Straight min funk/Prince/The Time/Rick James kinda shit

I like it!

More boring retro trash.

Once upon a time, people were influenced by things - and they took those influences and melded them in to something new, and everyone lived happily ever after..... until people just started copying the things they were influenced by verbatim. And everyone lived very sad ever after.

It's not bad. Bruno doing Prince. It sounds like the music they put on those documentary DVDs when they can't use actual Prince songs, so they use "Prince-ish" songs.

It won me over by the end. I like it!

This is hot as hell! And for me to say something new is hot, honey, you better believe it's hot. While Prince was busy selling out with his new one, he done let the little youngsters kick his ass this year. This is the type of stuff that everyone should be making these days.

I just heard that this morning for the first time, and I was thinking - This sounds like Prince or the Time, totally took me off guard.. I like the vibe of the song, but on first listen, it sounds a little unpolished.

vainandy said:

This is hot as hell! And for me to say something new is hot, honey, you better believe it's hot. While Prince was busy selling out with his new one, he done let the little youngsters kick his ass this year. This is the type of stuff that everyone should be making these days.

What a crock of shit.

The Gold Standard slays this pile of turd any day of the week!!

I can't even hate on this and I tried. This sounds hella funky but the funny thing is because It's Bruno Mars young people will eat this up because they buy music according to who ever the hot artist is at the moment not based on musical merit so if katy perry sang this song all of a sudden young people will act like they been listening to funk for years. If Prince put this out nobody would care.

MattyJam said:

vainandy said:

This is hot as hell! And for me to say something new is hot, honey, you better believe it's hot. While Prince was busy selling out with his new one, he done let the little youngsters kick his ass this year. This is the type of stuff that everyone should be making these days.

What a crock of shit.

The Gold Standard slays this pile of turd any day of the week!!

Oh, "The Gold Standard" is definitely one of the best jams Prince has made in ages. Unfortunately though, it's the only good track on an album full of sellout shit hop influenced music. I would definitely play "The Gold Standard" and the new Bruno Mars track back to back but anything else from the Fart Official Age, I would want to throw up against the wall and see how many pieces it shatters into.

dbpdexter said:

I can't even hate on this and I tried. This sounds hella funky but the funny thing is because It's Bruno Mars young people will eat this up because they buy music according to who ever the hot artist is at the moment not based on musical merit so if katy perry sang this song all of a sudden young people will act like they been listening to funk for years. If Prince put this out nobody would care.

That's why I'm glad it's someone like Bruno Mars which is someone they like. At least they'll give it a chance with him and this is the kind of jam that needs to catch on in the mainstream and turn things back around the way they should be.

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Everyone around here was busy praising Prince's latest and hoping it would do well on the charts and I was hoping the exact opposite because Prince's latest sounds like their music so if it does well, it makes no change in the mainstream whatsoever. It just contributes more to the bullshit out there and things continue to stay the same in the mainstream, business as usual, with no style change. However, this new track from Bruno sounds like our kind of music so it's definitely one I would want to see become successful and possibly catch on and make a change in the mainstream.

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[Edited 11/10/14 10:32am]

MattyJam said:

I like it. It's not something I would keep "bumping in my trunk" but it's a solid effort.

no !

This is really trying too hard ! Bruno looking to be Prince, The Time, Bootsy and George but failing!

Still.... a huge HIT, no doubt - OOPS UP SIDE YO HEAD Bruno you got a smash coming your way !

There's nothing to really dislike on it and the sounds they've used are a cool mix from different eras of funk. I don't think it's a very strong song though.

I understand why someone would compare it to the original Minneapolis funk because it does contain certain elements of it but this song does absolutely nothing for me and I find it incredibly boring.

The ingredients don´t necessarily make it a good song. It´s too generic for me.

vainandy said:

MattyJam said:

What a crock of shit.

The Gold Standard slays this pile of turd any day of the week!!

Oh, "The Gold Standard" is definitely one of the best jams Prince has made in ages. Unfortunately though, it's the only good track on an album full of sellout shit hop influenced music. I would definitely play "The Gold Standard" and the new Bruno Mars track back to back but anything else from the Fart Official Age, I would want to throw up against the wall and see how many pieces it shatters into.

The Gold Standard is one of the few songs on AOA that I skip. Just like I skip the unlistenably cheesy song Art Official Cage with that stupid intro. And you seem to love those two songs, which is interesting because I usually love your musical tastes and your mixes but we strongly disagree here.

