Have you had your POLL sign today? Favourite track on Prince's Lovesexy

I Wish U Heaven

glam slam. always gets stuck in my head at breakfast time

I've had 'Glam Slam' stuck in my head all day, but I'm not sure yet if it's the one that'll get my vote.

'When 2 R In Love' fits far more snugly on this record than on The Black Album, IMO.

I fucking love the drum/percussion track on 'Dance On'

Yeah, it sounds kinda like proto drill'n'bass (only better).

I Wish U Heaven is my favourite single from this album, but the super long extended single remix is much better than the album version, so I'm not sure which track on the actual album I prefer.

I'm finding myself changing my mind on this quite a lot... at first I was like "okay, maybe it's 'Anna Stesia'" but then I started to lean towards the (underrated) title track, but then 'Alphabet St.' ... argh!

Dance On

Get off me punk you ain't sexy

M&M KILLAS PLAYIN MICKEY MOUSE GAMES

The production on this record is so detailed, has such depth and sounds so magnificent that it blows my mind that this album was put together so quickly.

Giving this yet another listen and still completely stumped, literally every track on this album has some kind of fantastic moment in it.

He really thought this was going to blow people's minds (it should have!) and was deeply gutted when it (relatively for prince) tanked

Yeah, I'll never understand why some folks are so down on this record... because it followed Sign O' The Times? Or because maybe people got it into their heads that it was some kind of tossed-off release that replaced the "real" follow-up (The Black Album)?

I'm down on it because it bores me.

I love the 12" mixes though.

it is a great prince album that you have to work at a bit. It's his Mannerist fountain, the songs are shaped super oddly. It was also the first Prince album to sound super workstation-y (Batman would be far more so). Also the myth of the black album yeah.

I mean, okay, there's a lot of stuff on The Black Album I like... 'Le Grind', 'Cindy C', 'Bob George', 'Superfunkycapifragisexy', but I can totally understand why Prince pulled it. Stuff like 'Dead On It', funny as it is to hear Prince getting pissed off about rappers, just isn't very good and 'When 2 R In Love' just doesn't fit on the record. Wasn't it one of the last things recorded for The Black Album, if not the last? So, perhaps it was an indication of where his music was heading, since (I think) Prince had had a few things on The Black Album kicking around for a couple of years.

Lovesexy sounds, to me at least, far more focused, and simultaneously both more accessible and stranger.

It actually really surprises me that you don't dig this one, Alfred. It genuinely sounds like the sort of record you'd like.

To my ears it's the first treading water album: the first one on which nothing was delivered except elongations of a sound with which he'd already experimented. I don't like ATWIAD but at least it doesn't sound like Purple Rain.

I'm surprised too! And I've given it plenty of chances.

To me, it's the last of his "golden period", without a doubt. As much as I love individual moments on subsequent albums and have more time for Come than most, I think Lovesexy was definitely a turning point whichever way you look at it.

Or, to roll out this particular cliche again, it's his Abbey Road, if The Black Album is his Let It Be and Sign O' The Times is his white album.

This has actually become probably my favourite Prince album since his passing.

12 inch of "I Wish U Heaven" would sweep this but otherwise I feel like I could vote for anything except the title track and maybe "When 2 R In Love".

Special shoutout to the percussion on "Positivity".

ANNA STESIA

this album's all about the opening track + the singles for me. hard to choose

Went with 'Dance On'

Anna Stesia. Dance On and Tambourine are a good twofer.

Listened to this a few months ago...sounded dated...really misses Wendy and Lisa's presence (like so much of his later work)...probably 'Anna Stacia' for me...love the 'God is love love is God' refrain

I'll never understand why some folks are so down on this record... because it followed Sign O' The Times? Or because maybe people got it into their heads that it was some kind of tossed-off release that replaced the "real" follow-up (The Black Album)?

Because it was released as a one-track CD. I avoided it for years because of that. After he died I downloaded a split version. Now I like it more than the Black Album, but still go to Sign first and always will.

I'm listening to this for the first time in ages and it's a lot better than I remembered - it's still second-tier Prince for me (it's kind of thin-sounding) but I'm enjoying songs (and parts of songs) I've never really picked up on before. I'm voting I Wish U Heaven because that's always been a favourite but Glam Slam and Anna Stesia deserve a mention too.

Alphabet St.

I love the backing vocals on 'Alphabet St.' - I thought it was a great single, but prefer it in its album length version.

in honor of thread i am now jamming Live In Osaka '89 boot: shit-hot

CAT! WE NEED U 2 RAP!

shake your body like a horny pony would

DRIVE HER

Rain is wet and sugar is sweet
Clap your hands and stomp your feet
Everybody, everybody knows
When love calls, u got 2 go

*giggles* AAAAAAHHHHWWWAAAA!

