PRINCE album rundown: the 'shitty' years

[MK]

I'm a big Prince fan, but I passed on MUSICOLOGY when it came out a year ago. I had my doubts about the hype, and despite glowing reviews, it didn't make a lasting impression, at least it seems that way when you look at the P&J poll: didn't even place in the top 40.

It's double platinum, but Prince boosted sales by tacking it on to ticket purchases from his last tour (not exactly a giveaway, he just boosted the price to include the CD). So if you want, there's tons of cheap copies floating around on the web.

I snagged one, still waiting, but I read some reviews and a number of them say it's the "best since Sign O The Times," often following that up with some shit about how Prince has lost it since then. So I got out some CD's, borrowed a few others, etc. So here's his extended 'down' period:

The first one in the can after SOTT is THE BLACK ALBUM. Once legendary, here's a brief summary: Prince records a party album, WB presses thousands of copies, but before they release it, Prince (who was allegedly popping a lot of Ecstasy at the time) has some sort of quasi-religious vision/dream/hallucination that scares the shit out of him. He doesn't like talking about but has alluded to it interviews (he says he saw "God," and "And when I talk about God, "I don't mean some dude in a cape and beard coming down to Earth. To me, he's in everything if you look at it that way.") He "suddenly realized that we can die at any moment, and we'd be judged by the last thing we left behind. I didn't want that angry, bitter thing to be the last thing." So, to WB's credit, nearly every copy was destroyed, and Prince recorded a new album. In the 1994, when Prince was squabbling with WB, he finally released a limited edition. I have it, and it sounds pretty good, no super-compressed. There's two lame rap parodies (and a third that's actually pretty cool called "Bob George"), and a sappy ballad "When 2 R In Love," but the rest is great, straight-up jams: lewd, of course, and great funk. Screw All-Music Guide, it's no masterpiece, but it's a really good Prince album. The limited edition goes for $20 new, pretty good for an OOP CD. No real artwork, just a black square for the cover, an all-black tray card, and a black CD with orange text. Just like Spinal Tap.

LOVESEXY was the one that replaced THE BLACK ALBUM. It re-uses only one track, "When 2 R In Love." I don't think they changed this, but it's indexed so it's one, long track so burn a copy with better indexing. Unless if you're some fundamentalist nut who thinks CD-R is a crime. "Alphabet Street" and "Glam Slam" are the two best tracks; the rest is pretty good, but not that great, it's a decent Prince album.

BATMAN was the first Prince I bought. Most of it was dashed off, but this is actually a solid soundtrack (even though only 6 minutes was used), but still, 'just' a soundtrack. "Electric Chair" is GREAT, I like "Partyman," and "Batdance" is kind of nostalgic - when I was a kid, every radio station played this to death. Not really a song, it's like a DJ mix of the whole album, and taken like that, it's pretty cool. "The Future" is pretty cool if barebones, and some moments like the bridge on "Vicki Waiting" and the whimpering on "Scandalous" (is that Kim Basinger?) are classic, but those songs as a whole aren't that great, neither is the rest.

GRAFFITI BRIDGE is the soundtrack to a box-office bomb. A double-Lp/one CD, half of it is Prince, the other half Prince's protegees, old and new. The Time tracks aren't bad, but I can't believe the glowing reviews this got. EW gave it an A+; it's not terrible, but it's okay at best. There's only three Prince tracks that I like: the single "Thieves In The Temple," "Still Would Stand All Time" - a great faux-gospel track that's even better on the awesome SMALL CLUB bootleg of a German, after-hours show in 1988, and "Joy In Repetition," which I heard was originally conceived in the SOTT sessions, maybe even earlier. Tevin Campbell also has a solid single, "Round and Round" which is basically a Prince track with Tevin (still in grade-school) singing lead. The rest is pretty flat stuff.