But seriously....why do you dislike the album that much ? Where exactly is Prince pandering to the current generation? Because of that song "U Know" and its ripped off beat and melody and rapping style? That would be the only song where he´s pandering to current RnB trends ( don´t get me started about that horrible AOC song...that´s just right up there with some stupid Europop trash..WTF was he thinking?).

-

The rest of the album is pretty much Prince as you know him. There´s a typical Prince ballad (This Could Be Us), there´s a slower romantic duet (This Is What It Feels Like), then there´s the song Time (which I love) that of course does not come close to the lyrical brilliance of If I Was Your Girlfriend but still, the tempo of it and the style are not THAT different....it has that slow, sexy, stomping beat and that sick bass, and I even like Andy´s voice in it.

And the "Affirmations", albeit a tad corny with that speaking voice of Lianna, are not that different from some of the segues that we had no problem with on his older albums.

The song Way Back Home is a fan favorite already and has interesting lyrics. Prince has always had songs like that even on his 80s albums.

Breakdown is not necessarily one of my personal favorites because I find the lyrics a tad too simple for Prince but still, it´s a decent Prince rock ballad.

-

.

Don´t get me wrong, you know how much I like you and your taste in music but I just don´t get your Prince bashing lately. I mean, I´m trying to understand your point, I really do, but for some reason I just can´t.

Most of the albums from his heyday were also not 100% Funk, nor were they all uptempo through and through, they all had their ballads or rock songs, or just weirder stuff on them.

So that´s part of the reason why I ´m wondering what your problem with Prince´s current music is.

Just wondering.

Boring as fuck. No originality in there at all.

Give me Prince or Rick James any day of the week over this crap.

Well, yeah--there's no originality there. BUT if I can turn on the radio while I'm driving my daughter to school, and a contemporary pop station is playing something this Minneapolis sounding, then maybe she'll listen to it enough to get it, and she'll stop rolling her eyes everytime I play some by the real originators.

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I enjoyed it. If he's gonna blatantly steal, I'd prefer copying something like this than turning out another retread like "Treasure."

Also, since it sounds like the Time to me--can I think of this as a Ronson track with Bruno being Morris (just so I don't have to even begin to think of Bruno as "a new Prince")--or is it more Bruno's?

KoolEaze said:

vainandy said:

Oh, "The Gold Standard" is definitely one of the best jams Prince has made in ages. Unfortunately though, it's the only good track on an album full of sellout shit hop influenced music. I would definitely play "The Gold Standard" and the new Bruno Mars track back to back but anything else from the Fart Official Age, I would want to throw up against the wall and see how many pieces it shatters into.

The Gold Standard is one of the few songs on AOA that I skip. Just like I skip the unlistenably cheesy song Art Official Cage with that stupid intro. And you seem to love those two songs, which is interesting because I usually love your musical tastes and your mixes but we strongly disagree here.

But seriously....why do you dislike the album that much ? Where exactly is Prince pandering to the current generation? Because of that song "U Know" and its ripped off beat and melody and rapping style? That would be the only song where he´s pandering to current RnB trends ( don´t get me started about that horrible AOC song...that´s just right up there with some stupid Europop trash..WTF was he thinking?).

-

The rest of the album is pretty much Prince as you know him. There´s a typical Prince ballad (This Could Be Us), there´s a slower romantic duet (This Is What It Feels Like), then there´s the song Time (which I love) that of course does not come close to the lyrical brilliance of If I Was Your Girlfriend but still, the tempo of it and the style are not THAT different....it has that slow, sexy, stomping beat and that sick bass, and I even like Andy´s voice in it.

And the "Affirmations", albeit a tad corny with that speaking voice of Lianna, are not that different from some of the segues that we had no problem with on his older albums.

The song Way Back Home is a fan favorite already and has interesting lyrics. Prince has always had songs like that even on his 80s albums.

Breakdown is not necessarily one of my personal favorites because I find the lyrics a tad too simple for Prince but still, it´s a decent Prince rock ballad.

-

.

Don´t get me wrong, you know how much I like you and your taste in music but I just don´t get your Prince bashing lately. I mean, I´m trying to understand your point, I really do, but for some reason I just can´t.

Most of the albums from his heyday were also not 100% Funk, nor were they all uptempo through and through, they all had their ballads or rock songs, or just weirder stuff on them.

So that´s part of the reason why I ´m wondering what your problem with Prince´s current music is.

Just wondering.

"The Gold Standard" reminds me of a newer version of the old Prince/The Time era with a funky ass shakable feel to it. If I feel my ass want to move on it's own before my brain tells it to move, then I know I instantly love a song. This jam does that for me.

.

