New Prince

uh yes

"people are so blinded by that stuff they can't see how fucking lame he is now."

OTM

performance-wise he's still pretty amazing and quite funny. waaaay more versatile than "some average funk band you'd see at a local bar".

I don't know any session dudes who pay homage Eddie Hazel so religiously.

i dont know why when a guy plays with soul and chops it automatically gets summed up as "session dude shit" by some people. his guitar paying is mighty tasty to these ears. that synth solo on the new one is awes classic prince style.

chaki otm

after buying emancipation i was like why am i wasting my time listening to this and pretending like i have to find the good in it? i let go...it felt so good. like when i let myself not care about star wars anymore after attack of the clones.

wrt to his lead playing, he's pretty hot shit in a oh hey check this shit out kind of way, but i never find his solos particularly memorable...he sounds so sterile compared to eddie hazel.

he sounds more van halen than hazel these days. hes virtuoso-like but it turned into cheesy wankery really quickly at the recent london shows. it was just one massive solo after another. even when he brought on winehouse to do loves a losing game (in turgid modern blues style), he couldnt resist chucking in a whopping solo after each and every verse.

"i dont know why when a guy plays with soul and chops it automatically gets summed up as "session dude shit"

cos its all flash and well, thats about it.

I'm with Chaki. Anyone who thinks this is half-baked funk or even sounds remotely like "Sexy MF" should have their ears cleaned. This is the closest he's come to the energy and weirdness of '87 Prince in eons. What if he knocked it out in 5 minutes? Wasn't the "Black Album" done in, like, a weekend?

Waiting for the "3121 is much better then The Black Album, anyhow" responses...

prince isnt fucking shredding and and doing sweeps and shit. he's doing long notey bluesy rock soloing in the style of hendrix. playing a blues lick after every line is in the tradition of modern blues. is bb king all flash? dude, you are full of shit re: prince's playing. dude is full of soul and pain.

xpost

it was just one massive solo after another.

I'm kinda surprised, honestly... the times I've seen him he didn't solo much at all. Maybe this is a recent thing cuz he thinks people have forgotten he's the only black pop star left who can play guitar.

black album was recorded in one night

actually he's kind of the ONLY pop star left that can play guitar (EVH doesn't count)

(that can't possibly be true about the Black Album! too many overdubs on it)

x-post

ok this is great

yah you're right, shakey

And I finally listened to "Planet Earth" this weekend and thought - for the first 5 or so songs at least - it holds up better than the previous two albums. But I can't feel the love so many people have for "Chelsea Rodgers". "The One U wanna See" is my jam. Is that Wendy & Lisa doing b-ground vocals on that?

"dude is full of soul and pain."

haha. ok.

yah they are also on "lion of judah." for the record i find planet earth and 3121 mostly wack but my mom loves them. i think he makes music for moms now which is cool.

xpost

that song he did recently about his guitar was sub-lenny kravitz but i still like him alright

yeah he's more like a preservation act these days - Musicology really spells out what he's about these days (ie, remember when r&b was versatile and weird and oh yeah don't forget JAMES BROWN and JIMI HENDRIX and CURTIS MAYFIELD)

yeah, "guitar" sucks. "the one u wanna c" is my favorite too.

people are so blinded by that stuff they can't see how fucking lame he is now.

Less than two years ago, he delivered his best album in ages. "Planet Earth" may not be particularly good, but "3121" was ace!

why is hendrix always brought up when it comes to princes playing? i hear a lot more or just as much santana as hendrix. santana also played in a prettier, less messy/rougher style than hendrix, which is more how prince plays. the hendrix-prince guitar playing similarities are really over emphasised, prob just cos theyre the biggest black rock icons of the past 40 years. prince plays a lot poppier than hendrix.

the rainbow children and the truth are his last two good albums.

I think its more Hazel than anyone else (as I mentioned a few posts back) but the Hendrix stuff comes up because Prince is fond of breaking out those "chitlin circuit" gimmicks that Hendrix became famous for - playing with his teeth, whipping his guitar around, etc. Physically they play the guitar in very similar ways.

geir otm! titchyschneider SO RONG

yeah I don't think people who are interested in him post-Musicology are really blinded to how bad the vast majority of his 90s output is. Prince has definitely gone through an "I'm gonna re-engage with the general public" campaign with the last few records, and its merited much better musical results... you can't tell me 3121 is somehow just as bad (or worse) than, say, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic.

ah i dont care. i 'let go' of being a prince fan years ago. each new album just reminds me why. 3121, musicornolgy, planet earth, rave unto the joy fantastic, god, theyre all virtually the same album!

see, that is demonstrably untrue. Rainbow Children, N.E.W.S., Rave, Emancipation, all those Warner Bros extras, etc. are all quite different in tone and construction from the last three.