DIAMONDS AND PEARLS introduces the NPG. This gets cited as the last good Prince album in some of those MUSICOLOGY reviews, but that's bullshit for several reasons. The singles are good: "Cream" and "Money Don't Matter 2 Nite" are the best, the title track and "Gett Off" have something to recommend. "Thunder" is okay, "Daddy Pop" is pretty catchy, but the hip-hop moments suck, and "Jughead" BLOWS, I can't believe Christgau singled that out as a favorite. The rest is just okay. If you have the singles on the compilations, you can probably pass on this.

THE SYMBOL ALBUM is where the sound quality begins to dive. Sharper, harsher, more compressed. There's a definite change but it's gonna get a whole worse. For now, it's not too bad. Really weird how Kirstie Alley pops up, but those two or three bits are really brief, this is a really good Prince album. The opening cut, "My Name Is Prince" is even better on the CD-single, which is a new mix, but it's still great here. Make sure you get the uncensored version with the Parental Warning because there's a lot to censor, like "Sexy MF." You need this if you love Prince.

THE HITS has four 'new' tracks, and they're pretty good. One is actually a live version of "Nothing Compares 2 U," originally written in '85 for the Family, this post-dates Sinead's great cover. In an RS interview, Prince gushed over Sinead's version. Tons of promo CD's for these four tracks floating around, you can download off iTunes, too.

COME is pretty damn lewd. The title track is about eating out pussy. It's 11 minutes, plenty of time to explore details to a pornographic degree. Often dismissed as Prince's worst, it may very well be, but it's got two worthy tracks: "Letitgo," the only single and pretty solid, and "Loose!" which is actually a GREAT modern-slice of hard funk, sort of "industrial funk." BTW, this is a loud CD, pretty compressed...

...but nothing compared to THE GOLD EXPERIENCE. I couldn't stand listening to this for a long time because this is some of the worst-sounding shit ever. I don't mean the music, I mean the sound quality. Never mind the compression, which is really, really bad, there's a ton of treble. I burned a CD-R and took a shitload out of the upper frequencies, and I highly recommend doing something similar because this is an hour-long album, and if you don't, it will be headache inducing. Once you fix it, you'll hear a GREAT, underrated Prince album. In the post-SOTT era, for my money, this is his best one. He even left out a great track, "Days of Wild," which can be found in good sound (a live version was issued on CRYSTAL BALL). Now OOP for no good reason, it's easy to find, but a lot of assholes are trying to peddle it for $40. It can be easily found for $15, and if you're patient, $8-10 in most stores I've been to. Of course, if you want to fix the sound, you might as well borrow it and burn your 'remastered' copy.

CHAOS & DISORDER got shitty reviews from the mainstream press, worse than COME (which oddly enough got good reviews when it was released, even though most hate it now). Prince's 'intended 4 private use' bullshit disclaimer didn't help, but I think Jimmy Guterman's right, this is underrated, and many Prince fans have warmed to it. Not great, but a very good Prince album, it's also OOP, but can be found everywhere for $8 and below. Sound isn't as harsh as GOLD EXPERIENCE.

EMANCIPATION got good reviews and gets slagged a lot now. Yeah, way too much, it's three-CD's for crying out loud, but I still like it a lot. It's still a very good Prince album in my book even if it sounds like he's spread himself a bit thin because most of it is pretty solid, even if few tracks stand out as 'classics.' The covers are really dated except for the Stylistics cover (funny because it's easily the oldest song). A LOUD CD, pretty hard sounding. From here on out, it's compression city processed by Brian Gardner at BG Mastering. Many Prince fans would probably disagree, but I think it's totally worth getting, and considering how CHEAP it is, there's more reason to get it. Just check ebay - a sealed, NEW copy went for $3.01. Make sure you get the uncensored version, a lot of censored ones flooded the market via cut-outs (catalog numbers are also different, and printed on the actual disc, which helps with purchasing; forget what they are but you can find out).

CRYSTAL BALL/TRUTH used to be DIRT cheap, but it seems to be creeping up back to the $15-20 range. Still good for three CD's worth of music (actually four, but the three discs of 'bootleg' material is only 150 minutes or so). Disappointing musically, but there's at least one CD worth of primo bootleg tracks, and the final disc is actually a solid 'acoustic' album called THE TRUTH. Overrated, but still a good Prince album, plus how many acoustic albums does Prince put out? (Besides this, none.)

