prince

Not expecting much. Even "instant grat" tracks (see below) won't get many to order early, I don't think

Music icon PRINCE today announces not one, but two, brand new studio albums to be released globally via Warner Bros. Records. The much-anticipated albums are 'ART OFFICIAL AGE' and 'PLECTRUMELECTRUM', set to release on September 30th 2014 in the US. 'ART OFFICIAL AGE' is a solo album and 'PLECTRUMELECTRUM' is by Prince's new band 3RDEYEGIRL.

Both albums, which are sold separately, are now available for pre-order via digital retailers and from http://www.artofficialage.com. Early buyers will be able to unlock 'instant grat' tracks from each record. The album releases will also be marked by a series of very special events taking place globally, to be confirmed shortly.

2014 has been one of the most exciting years yet for the prodigious musical talent. Together with 3RDEYEGIRL, he rocked UK and European audiences into a frenzy with his sell-out 'Hit & Run' tours, generating some of the most significant critical acclaim of his career so far. In April, NPG Music Publishing was launched, marking the first time Prince's vast publishing catalog has been independently controlled and administered in over twenty years. All of this in addition to headlining and curating the Essence Festival on July 4th in New Orleans and a much talked about appearance on hit TV show 'New Girl'. 2014 has underlined that Prince continues to innovate and surprise, thrilling his fans and welcoming a whole new audience in the process.

The brand new studio albums mark a historic return to Warner Bros. Records, Prince's original label home. The renewed partnership came after the announcement that Warner Bros. Records returned to Prince the master recordings of his pioneering '80s albums, including Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain and Sign 'O' the Times.

Why are his album covers so tasteless these days?

Album covers are the least of his problems these days.

Ida Nielsen is a fine bass player, but those other two in Third Eye Girl are pretty awful.

for some reason i didnt think WB would release both of his new albums. i guess that was his bargaining chip: 'you have to release two NEW albums of mine which you never wanted to in the 80s/90s otherwise you dont get to re-release purple rain! ha!'. not looking forward to either of them really - most of his recent material has been pretty crappy. his album covers have been generally awful since he left WB, though the rainbow children wasnt bad.

Which ... is there any word on when the Purple Rain remaster is expected?

"Breakfast Can Wait" was great, i'll definitely give this stuff a shot.

This ain't bad...

http://www.soulbounce.com/soul/2014/08/we-forecast-that-youll-love-prince-lianne-la-havas-clouds

^ Really enjoying "Clouds." And is this the first time he's referred to his last name in a song?!?

I'm more interested in it being his first Warners album since 1995 than anything else. Hoping they might make him step up his quality control (though I'm not that optimistic, he might have negotiated it so they have no input).

there is not even a tiny molecule of a chance that the record company will have any creative input in these. i also doubt they had even a tiny molecule of creative input in sign o' the times, so i'm ok with that.

maybe not input per se, but they had the power of refusal which they exercised at various points in his career... anyway, clouds isnt bad.

Well obviously they got him to trim down what became SOTT.

Obviously Prince doesnt really get that after a big album, a film, another album, another film and soundtrack, why they would be anxious over a 3 album set, all in the space of three years

For someone who purportedly doesn't like the internet, Prince has done a really through job of invading just about every banner ad I've seen today.

saw ads for this on the london underground yesterday. cant remember the last time prince had ads on the tube.

im interested in this supposedly being an all analogue album. i know prince has become more old-school-leaning in the last 10 years but for some reason, i cant imagine him recording to tape.

Just checking but yeah wasn't Sign O' The Times meant to include The Black Album and be a triple bt WB said no?

prince pulled the black album himself IIRC as he had a change of heart (or took some E, depending on who tells the story)

SOTT was originally a double, then a triple, and then an alias album under his camille name, and then warners protested, and it became a bit of all of them and was made to fit 2 discs (i reckon dream factory would have been a great double, crystal ball as a triple, slightly less so, but warners objecting is why he made emancipation soon as he left them)

Yeah, the official explanation is that Prince had an epiphany (while on E, according to the rumours) that the Black Album was too dark or something, so he pulled it off and replaced it with Lovesexy. (This was done so late in the process that tons of Black Albums had already been printed, hence it wasn't difficult to find a pirate copy afterwards, even though it never officially made the stores.) Though I've always kinda suspected the real reason for deleting the album was that he realized it would probably flop, since it doesn't have any catchy pop tunes, besides "When 2 R in Love" (which is hardly his poppiest ballad either).

