New Prince

The music however is really pretty good. Again i've found it hard to focus on individual tracks because everything is segued together. Its the most adventurous album he's released in a long time and with further plays I think it'll reveal itself to be very fine indeed.

I don't think its a return to form as some have said because I thought his last album was really strong compared to a lot of the releases prior to it. The new one is not going to be a commercial return either. Its simply too odd and there are no obvious singles.

Still, at least he's not totally lost it in his middle age.

I have yet to play it again. I don't think I'm ready for his jelly.

The more I listen to it the more I skip the segue tracks (four or five of them), but most of the actual songs are GRATE (after you fast foward through his octave-dropped proselytizing). Family Name/Everlasting Now are especially great, they feel more like the live show funkathons that I like much more than most of his recordings (complete with Larry Graham!).

Yeah, uh, I'm not really feelin Planet Earth. There are like four decent tracks (The One You Want to C, Future Baby Mama, Mr. Goodnight, maybe the jazzy one), and some really awful-sounding tunes on here. Maybe it'll grow.

I listened to 3121 afterwards and it sounded GREAT.

You just mentioned all the tracks I dislike!

The real jewels are the last four tracks. "Chelsea Rodgers" is quite great.

I'm digging it. The title track is classic.

Does anyone know if there are reissues coming down the pike? I ask not just because his back catalog needs remastering and it'd be nice if it happened- decided on a whim this morning to buy Controversy, noticed that Amazon (US) has it on 3-6 week backorder, which is pretty unusual for a consistent seller (well, consistent selling act, anyway) on a major label, and then noticed that every other Prince CD on Warners except Purple Rain is in a similar state. The last time I saw this was when I finally bought Joy Division's Still right before the reissues on Rhino were announced and it was the only Joy Division disc currently in stock.

i dont think there are any plans for reissues at this time

I like how when Warners' announced CD reissues awhile back Prince threatened to re-record all his old albums and release them himself, just to confuse the marketplace.

the uk was flooded with Warners copies of all the albums when he came and did his Purple Panto stint. every shop had racks of the catalogue .. but yeah, some do definitely need a nice remastering job done on them.

man you know how much a copy of rainbow children goes for on vinyl??? and its only a couple years old!

i knew i should have bought the LP version.

that album's pretty terrible

its great compared to the last three.

oh no it isn't

id take TRC over planet earth, musicology and 3121. at least on TRC he was generally happy to be a bit weird again - sounded like he was taking a few risks again, at last. id rather hear that than him trying to court the pop market with starbucks-funk-lite like the musicology title track.

"Amazon (US) has it on 3-6 week backorder"

the 'used & new' section is your friend.

Is Planet Earth worth my time? (/money?) I liked about half of 3121, if that helps.

Probably not, although the last three songs are great.

"Chelsea Rodgers" is my favorite Prince song of the last 10 years.

You, at the very least, need to hear "Chelsea Rodgers" Reverend

Wow, synergy. I believe I made the same statement on another Prince thread but I even gave it a 15 year window I think.

If you got no love for "Future Baby Mama" you ain't a Prince fan...best track in 20 years

I haven't listened to Planet Earth in months, but I've come to think of 3121 as kind of a nu-Prince classic!

The title track and "Black Sweat" are definitely classic, or as close as he's gotten in a while.

id take TRC over planet earth, musicology and 3121. at least on TRC he was generally happy to be a bit weird again - sounded like he was taking a few risks again, at last. id rather hear that than him trying to court the pop market with starbucks-funk-lite like the musicology title track.

-- titchyschneiderMk2, Monday, 15 October 2007 22:48 (2 days ago) Link

Sir, you are very OTM.

If taking risks = jammin' with Najee.

PFUnk

(info)

that song is ill

yeah, that's good. like the Camille voice.

Oh, man. Oh wow! This is GOOD. Prince... please 2 make a whole new Camille album? Please? KTHX

Goddamn!

wow his band sounds so good.

This pleases meh.

Prince is usually at his best when he works in the middle-ground between the funk of "The Black Album" and the rock of his latest album.

And this song sounds way too much like "Sexy MF" - his worst ever single. He should at least use synths instead of guitars when he wants to make that kind of music.

this is fun!

"Sexy MF" - his worst ever single. He should at least use synths instead of guitars when he wants to make that kind of music.

-- Geir Hongro, Monday, 12 November 2007 14:46 (47 minutes ago) Link

GEIR OTM

I still haven't heard it. I really liked Musicology, but 3121 was half good half "meh" for me, although "Lolita" was awesome...and the dude tore it up at the Super Bowl.

Prince=teh win

leave it to Prince to address a fan on a message board by name in a song and still not look lame

?

Prince calls out people on message boards in a song recently posted, Jordan.

"Future Baby Mama" is the greatest song Prince has written in nearly 20 years everything else is just blah

rong

its kinda meh, as they say. throwaway camille-style funk. lyric actually sounds like it has a sense of purpose which is fine until you remember what the purpose is in this case, but its too clean sounding. sounds like he knocked it out in 5 minutes. IMO he hasnt been too funky in years and this doesnt really change that.