NEW POWER SOUL is almost creatively bankrupt, a holding pattern, like generic Prince. The untitled final track "Wasted Kisses" (you have to skip to track 49; each previous hidden track is silence) is actually a very good ballad, and "Come On" is a pretty good jam (a flop single, though). Some love "Mad Sex," but I don't. "One" was the other single and it charted higher on the r&b charts, but it's pretty generic stuff - if you love Boyz II Men, though, maybe you'll like it.

RAVE UN2 THE JOY FANTASTIC is the Clive Davis-Arista album, the one where he supposedly tried to do for Prince what he did for Santana. Same formula tons of guest stars. Prince has too much of an ego to let himself be marginalized as a sideman on his own album, but this has the same generic-pop feel as SUPERNATURAL, even though every track is clearly a Prince track, not 'guest artist plus Prince.' Half of it is pretty bland stuff, even if it's performed well, like the opening track. What's good: "Baby Knows" (with Sheryl Crow but her presence is barely felt, thank God), "Prettyman" (another hidden bonus track), and "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold." I also have a soft spot for "I Love U, But I Don't Trust U Anymore" (with minimal acoustic guitar contributions from Ani DiFranco) and "Wherever U Go, Whatever U Do," the former a good ballad, the latter a guilty pleasure because I think I've heard that melody ripped off from somewhere - actually, it's more like a generic hook that's been done to death, but I still like it....

RAINBOW CHILDREN was a complete flop. Too bad, because the band is actually REALLY good, except for Najee and his bland flute/sax playing - they're purely ornamental touches, though, so maybe he's shown the chops elsewhere. The super-low voice is grating after awhile, the lyrics are pretty bizarre, sometimes airheaded fluff, some bad political/religious/philosophical shit, and occasionally the light stuff degrades into smooth jazz, but "The Work Pt. I," "Mellow," "1+1+1 is 3," "She Loves Me 4 Me" (a tad sappy, but still a good Prince ballad), and "The Everlasting Now" are the ones you come back to.

[krabapple]

I'm a big Prince fan, but I passed on MUSICOLOGY when it came out a year ago. I had my doubts about the hype, and despite glowing reviews, it didn't make a lasting impression, at least it seems that way when you look at the P&J poll: didn't even place in the top 40.

It's double platinum, but Prince boosted sales by tacking it on to ticket purchases from his last tour (not exactly a giveaway, he just boosted the price to include the CD). So if you want, there's tons of cheap copies floating around on the web.

Don't know about the tacking on, but ticket prices were still comparatively cheap.
I think Musicology ius a perfectly good Prince product. Nothing groundbreaking. The recording is lousy, sounding lilke there's a layer of muddy fuzz on everything, as is the case for all his recent albums -- he seems to love compression/limiting these days.

LOVESEXY was the one that replaced THE BLACK ALBUM. It re-uses only one track, "When 2 R In Love." I don't think they changed this, but it's indexed so it's one, long track so burn a copy with better indexing. Unless if you're some fundamentalist nut who thinks CD-R is a crime. "Alphabet Street" and "Glam Slam" are the two best tracks; the rest is pretty good, but not that great, it's a decent Prince album.

I think it's his best. AIUI it's also been rereleased in th Europe with track indexing.

BATMAN was the first Prince I bought. Most of it was dashed off, but this is actually a solid soundtrack (even though only 6 minutes was used), but still, 'just' a soundtrack. "Electric Chair" is GREAT, I like "Partyman," and "Batdance" is kind of nostalgic - when I was a kid, every radio station played this to death. Not really a song, it's like a DJ mix of the whole album, and taken like that, it's pretty cool. "The Future" is pretty cool if barebones, and some moments like the bridge on "Vicki Waiting" and the whimpering on "Scandalous" (is that Kim Basinger?) are classic, but those songs as a whole aren't that great, neither is the rest.

The thing is, there's no Prince album where EVERY song is great, IMO. Most artists' albums are like that.. Three great tracks -- Electric Chair, Partyman, Batdance -- counts as a pretty good album for anyone, as I see it.