Come to think of it, that part in 'Positivity' which goes "u can fly high right by Spooky and all that he crawls 4, don't kiss the beast" is very P-funk, isn't it? Even the name Spooky Electric sounds like it was ripped directly out of P-funk mythology.

Also, wasn't Prince sampling his own recordings on this record? I'm sure the "yes" throughout 'Positivity' is sampled from the intro to 'Computer Blue', and the 'No!' at the beginning of 'Alphabet St.' was sampled from a previous song. The "aaahhhwwwaaa!" at the beginning of 'Eye No' sounds like a slightly pitched up sample too, although given that Prince has done this in shitloads of songs, it could have come from anywhere.
Pretty sure there's some chatter from '2 Nigs United 4 West Compton' re-used on one of the tracks here, too.

well "eye no" is a heavily modified version of "the ball" which was cut from _crystal ball_. does that count?

There are plenty of things I enjoy on this album, and the 12" of I Wish U Heaven is matchless, but the record for me is undermined by the production and the vibe. Instead of the 70s / early 80s synths and drum machines, which had a fucked up organic funkiness (especially the Linn) he exploited so beautifully, the synths on Lovesexy have an icy perfection which leaves me cold, pun intended. After Sign was so loose and organic, this record is like the superego to the id of the black album, a sealed perfection in which P and God were encased. It's kind of fascist - sequenced as one track, polished, hyperreal cover photo, and P's image became highly tailored or graphically simple solid primary colours. It's an assertion of control which is the opposite of what I loved about Prince at the time.
Of course these are only the aspects I disliked, and there are lots of things which I did like, so not writing it off.

"Instead of the 70s / early 80s synths and drum machines, which had a fucked up organic funkiness (especially the Linn) he exploited so beautifully, the synths on Lovesexy have an icy perfection which leaves me cold, pun intended. After Sign was so loose and organic, this record is like the superego to the id of the black album, a sealed perfection in which P and God were encased. It's kind of fascist - sequenced as one track, polished, hyperreal cover photo, and P's image became highly tailored or graphically simple solid primary colours. It's an assertion of control which is the opposite of what I loved about Prince at the time."

IDK I think this is why I love it? It's very Appolonian.

Apollonian too.

I'll admit that sequencing the entire album as one track on the CD was a bit of a stupid move. It was less of a problem on the vinyl because at least you could physically "find" the track if you really wanted to, whereas on the CD if you wanted to listen to, say, 'I Wish U Heaven', you had to hold fast-forward for ages, and if you wanted to repeat a song it was a bit of a pain.

However, I can understand why Prince wanted this album to be heard as a start-to-finish complete thing rather than as a series of individual moments, as much as it must have seemed like Prince was being dictatorial about it.

Also, for the record, I've never ever had a problem with the sleeve and was actually quite surprised to read that some fans were (or are) uncomfortable with it.

"Sealed perfection" is a great way of describing the record, actually. But in a rare case of actually agreeing with Tim F on something, it's one of the things I really like about the record. Listened to side-by-side with The Black Album, it often feels to me like The Black Album was the rush job, rather than Lovesexy.

cosign all that

was it acid or x that he was supposed to have been on when he had the epiphany that led to LS replacing tBA?

It was apparently Ecstasy, but part of me has always thought that it was a bit of a bullshit story. I sometimes feel there's been a lot of strange mythology surrounding The Black Album that may not even be true.

What I do believe is that Prince had his doubts about putting the record out long before he pulled the plug on it, and that it was put together, and quickly, because he felt that he had something to prove to his critics. It was intended to be a statement, but I think once the dust (and Prince) had settled, he realised that maybe it wasn't one of his better records and decided to halt it.

It's not like Prince hadn't cancelled projects before, just that The Black Album had got to the pressing stage and thus, got leaked and became collectable and a whole mythology grew up around it - some of which Prince himseld had a lot to do with.

The thing is, aside from 'Bob George' and 'Dead On It', the record isn't really that dark, and nor is it really that explicit by Prince's standards. It's more of an album of party jams, if anything, so I don't really buy the whole "The Black Album was cancelled because it was evil" story.

However, at the same time, I do think that Lovesexy was created out of a desire to create a positive, uplifting record. I genuinely believe that that was where Prince's head was at at the time and that's really what he wanted to express. The cancellation of The Black Album just gave him something to weave into the "good vs. evil" narrative of Lovesexy and the stage show.