Yeah that was great

I can't be the only person who hates this.

It's possible.

not amazing or anything but it's fun to hear Prince reinvent one of the iconic songs that he'd afaik never really toyed with or changed at all in the past

I wanted to like this. I listened to it twice all the way through. It's boring. Prince being a master of any genre/sound he wants to try can't stop this from being boring.

just a bit of fun y'all

i dug it.

fun as heck

such a plodding drummer his band is terrible

you guys should go to more suburban sports bars that have bands on the weekends

no YOU should

i saw Uli Jon Roth at a suburban sports bar last month! he's way better at guitar than prince & possibly dresses even more ridiculously

I've stood next to Prince and Uli Jon Roth they are about the same height. Prince has better hair, Roth has a better moustache, fashion sense wise it's a push.

Musically it isn't even close. Uli Jon Roth all the way.

I barely made it to the chorus. So bad.

prince is at his best when he moves farthest away from RAWK, his brittle, weird synth funk shit (like black sweat or that other newish song i heard that was p good)

he's pretty much terrible at hard rocking imo

I was going to debate this claim and then I remember "Dolphin"

but then again, "Shhh"

i mean he's had a handful of good rock n roll ravers but shit like dorothy parker or when doves cry is really where his genius was

that I would never dispute

more than a handful; at least 1 or 2 mix CDs' worth

I guess the drummer is a bit of a plodder. On the other hand I always enjoy good feelin'-the-jam shouts deep in the mix

Eh, Hannah Ford is pretty good imo
http://vimeo.com/61739791

Please don't quote me on this but has Prince gone and released a pretty good single *

*Disclaimer

All views expressed here are subject to a 14 day cooling off period and may cause headaches and irritable bowels. Consult your doctor before use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpgpxJ7qodA&feature=youtu.be

I think I'm almost more shocked that Prince has a twitter account.

that sounds quite good

okay I was not expecting this

What am I missing here? What makes this so good?

Of course it's not sooo good but it's not atrocious either...I am judging it on 1:30 of audio but it sounded alrite...

Capitaine, play his fight song for the Vikings and then listen to that snippet again

Dan don't remind me about that Vikings...thing!! AIEEEE.

This is just a snippet but it already sounds like 1,000 other slo jams he's made. I hate when my heroes grow boring.

Thing is - he's been boring for quite a few years now ( though 20Ten had its moments) and always with the occasional blip of life on the radar like "Black Sweat" . And then the full tsunami of wackness rolls in.

Ha the funniest thing last night is he was tweeting "RIP" at all these people who were like "I'd die if Prince tweeted me" then deleted the evidence of the murders

hahaha

god his new band is sooo bad, the drumming on that new song is so lead-footed

still dont get all the love for black sweat. but anyway, this new song sounds decent, yeah. not an embarassment, which is always a nice surprise. but i wish i did hear something from him that wasnt a classic prince signifier. in this song its the "whats it gonna be?" lyric, and then when the horns kick in, it just makes me think of parade/SOTT. i wish he had some new (good ones at least) angles to his sound or maybe its just too late.

for some reason i really want him to try working with todd rundgren.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg8NERylAjE&feature=youtu.be

the artwork

I feel suddenly optimistic that regaining his sense of humor may improve Prince's music overall

Yeah. I haven't even listened to the single yet because I'm still not over how awesome the artwork is tbh. I need to process that before anything else.

it's a really good track for nu-Prince but i swear i already heard it earlier in the year?

Yeah self-aware Prince is a new idea to me.

"The Prince Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 2013. Human decisions are removed from strategic funk. Prince begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."

He's still a dick:

http://www.spin.com/articles/prince-smashed-someone-elses-guitar-fallon/

Did I miss this? New one not bad?

It's not great.

its better than pretty much any of his albums from the past 10 years. the AOA one at least. it sounds like prince comfortable to be prince again. and hes making some effort again, which he hasnt done for years. some awful moments in there of course, but most of it is likeable enough, even if i dont really know how much i want to listen to it repeatedly. the 3rd eye girl one is pretty terrible. like TGE and chaos and disorder, but insipid and bloodless.

is it better than 3121? not even gonna listen to the trio record.

the trio record is a bit embarassing. AOA is better than 3121 or as good as. its funkier, anyway. and funkier in a way he hasnt been in decades.

it's also good as its basically prince sounding like prince but also sounding current without trying to sound like everyone else

It's a grower too. Found myself humming Way Back Home the other day.

this is actually like an old prince album where you can kind of imagine him making a live show out of it, the first song has a terrible rap on it but it sounds like a grand entrance kind of song (also makes me think prince dabbling in EDM = not actually so bad)

Dude has a really high standard to reach when he puts out new music.

Breakfast can Wait is def worth a listen.

"Breakfast Can Wait" came out so long ago, and is so much better than the rest of the album, that i feel like he must've spent the last year and a half trying in vain to make more songs of that caliber

he sounds more like Cartman than Camille on the pitched-up vocal on "FUNKNROLL"