This is the wrong thread, but anyone who says Emancipation isn't worth trolling through for an album and a half's worth of really fine material hasn't been listening. And what he's doing on these recent albums compared with Emancipation seems very different to these ears.

planet earth is more fm-rock than anything hes made since chaos and disorder, sure, but rave, musicology, 3121, these three are pretty all the same 'please return me back to commercial/mainstream form' albums. im not talking about emancipation (its cliche to say but theres a really really excellent one-disc album in there) or TRC, those are quite different.

lol prince plays SO MUCH like hendrix.

I don't mind when Prince's stuff doesn't work (like most of Planet Earth) because the stuff that does (like most of 3121) are so worth the pain of the failures.

the rainbow children and the truth are his last two good albums.
3121, musicornolgy, planet earth, rave unto the joy fantastic, god, theyre all virtually the same album!

ROFFLES NON-STOP

I sort of miss his Come period.

Surely the slightly electro back-to-the-80s feel of "3121" had absolutely nothing in common with the "I want to be Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen and early Funkadelic rolled into one) approach of "Planet Earth".

I sort of miss his Come

um....

period

I'll just throw in a few ellipses and nobody will know that's how the sentence ended

iTunes comments on the new single are great:

What is this?
Zepplin Kashmir
Seriously what is this? This isnt Prince. It sounds like someone is on helium. This isnt the true prince. Press yes if you agree.

NOT THE BEST OF PRINCE
NCORTEZ
THE WHOLE SONG IS TERRIBLE AND THE VOICE I CANT STAND

I'm gonna crown

MOUNTAINS EXTENDED MIX

i came into possession of some bootleg prince dvds recently and i've been going through them.

live in syracuse '85 - so good. the height of the purple rain band, all the hits are extended versions with new parts etc. he changes clothes between every single song, i think. it's super drum-machine heavy - bobby z just plays cymbals on a lot of songs, and when he does play his whole kit is triggered. i could do without the psychedelic video effects in the last third (it was produced for tv). he talks to god for awhile. three encores. the second one is a funk jam where jerome and sheila e. pop up out of nowhere (maybe the time and sheila were the opening acts?). 'purple rain' is the final encore and they play for ten minutes before prince starts singing the first verse.

live in (somewhere in germany) '88 - totally different show, lovesexy tour, just as good. prince drives onstage in a cadillac, first song is 'erotic city' with just him dancing with sheila and kat. this is the stage set with a bed, swing set, b-ball hoop, etc.. it's the opposite of '85 i.e. very few epic versions of tunes, everything is sliced and diced into medleys but it's cool. some of the transitions are just sick. when they do 'head', he puts the mic between his legs for kat to sing backups. interludes where he'll do a blues ("if i had a harem"), an acoustic piano set. he does his bob george thing and it's pretty silly (lots of microphones as guns etc.). 2 hours solid and it's never boring, prince knows how to put together a fucking set.

i've still got some '81 shows to check out.

anyone check out the target trilogy?

The cover frightened me.

Is it out already? The sample songs on his site weren't that promising, but I guess I'd still want to check it out.

Does anyone know what's the difference between Lotusflow3r and MPLSound? Is the latter one supposed to be more like a jam album?

Not particularly good, though some will probably dig how hard he's pushing the pseudo-'80s sound on MPLSoUND. (More Parade than Purple Rain)

lotusflow3r is supposed to be the rock album and mplsound is supposed to be the electro/throwback album. i haven't heard it yet, but there have to be at least a few great tracks in there. maybe a great ep?

Yeah, MPLSoUND is very "you want 80s Prince? you want Linn Drums and helium vox? FINE, here it is!" but it's still actually pretty fun and listenable and does at times sound like a nice compilation of scraps circa '86. Lotusflow3r is pretty typical recent rock band Prince, couple decent songs but really bland.

yeah, what you said