"Art Official Cage" is tolerable to me. I don't exactly love it but I can tolerate it because the only time I hear songs that sound like that in my area is in the white gay clubs as opposed to in the black gay clubs these days, that used to play house music but now play shit hop as well as all the R&B stations these days. So I can tolerate being in the same room with something like this one as opposed to being in the same room with something that sounds shit hop or neo stool influenced because those are genres that are the very reason there's no good R&B left anymore. I guess the best way to explain it is, the trance, europop, or whatever it's called, is not a threat because it's a total different sytle of music that never ran the good R&B out of style because it's an entirely different audience altogether. Kinda like I don't like much country/western music either but I do respect it as music even though I don't like it because it's never been a threat to good R&B.

.

As for slow jams on the album. I can tolerate "Breakdown". I didn't care much for it in the beginning but it has become listenable. There's no good "sexy" slow jams on the album though. Even in recent years, Prince could still deliver sexy slow jams like "Walk In Sand", "You're Gonna C Me", "Somewhere Here On Earth", etc. As for "This Could Be Us", one listen to the verse...."but you be playing" was enough to turn me completely off. It just sounds ignorant and ghetoo-ish.

.

As for the rest of the album, first of all, it's all midtempo and midtempo is just bland and blah. No real purpose for it. Too slow to shake ass to and too fast to fuck to. Just "there". Also, one, or maybe two midtempo tracks on an album is OK but midtempo should NEVER, I repeat, NEVER make up the majority of an album. Plus, I hear elements of shit hop, neo stool, or whatever else is all over current R&B radio today and even just a small hint of that sound turns me 100% completely off. Like I said before, I can't stand to even be in the same room with something that sounds like current R&B mainstream radio because those forms of music are the very reason nobody jams anymore. I've tolerated Prince in recent years slipping in a sellout track or two like "Incense and Candles", etc. because I can just simply hit the "skip" button, but this new album is full of stuff like that and what gets on my nerves even more, is it's very easy to see that it was done deliberately trying to get into that crowd. That's just contributing more to the problem than trying to correct it. To me, accepting stuff like this from Prince is like accepting him trying to gain the acceptance of "the enemy" (enemy meaning the current mainstream sound that is the reason nobody jams anymore).

.

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.

[Edited 11/10/14 13:14pm]

vainandy said:

This is hot as hell! And for me to say something new is hot, honey, you better believe it's hot. While Prince was busy selling out with his new one, he done let the little youngsters kick his ass this year. This is the type of stuff that everyone should be making these days.

Wow! That's high praise coming from no-one-can-funk-anymore-vainandy!

vainandy said:

KoolEaze said:

The Gold Standard is one of the few songs on AOA that I skip. Just like I skip the unlistenably cheesy song Art Official Cage with that stupid intro. And you seem to love those two songs, which is interesting because I usually love your musical tastes and your mixes but we strongly disagree here.

But seriously....why do you dislike the album that much ? Where exactly is Prince pandering to the current generation? Because of that song "U Know" and its ripped off beat and melody and rapping style? That would be the only song where he´s pandering to current RnB trends ( don´t get me started about that horrible AOC song...that´s just right up there with some stupid Europop trash..WTF was he thinking?).

-

The rest of the album is pretty much Prince as you know him. There´s a typical Prince ballad (This Could Be Us), there´s a slower romantic duet (This Is What It Feels Like), then there´s the song Time (which I love) that of course does not come close to the lyrical brilliance of If I Was Your Girlfriend but still, the tempo of it and the style are not THAT different....it has that slow, sexy, stomping beat and that sick bass, and I even like Andy´s voice in it.

And the "Affirmations", albeit a tad corny with that speaking voice of Lianna, are not that different from some of the segues that we had no problem with on his older albums.

The song Way Back Home is a fan favorite already and has interesting lyrics. Prince has always had songs like that even on his 80s albums.

Breakdown is not necessarily one of my personal favorites because I find the lyrics a tad too simple for Prince but still, it´s a decent Prince rock ballad.

-

.

Don´t get me wrong, you know how much I like you and your taste in music but I just don´t get your Prince bashing lately. I mean, I´m trying to understand your point, I really do, but for some reason I just can´t.

Most of the albums from his heyday were also not 100% Funk, nor were they all uptempo through and through, they all had their ballads or rock songs, or just weirder stuff on them.

So that´s part of the reason why I ´m wondering what your problem with Prince´s current music is.

Just wondering.

"The Gold Standard" reminds me of a newer version of the old Prince/The Time era with a funky ass shakable feel to it. If I feel my ass want to move on it's own before my brain tells it to move, then I know I instantly love a song. This jam does that for me.

.