GRAFFITI BRIDGE is the soundtrack to a box-office bomb. A double-Lp/one CD, half of it is Prince, the other half Prince's protegees, old and new.

Well, I wouldnt' exaclty consider George Clinton or Mavis Staples to be Prince protegees...

The Time tracks aren't bad, but I can't believe the glowing reviews this got. EW gave it an A+; it's not terrible, but it's okay at best. There's only three Prince tracks that I like: the single "Thieves In The Temple," "Still Would Stand All Time" - a great faux-gospel track that's even better on the awesome SMALL CLUB bootleg of a German, after-hours show in 1988, and "Joy In Repetition," which I heard was originally conceived in the SOTT sessions, maybe even earlier. Tevin Campbell also has a solid single, "Round and Round" which is basically a Prince track with Tevin (still in grade-school) singing lead. The rest is pretty flat stuff.

You left one out: 'We Can Funk' (the one with George Clinton) is awesome. I also like 'Love Machine' and 'Release It', both of which are Time/Prince tracks. Way too much filler on this one, though.

DIAMONDS AND PEARLS introduces the NPG. This gets cited as the last good Prince album in some of those MUSICOLOGY reviews, but that's bullshit for several reasons. The singles are good: "Cream" and "Money Don't Matter 2 Nite" are the best, the title track and "Gett Off" have something to recommend. "Thunder" is okay, "Daddy Pop" is pretty catchy, but the hip-hop moments suck, and "Jughead" BLOWS, I can't believe Christgau singled that out as a favorite. The rest is just okay. If you have the singles on the compilations, you can probably pass on this.

"Cream' and 'Daddy Pop' were MUCH better live, as captured on his Arsenio Hall show appearance. The studio album never grabbed me.

...but nothing compared to THE GOLD EXPERIENCE. I couldn't stand listening to this for a long time because this is some of the worst-sounding shit ever. I don't mean the music, I mean the sound quality. Never mind the compression, which is really, really bad, there's a ton of treble. I burned a CD-R and took a shitload out of the upper frequencies, and I highly recommend doing something similar because this is an hour-long album, and if you don't, it will be headache inducing. Once you fix it, you'll hear a GREAT, underrated Prince album. In the post-SOTT era, for my money, this is his best one. He even left out a great track, "Days of Wild," which can be found in good sound (a live version was issued on CRYSTAL BALL). Now OOP for no good reason, it's easy to find, but a lot of assholes are trying to peddle it for $40. It can be easily found for $15, and if you're patient, $8-10 in most stores I've been to. Of course, if you want to fix the sound, you might as well borrow it and burn your 'remastered' copy.

I love the crazy-ass drum breaks in 'Shhh' , pretty much like 'Endorphinmachine' and a few others..but again has never overall grabbed me. I wouldnt' call it that much better/worse than the previous two or three. The last album to really *kill* IMO was Lovesexy...unless you count 'The Truth'.

CD worth of primo bootleg tracks, and the final disc is actually a solid 'acoustic' album called THE TRUTH. Overrated, but still a good Prince album, plus how many acoustic albums does Prince put out? (Besides this, none.)

I think the Truth is fantastic...and Price's solo acoustic set on his recent tour was too.

RAINBOW CHILDREN was a complete flop. Too bad, because the band is actually REALLY good, except for Najee and his bland flute/sax playing - they're purely ornamental touches, though, so maybe he's shown the chops elsewhere.

Rainbow Children, the Vault (which you left out, but which has some *great* tracks on it), and The Truth seem to me the best of the post -Lovesexy lot. Too bad about the crap recording quality on TRC , and its ass-faced crackpot religious/afrocentrist focus (which veers into ugly anti-semitism at least once). The octavised voice doesn't bug me, but it seems to drive some listeners completely batshit, if hte amazon.com reviews are any indication.

[MK]

Well, I wouldn't exactly consider George Clinton or Mavis Staples to be Prince protegees...

Heh, heh, yeah, slipped on that one. I'll give the Clinton track another listen, but it didn't leave a big impression the first time around.