*himself

Basically cosign.

this whole final phase of his "imperial period" is pretty interesting in general and I love it all up through Batman tbh. It does seem like the material and arrangements grow increasingly frenetic, detailed, and claustrophobic - from SOTT things start to feel more and more dense and even cluttered. Then Graffiti Bridge happens and there's a weird reset/lost in the wilderness of modern R&B thing that happens.

Yeah he never got that mannerist again

Yeah, with hindsight, this is quite an interesting period, even though to some it must have seemed like Prince was losing his mind around this time. Personally, I think his antics in the '90s were more bizarre.

more bizarre sure, but the music was not as good

Yeah, I was thinking more stuff like the whole Warner Bros. saga and changing his name to a symbol, rather than the music itself, which I actually think got less bizarre!

"come"

...is a very underrated record, IMO. My favourite post-Lovesexy LP.

Come is great. I have to thank ilx for making me even listen to it.

'CUZ LOVESEXY IS THE ONE
'TIL MY DAY IS DONE!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

My desert island disc if I could only bring one. It was the second record I ever bought (at age 14), and it blew my german suburban pre-pubescent nerdy (and slightly dirty) mind in the most thorough way imaginable. I had no idea that music could be like this.

So naturally this poll is kinda ridiculous to me but I could not not vote when I saw it. I went with Dance On cause it's the most out there, which is where my musical development was headed so I guess it was the most influential.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Well, holy shit :D

'Eye No' and the title track both deserve more than one vote!

Not a single vote for 'Positivity' despite the nod in the thread title. Ouch! I feel bad for this neglected amazing song and will give it some attention later today.

I love 'Positivity', although it's easy for me to see why people's votes ended up going elsewhere - there's a lot of strong stuff on this record! Tim F was OTM about the percussion. It's a real headphones track, as is the whole album really!

Yeah I hadn't decided on my favourite in time to vote but it may well be "Positivity". Definitely the most obvious (though certainly not only) argument against Alfred's suggestion that this album didn't involve Prince stretching himself past his prior material.

Humph!

Y'know, I was watching the footage of the Dortmund show of the Lovesexy tour a couple of days ago, and Prince sure looks as if he's having a whale of a time performing 'Bob George' ... It's yet another reason I don't buy the whole "The Black Album was evil" thing.

In the live Osaka boot there's this adorable moment where he goes 'mushi mushi' and then giggles in this totally genuine way

I envy anyone who got to see him on that tour, by the way! It just seems like he put his all into the whole thing. I haven't heard the Osaka boot, but that performance of 'Anna Stesia' at Dortmund is quite something!

This is also the tour where the famous 'small club' aftershow boot comes from isn't it?

HUNDALASILIAH!

ok this album is on spotify now but it's as one 45-minute track wtf?

"The album is designed to be heard in the context of a continuous sequence: LP pressings split the album in two side-long tracks, without visual bands to indicate individual songs. Similarly, early CD copies of Lovesexy have the entire album in sequence as a single track, though some later editions have it as nine separate tracks."

yeah no shit isn't like almost every fucking album?

Surely that means that Spotify Free users'll be able to listen to the entire album ad-free?

Over time, this has become one of my favourite Prince albums. I just listened to it back to back with The Gold Experience and this is so far ahead it's not even funny.

take this beat, i don't mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkab8eyYQc4

Best songs-
Alphabet st (part one)
Glamslam
Ana stesia
I wish u heaven

It's a rushed album though. And the 'I'm reborn! I'm cleansed!' tone can get a bit irritating.

But its genuinely inspired. Still, the tour is what made this so good. Genuinely one of the great concert videos ever.

Oh I went to that one, Wembley arena. Lovesexy/black album. Got the tour prog somewhere.. (when did gig programmes stop being mandatory? Do the 1975 do them?)

Anyway, my sis&broinlaw were with me (it was their birthday present, which shows how 'reasonable' gig prices were back then) and they loved it. But my sis (who didn't go to many gigs) assumed all gigs were like that, and got massively disappointed when they went to see Bobby Brown 6 months later. Apparently, he also had a bed on stage but that was as far as the 'comparable' went.

Princes 87/88 tours were just ridiculously superior

One thing about this album and the black album bott sound thrown together. Like he barely spent any time on them and thought that would be enough. Glam slam and I wish... even have the same verse repeated !

that 3-way tie for second place lol

re-up of the extended mix for "eye wish u heaven"—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RedVIrWYuGI

maybe my favorite thing p ever did?

Theory: “Alphabet St” is reworked from P taking a stab at a new Sesame Street theme for his “Starfish and Coffee” appearance