"Art Official Cage" is tolerable to me. I don't exactly love it but I can tolerate it because the only time I hear songs that sound like that in my area is in the white gay clubs as opposed to in the black gay clubs these days, that used to play house music but now play shit hop as well as all the R&B stations these days. So I can tolerate being in the same room with something like this one as opposed to being in the same room with something that sounds shit hop or neo stool influenced because those are genres that are the very reason there's no good R&B left anymore. I guess the best way to explain it is, the trance, europop, or whatever it's called, is not a threat because it's a total different sytle of music that never ran the good R&B out of style because it's an entirely different audience altogether. Kinda like I don't like much country/western music either but I do respect it as music even though I don't like it because it's never been a threat to good R&B.

.

As for slow jams on the album. I can tolerate "Breakdown". I didn't care much for it in the beginning but it has become listenable. There's no good "sexy" slow jams on the album though. Even in recent years, Prince could still deliver sexy slow jams like "Walk In Sand", "You're Gonna C Me", "Somewhere Here On Earth", etc. As for "This Could Be Us", one listen to the verse...."but you be playing" was enough to turn me completely off. It just sounds ignorant and ghetoo-ish.

.

As for the rest of the album, first of all, it's all midtempo and midtempo is just bland and blah. No real purpose for it. Too slow to shake ass to and too fast to fuck to. Just "there". Also, one, or maybe two midtempo tracks on an album is OK but midtempo should NEVER, I repeat, NEVER make up the majority of an album. Plus, I hear elements of shit hop, neo stool, or whatever else is all over current R&B radio today and even just a small hint of that sound turns me 100% completely off. Like I said before, I can't stand to even be in the same room with something that sounds like current R&B mainstream radio because those forms of music are the very reason nobody jams anymore. I've tolerated Prince in recent years slipping in a sellout track or two like "Incense and Candles", etc. because I can just simply hit the "skip" button, but this new album is full of stuff like that and what gets on my nerves even more, is it's very easy to see that it was done deliberately trying to get into that crowd. That's just contributing more to the problem than trying to correct it. To me, accepting stuff like this from Prince is like accepting him trying to gain the acceptance of "the enemy" (enemy meaning the current mainstream sound that is the reason nobody jams anymore).

.

.

.

[Edited 11/10/14 13:14pm]

OK, I understand.

Thing is, I´m really into lyrics, and while I like The Gold Standard musically, the lyrics do so little for me that I can´t really get into the song ( same with 1+1+1=3 .....funky music, bad lyrics). The lyrics of Prince were one of the main reasons why I became a fan. These days, the lyrics are not always what they used to be. And I totally agree with you about his broken grammar in some songs. I don´t mind if that´s the way someone speaks or raps but Prince´s grammar is so precise, it´s just fake when he fakes it. In the past, one could use RnB and mid 80s rap music to improve your English skills...but these days, that is no longer the case. I don´t like broken English if it´s phony. It´s perfectly legitimate if the artist in question is authentic.

This being said, I think Time and Way Back Home are two of the best songs Prince has released in a long time.

But we´re getting off topic.

That Uptown Funk song sucks. Big time.

There are dozens of artists out there who have a better understanding of what made the Minneapolis Sound so great in the first place. But Uptown Funk is generic and bland.

Y'all act like Prince pioneered funk music, fuck that.

D.M.S.R., Controversy and all of Prince's funkiest was straight out influenced by Rick James, Funkadelic-Parliament, James Brown, Earth Wind & Fire..

I don't understand the hate over this song, it's funky, jamming, cool and all... If the problem is the funk clichés or the whole vibe that it has, it's so normal between musicians, they always take something they like and just re-make it on their way.

EddieC said:

Also, since it sounds like the Time to me--can I think of this as a Ronson track with Bruno being Morris (just so I don't have to even begin to think of Bruno as "a new Prince")--or is it more Bruno's?

Mark Ronson is a great producer. I think the track is credited as Mark Ronson feat BM. I think it's a great track it sounds so much like Prince it's unreal.

The only thing I can't undersand is why Ronson didn't just get Moris Day to do the vocal. Nice Christmas party song.

This is Mark Ronson's interview with Ryan Seacrest, he explains everything:

http://www.iheart.com/tal...=27078235

it's ok but it's nothing new and i have no idea what the lyrics are.

I like it! Might not be the most unique and well written song ever maybe, but it is entertaining, lighthearted and pretty funky! I'd definately like to hear more music like this on the radio.

can write this in his sleep. Nice try though. Good to know still influences younger artist, after over 36 years in the business. But who does Bruno want to be MJ or ? It seems to change every week .