Are the Arsenio performances of "Daddy Pop" and "D&G" easily available? That show was a little before my time, I don't think I caught it before it was on the way out.

I have "The Vault" somewhere on my computer. To my understanding, it's mostly 'demos'/guides to his "I'll Do Anything" songs; it ain't bad, definitely better than the slagging it got from the critics (not sure how the film sequences were, but that movie probably would've been much more interesting if they had kept them in).

You have a point there in what you said about "Batman," most albums, even great ones, have at least one track that's a bit dubious. Still, as much as I like those three tracks on "Batman," "Arms Of Orion" is just TERRIBLE, it's like everything I hate about your average Oscar-nominated songs except it didn't get nominated. "Vicki Waiting" has a nice bridge, but the rest sounds so generic, and "Scandalous" is pretty irritating - the whimpering climax is classic Prince, but the music before that is tedious. "Trust" and "Lemon Crush" feel too dashed-off. With "Lovesexy," even if there's only two tracks that really stand-out for me, it's still got a consistent sound, a nice, even production, and most of the songs are decent, whereas "Batman"'s got peaks and then some deep valleys. Does that make any sense?

The low voice on TRC, I was okay with it at first, but it keeps popping up, and by the end it was just grating. Imagine if Prince quadrupled the number of Kirstie Alley breaks on the 'Symbol Album' (and supposedly there were more, but he cut most of them out to make room for an extra song, originally slated for a B-side; forgot which one) - in a few small doses, not so bad, but it would've been grating to hear after every track. The low voice on TRC had that cumulative effect for me.

[krabapple]

The Arssenio perfs are easily available to me..since I videotaped them off the TV ; I only wish I'd had a stereo VHS setup at the time. I plan to transfer it to DVD some day....

Re The Vault -- ? Are we talking about the same album? The Vault sure doesnt' *sound* like demos...AIUI, they're complete songs from his archives, recorded between 1985 and 1994 according to the liner notes, that just never made it onto any albums. It's an official release he used it to fulfill his record contract (hence the 'Old Friends 4 Sale' subtitle).

I like 'Lemon Crush' off Batman, I'd fogotten that one. But on Lovesexy, none of the tracks are forgettable IMO -- and the title track is a killer, a real bravura performance. It's a more even album than Batman, I agree. But I wish I'd recorded the 'Batman' performances Prince did on TV, I think it was on the 'Friday' show, when the album came out ("electric chair' was one).

As for TRC, cumulative effects tend not to bug me, since I tend not to listen to whole albums at a sitting these days. ;>

[dcooper]

Just a few words about Musicology. The song Musicology is terrific, and was good live when I saw him last summer. However, that's the only interesting song on the album IMHO ... and Prince must agree with me since that's the only song he did on the last tour, and it was the first song of his first set. After dispensing with it, he moved on to do a greatest hits show that was terrific.

I have both the retail version of the album and the one he handed out at his concert...yes, I was the schmuck who bought the album not realizing I was going to get a copy at the show. The sound is as bad as described above. Barely listenable.

[MK]

Any difference between the retail version and the concert version of MUSICOLOGY?

Anyway, yeah, we're talking about the same VAULT. I put 'demo' in quotes ('demo'/guides) for the reason you mentioned: they don't sound like demos. I was only referring to the "I'll Do Anything" tracks, not the others. I don't think those tracks were ever meant for a Prince album and were composed specifically for the movie where they'd be sung by other people: I don't know how the process worked, but I'm guessing they'd either use the same recording and replace Prince's vocal, or they'd re-record the whole song, using Prince's recording as a guide.

