Oh no, I have an (admittedly resistable) urge to buy Prince's "Emancipation" set!

but sadly that is not saying much.

the only track i can still remember offa it is My Computer everything else is just a blur. but for 3 pounds why not.

"Gee, artist who I've never liked after hearing half-a-dozen of his singles, but lots of folks say he's brilliant, and oh, this isn't one of his classic albums that I can recall--it's a triple, so it's prolly bloated. But....And yet...it's just...I mean, WOW! It's a whole LOT of songs FOR CHEAP! I'll buy it!"

I bought this a few years ago for $5, finally breaking it out at work.

Will report back later.

It's awesome!

i've been waiting for a friend of mine to make me a 1 cd distillation of this for years

I dig into this every eight or nine months and uncover something I overlooked. "Let's Have a Baby" and "Face Down" were 2008's winners.

"The Human Body" is probably still my favorite track on here.

the Joan Osborne cover is ungodly.

when it came out, it was prob his most focused/considered album for ages (and still better than a lot of his recent albums) but prince loses something with that lack of spontaneity thats there on half the crap that makes up 3121 (and vice versa - the recent albums dont have the songwriting focus of emancipation). the sterility of the production doesnt help either but theres lots of good material, and even the stuff with some horrible 90s production like sleep around has some lovely melodies. its just not always memorable as a whole (both the album, and several of the songs).

id prob reduce it down to this now -

2. Courtin' Time
6. In This Bed I Scream
7. Soul Sanctuary
8. Curious Child
9. Holy River
10. Let's Have a Baby
11. My Computer
12. One of Us
13. Love We Make

If you can get past the mid-nineties r'n'b sound (which I know many Prince fans dislike, but I have no problem with it), this is easily one of Prince's top 5 albums. There's simply so many great tunes, and so many different things he tries on it: r'n'b, rap, house, regular Prince pop songs, funk, house, slow jams, traditional soul, swing, cover versions... My personal favourite is "Soul Sanctuary", which I think is the most beautiful ballad he has ever done, alongside "Sometimes It Snows in April".

(x-post)

he does do a lot of styles, but i dunno, in the 90s it felt like he was doing all diff styles (and some that he really should have stayed away fromm) quite consciously rather than really integrating them like he used to.

the Joan Osborne cover is ungodly.

That's Prince's song!
There are at least ten great tracks on this and at least ten of his worst tracks as well.

i do love his vocals on the delfonics and stylistics covers though - some of his loveliest singing ever.

the Joan Osborne cover is ungodly.

That's Prince's song!

What do you mean by this? The song most definitely wasn't written by Prince, and the Joan Osborne version came out a year before Emancipation.

There are at least ten great tracks on this and at least ten of his worst tracks as well.

Ten of his worst, really? Have you heard Come?

wtf are your ears broken, Come is fantastic

the only terrible Prince album is Rave Un2 The Fantastic (haven't heard the Jehovah Witness one with Najee).

I dunno, I like the sound of Come, but as far as songwriting is concerned, it is weak for a Prince album. The only really memorable tune is "Space".

and "Come" and "Loose" and "Pheremone" and "Papa" and "Letigo" and u are crazy

Tuomas Rave Un2 He Crazee

Come is easily my favorite of his 90s albums and actually the only one out of all of his albums that I pull out on a regular basis.

I'm with Dan on this one.

diamonds and pearls is his best 90s warners album, song for song. so many strong tunes. come is cool, and solid, but its more of a low key sleeper album. and for a short album its still got its fair share of dudness.

U MAD!

"Jughead" and "Push" are terrible songs!

Agreed on Come being brilliant.

I always forget that Ned is a Prince fan!

theyre bad lol, obviously. but theres still the title song, strolling, walk dont walk, get off, cream, money dont matter...

"Strolling" is pretty ungood after the novelty wears off.

I mean, "Money Don't Matter 2Night," "Cream," "Strolling," "Thunder," and "Willing and Able" are enough to redeem it, but any track on which Tony B or Michael Suck or whoever the fuck that fourth-rate rapper is gets a fair shake is terrible.

best tracks on come -
"Space" – 4:28
"Papa" – 2:48
"Dark" – 6:10
"Solo" – 3:48
"Letitgo" – 5:32

best tracks on D&P -
"Daddy Pop" – 5:17 (sans the rap)
"Diamonds and Pearls" – 4:45
"Cream" – 4:13
"Strollin'" – 3:47
"Willing and Able" – 5:00 (again, without tony m)
"Gett Off" – 4:31
"Walk Don't Walk" – 3:07
"Money Don't Matter 2 Night" – 4:47
"Insatiable" – 6:39

i am going to go out on a limb here and say that the best prince album of the 90s is Exodus by the New Power Generation. and yes i am completely serious.

I can't get with anyone who doesn't like "Come."

also if you replace get off with the original 10 min version D&P gets even better. ;)

warners should do a prince in the 90s best of. would prob be good for a reasessment of that decade.

(I see that thinking about Tony M has caused my grammar to crumble)

I keep thinking there's a mix of "Live 4 Love" preferable to the final version.

I always forget that Ned is a Prince fan!

Good lord, man, how could I not be?

As for this album, I'm only really partial to the house tunes -- "The Human Body" and "Sleep Around" -- dated though they may be.

slave is a cool song on this too.

