspace etc. acts in the world that have put out better material. Yet, he is charging silly amounts of money from that stuff.

His material still shows signs of his old brilliance as far as songwriting and singing ability goes, but even in that regard there has been huge shortcomings. I agree with some of the others here in that he just needed all those other people around him. In fact, his band from the Vibrator -era had some amazing musicians in it. I understand that he got fucked over by his old record company, but I don't think he really walked out of the situation as a winner.

I want to like Sananda's material but he has gone so far to the left from his TTD persona that I can't hang.

I wonder how different the Sony albums would have been had he been allowed to do whatever he felt back then. His indie material makes me think it's a good thing someone was watching him at Sony.

sexyfunkystrange said:

I agree. That's one of the reasons I think it's so important to let folks know, Prince didn't really do it all. The perception that he did has had a negative impact on a lot of careers.

Does TTD have an issue with recording R&B? And why? Why the fck is he trying to soul sing over pseudo-60's style British rock? Did he watch too many episodes of The Monkeys as a kid? He could still be a jazz-soul-r&b powerhouse and yet he's fcking around trying to sound like he's something that he's not. I can't take him seriously and I doubt many other people are either.

funksterr said:

Something that he's not???? I'm pretty sure Sananda knows himself more than you do... He has always said that the first music he got turned on to was the Beatles when he was a toddler and ever since his 2nd album, "Neither Fish Nor Flesh," his music has incorporated plenty of rock.
Plus, he has always been a huge fan of The Beatles and also a huge fan of The Rolling Stones... Even when he was touring for his first album, "Introducing The Hardline," he would include covers of Rolling Stones songs like "Under My Thumb" and "Jumping Jack Flash." So I'm not sure what makes you think that is "something that he's not." He's always been a rocker.

You say "Why the fuck is he trying to soul sing over pseudo-60's style British rock? I say, "Why the fuck not?" He's free to make whatever fucking music he feels like making. It's perfectly fine if some people aren't digging it but he's free to do whatever the fuck he wants. He makes his own music on his own label, he does it his own damn way, he doesn't give a fuck about the charts or about pleasing the masses or about being on MTV or any of that shit and I don't understand why anyone else would give a fuck about that either.

Why are you trying to pigeon hole him and label him and LIMIT him to being "a jazz-soul-r&b powerhouse" as you say... He's an artist. He can do whatever he wants. Why is everyone always trying to put a black musician into this small box and limit him to jazz/soul/r&b????? He can make whatever type of music he feels like doing. He's a grown man who has been making music for 30 years and he's an independant artist who doesn't have to conform to anyone's rules but his own. Everyone likes to criticize artists when they compromise their music or sell out for the masses or purposely make some formulaic song to try and get on the radio but then when an artist is true to themselves you cry about that too. If you don't like it don't buy it, let the man make whatever he wants.
You want some bullshit jazz/soul/r&b go listen to John Legend or Alicia Keys, they'll make sure to stay inside the lines. And if you don't like the new shit you can just listen to his old albums over and over again...

From my observations, it seems that MOST (not all) people that don't get his current stuff are people who for the most part only listen to funk/r&b and also people who only listen to stuff from the 80's forward...I think people who are more into rock or the Beatles/Stones/Hendrix/60's/70's type shit tend to dig what he's doing now more but that's just my personal opinion. And trust me, there are TONS of people that are digging his new stuff and very much take him seriously as an artist.
[Edited 5/28/10 9:49am]
[Edited 5/28/10 9:51am]

His music has certainly been always rooted in late-60s / early-70s rock. Even his first album is in that vein as far as his compositions go, but it's just been given a typical 80s pop production flavour with synths. The same applies to a lot of compositions on Symphony or Damn and Wildcard - they just have some additional synthwork on them. Vibrator I felt was closer to what Lenny Kravitz was doing at the time, but it was a bit more adventurous.

Not sure why one would call him a jazz artist especially and he certainly isn't an R&B artist in the sense contemporary R&B artists are. Perhaps you could say that he is sometimes quite close to the original R&B music - a fusion of African American music and British rock.

How many straightforward soul songs has he done anyway? Only a handful, I would say.

emilio319 said:

I question your definition of the word "tons."

It literally means thousands. So if there are two-thousand people enjoying his new music it's correct.

emilio319 said:

I personally listen to music of all genres from virtually all time periods. I'm into music of all stripes big time. I'm simply not impressed with "Sananda" and his cowardly fake azz 1960's British sound. I think it's a tired idea, he's bad at it, and wonder why instead he doesn't produce music that suits his strongest talent: soul singing.