[MK]

BTW, here's the complete credits to THE VAULT - the liner notes were a little incomplete (someone pieced it together at a Prince forum):

1. The Rest Of My Life - April 1992 (IDO song)
2. It's About That Walk - September 1993 (possibly an IDO song)
3. She Spoke 2 Me - October 1991 - outtake from the Symbol album, edited version later released on the 1996 Girl 6 soundtrack
4. 5 Women (re-recording) October 1995, originally recorded in 1992 and then Joe Cocker recorded his own version for the 1992 album Night Calls
5. When the Lights Go Down - September 1993 (possibly an IDO song)
6. My Little Pill - April 1992 (an IDO song)
7. There Is Lonely - April 1992 (an IDO song)
8. Old Friends 4 Sale - originally recorded for Parade in April 1985, recorded new vocal with different lyrics in 1991, otherwise same as original.
Orchestral arrangement by Clare Fischer.
9. Sarah - February 1996
10. Extraordinary October 1992 (an IDO song)

The Sept. 1993 recordings may be later recordings of IDO songs though, if they are indeed IDO songs. The movie came out in early 1994, so it would be cutting it too close if the Sept. 1993 recordings were meant to be guides or 'demos' for the movie.

[krabapple]

OK, just one question..how do you get 'IDO' from 'I'll Do Anything"?

And I can't help wondering what scene in the movie 'My Little Pill' was meant for.

[MK]

Answer to question 1: Shorthand I guess.
Answer to question 2: GOOD question. Anybody want to wager a guess?

[krabapple]

Haven't seen the movie, so I can't even guess.

[MK]

BTW, as bad as "Jughead" may be, the opening vocal - probably Rosie Gaines - is SUBLIME. Then the shitty rapping comes in...

I just started looking for that Arsenio performance, and there's a surprising number of Arsenio/Prince boots. Prince apparently unveiled a number of songs on that show, and a few (unaired) rehearsals, professionally filmed by the TV crew, are even circulating.

As for Daddy Pop, here was one description:

Arseneo Hall's D&P Performance of Daddy Pop
The Arsenio Hall Show (4th September, 1991)

So anyways Prince is in a yellow getup that resembles something Liza Maneli would wear to the opera, and he's performing with an early configuration of the NPG. During the song, which has many dance moves in it, Prince gets on the ground and does this kind of humping thing while one of the male dancers gets behind him and does a humping action while holding Prince's hips, like he was trying to make some anal sexual simulation.

---------------------------------------

Wholesome!

[krabapple]

Prince wears a yellow do-rag and jumpsuit for 'Cream' and 'Daddy Pop' -- I doubt even Liza would have worn it, much less to the opera. And yes, 'Daddy Pop' is highly, er, choreographed. At one point he also mimes brushing his teeth and applying underarm deoderant. SEXY THANG!

Two moments I recall especially during Daddy Pop are a shot that shows Arsenio and guest Patti LaBelle both getting down with the funk offstage, and a bit where Prince tries to open a piano lid to release some balloons, but doesn't *quite* make it. I bet someone got fired for that. But rosie Gaines is awesome on the show. Even the rapping isn't too groove-killing.

'Cream' is really good too -- I can only describe it as 'drier', more stripped-down, and Price's delivery of the lyrics is priceless. It's apparent he is totally comfortable in front of a camera. (no residual embarrassment over his awful movies).

The only unveilings were the two songs mention, AFAIR. Aside from the D&P songs, there's a medley of hits, and finally a standalone perf of 'Purple Rain'.

[MK]

Got MUSICOLOGY. I don't know if it's age or what, but he's lost a bit of his bite. Some of this stuff sounds so languid. I'm also surprised how limp "Reflection" sounds. I heard it on Tavis Smiley, not expecting much (an acoustic version with Wendy, you can download the whole video clip from the NPG store), and I really liked it, but hearing it again, it's actually pretty boring. It's got the makings of a good ballad, but it sounds pretty fluffy.

Half of this album is still decent: the title track, "Illusion, Coma...," "Life O The Party," "Call My Name," "Cinnamon Girl," and "On The Couch." I might just rip these six and reconfigure a new album/compilation with the best tracks off his last few, but yeah, definitely not a comeback. To be honest, I think "Rave" and "Rainbow Children" are almost as good as this one, that is, they've got five or six that can match the six I listen to.

[krabapple]

Seems to me that Prince is so good at what he does, that the bar is set higher for his stuff. His 'routine' output would be great from most other R&B acts.