Disc 2 of Emancipation is pretty awesome. Some of his best ever love ballads/slow jams on here.

BTW, Come is infinitely better than D&P.

Diamonds and Pearls has some good tunes (Cream, Gett Off, Willing & Able, Strollin'), but I'd say the Love Symbol album is the best Prince album of the 90s. It's kinda like a better version of D&P: the funk is deeper, the dance numbers are more hard-hitting, and the pop tunes more catchy.

love the love symbol album

If only Prince had included the 12" version of Gett Off and a couple of the better B sides ("Loveleft, Loveright" and "Violet Organ Grinder") on D&P instead of generic, formless tunes like "Live 4 Love", "Push", and "Insatiable"...

I think on the Love Symbol album Prince found an enjoyable mid-point between his unique 80s sound and a more mainstream dance/r'n'b/rap production. With Emancipation the sound went kinda too much to the slick direction, and that process was finalized with Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic.

the best prince albums of the 90s are really the black album and the crystal ball set ;)

am i the only person on this thread who has heard NPG Exodus? i know its hard to find now, but now im wondering if it ever got much outside of MPLS/STPL

get wild was kind of corny but i liked good life.

Listening to this again and... I'm guessing Prince thought he was really going to take the world by storm with this record!

and if trimmed down to a single album/cd, he could have.

I think a single disc version of this could have been as good as The Gold Experience at least!

umm, is that genuine or a back handed compliment ?
i happen to think that TGE is bloody wonderful but there are many that do not.

It's a genuine compliment - I think The Gold Experience is one of his best '90s LP's.

Toss up between The Gold Experience and Come for me.

I think The Gold Experience is one of his best '90s LP's.

low bar. Come is a bit better imo.

Come is up there too, IMO. His most underrated LP.

('90s LP, I should say)

blimey, i have Come in the archive.
guess its time to give it another spin as i have no recollection of it.

Of course, his '90s work doesn't really compare to his '80s work, but that goes without saying!

huh I had no idea that was the Sagrada Familia on the cover of Come

funny how he wanted to release it simultaneously w/the Gold Experience in some weird market-manipulation attempt to make his "love symbol" branded stuff more popular

Not so funny how he dismissed it as being "old material" when it wasn't!

This could be been his best 90s album if he edited it

The rest, while good, isnt anything that remarkable

The craft is there, but the inspiration isnt

But at this point in his career, a triple is crazy. Weird way to relaunch yourself! Buried in this is a really lovely, mature album, subdued yes but more reflective if an adult prince in a way his later albums weren't, and that's something g this album proved might not be exciting or a hit,but could be still quite beautiful and moving.

Gold would have been a much better 45 min album. This would be a much better 60 minute album. Yeah it has some cool little weird moments, but it never comes alive. Would have been better to just focus on the love songs, the stuff about being a 37 year old who just got married. Might not have been a smash but would have been a sharper, more cohesive album. All the rest could have been on maxi singles. The party songs on here are asinine or lifeless, the raps are just awful, production is overly measured but it hasn't dated strangely. It's just a bit devoid of energy.

Idk who is management was at this point but they were crazy.

I enjoy the production on some of these and if they come up on shuffle I wouldn't skip but agree it's just fatiguing to listen to for 3 hours straight.

Hasn't got the highs of gold experience (I hate u pr Billy Jack bitch) but it's got so many well honed songs (maybe too well honed), it's a shame it sunk, and if it wasn't 3 CDs long, it might not have done.

A triple in the 80s, that's one thing, a triple when each disc can be 70 mins long, that just untenable

Also every ballad on disc 2 is worth listening to, but there are just too many of them. Saying that though, the opening line of one kiss at a time, 'come and get your cum on' is just a bit weird. And sex in the summer just sounds so forced.

Actually listening to it now, my main thought is yes, a song can be good, but that doesn't mean it needs to be on an album. All the outtakes from the late 80s even, they're great, but he made the right call in not including them on the albums released.

disc two >>>>>

Has anyone ever posited an entirely post-Lovesexy greatest hits tracklist, and what it might entail?

disc two >>>>>

― ivy.

second side of Disc Two.

will no 1 stan for "Emale"

― Neanderthal, Sunday, April 24, 2016 4:47 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

*raises hand*

I just risked visiting www.emale.com on my work computer to discover that "The owner of emale.com is offering it for sale for an asking price of 485000 EUR!"

this is a weird album. every time i try to make it a single or double album, it doesnt work really. i think its cos while a good 75% of it is very good, theres no real amazing highlights on there, or no 'big' standouts apart from the covers (one of us is still one of the best things he did in the 90s, and well, ever, the most perfect cover he ever picked). its also really fussily engineered and produced, theres not a note out of place. i guess that makes it both state of the art in 96, but also just a bit... sterile? as an album/playlist, i like to make it start with slave, and end with emancipation, but i find both tracks a bit of a bore really, even though it makes sense to have them there to create an album kind of experience (and this an album that needs to be an album as it doesnt have many big peaks). i love sleep around but its too long, and needed a proper house remix. it is his one true 90s rnb album, def more conservative in many ways for him, but i think he lost something in the process, just cos trying to be a more pure (relatively speaking) rnb artist wasnt really prince i think, even though he did try to cleave more to that as he got older. but this was the last time he was trying to sound current maybe, until the art official age album (which i like more, and was maybe the best late period album he did).