Thanks, just looked into the whole thing a bit and v interesting/way more convoluted than I'd thought. Like the E theory.

this is also pretty good! http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/prince-drops-new-futuristic-slow-jam-u-know-20140901

not linking the 3rd eye girl song imo

Given that there is nothing even minimally wrong with "SOTT," and that the reconstructed versions of "Crystal Ball" and "Dream Factory," as Prince or Camille or whatever, aren't nearly as solid as "SOTT," I think WB made the right decision there. "Black Album" merit is more debatable, but I've never listened to it as A-list Prince.

Owning a bootleg copy of The Dream Factory myself, I think enough of it is strange and powerful enough to have worked if WB had a promotions department working for one client only.

i wonder if prince had been at peak in the internet age if he would've been as productive, more productive or less productive without a label yoke (or label money) but with the ability to drop songs at his leisure
it's a toss up

This new music is as uninspired as usual. He should really just settle back to playing live shows and releasing the old stuff.

And getting a proper graphic design team.

TGE/Emancipation is where the rot set in, visually

Prince peaking at the height of the internet/without Warners backing would have been a disaster.

U KNOW is great btw and up on spotify for repeated home listening

New jam sounds pretty great to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9R1E4y7_Js

He sounds like Cartman behind a sofa during the break.

the lyrics/title are (unsurprisingly) terrible, but its pretty good musically. i like that hes trying to use some modern ideas without losing himself along the way. and the rave up at the end is a nice surprise.

i dont think ive heard him sound quite so like he cares about what hes making for quite a long time. these new songs arent masterpieces, but they at least sound like hes thought about them quite a bit, not just tossed them off.

Second half of this album is legit.

Tonight--Album Release Party with a Behind the Scenes Look at Prince's Iconic Recording Studio, Paisley Park

Prince and his band 3RDEYEGIRL will appear at 9:30 PM/CT on the Live Nation Channel on Yahoo for PLECTRUMELECTRUMARTOFFICIALAGE an exclusive album release party.

This will probably be carefully controlled so it will provide little of interest and fun

Will be cool when in the near future Prince inevitably opens up a Prince museum in MN. Like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but just Prince stuff. Drum machines, lyrics, guitars, clips, costumes, Jerome's mirror...

the "Camille" pedal

His purple Camaro. His Purple Rain bike. His gold gun microphone. His cane. He could give away an album with every purchased admission ticket.

I wonder if people grabbed souvenir planks of siding or whatever from when he tore down his purple house in chanhassen

i dunno, like with Neil Young I feel most historically related efforts won't be truly satisfying until they're not around to have opinions about it. If he's alive, the Prince Museum would probably erase half his previous collaborators from the historical record.

"Excuse me, why is there a purple blanket with the word 'NO.' around the entire Revolution display"

"....."

he has an honest-to-god collaborator now? https://twitter.com/joshuaworld

ah so is he the one doing all the modern production touches? because i had a hard time imagining P sitting at a computer messing around with pitch envelopes etc at this stage in his career.

https://screen.yahoo.com/live/event/prince this is now

Yipes

so cheesy. geez.

he only likes rich people to watch him play live.

I think the people losing their shit over "Art Official Age" have sort of lost their shit. I mean, it's got some good stuff on it, but I'm not sure it's necessarily any better than "20Ten" or "MPLSound" or whatever. Though I'm afraid to go back and compare. I do want to give this one some time to settle in.

Definitely the British narrator/announcer thing is pretty annoying. I seem to recall he did that on the squiggle album, certainly The Gold Experience. Anyway, having an outside producer, albeit one married to his drummer (iirc), suits him. The ballads particularly. I like "Way Back Home" a lot.

the ballads are great, the pacing is way off, and the songs are still kind of like... evocative husks of former prince songs, just modernized

still it's pretty consistent for a prince album in 2014

"Way Back Home" is a highlight, more for its content than its music/production.

I never heard 20TEN, but it seems a step up from the MPLSound package. Prince sounds engaged at least.

Engaged to be engaged, more like.