C/D: Prince's "Around the World in a Day"

Thomayto

Purple Rain - I'm a star, let's drink, fuck, and party like it's 1999. Then the beautiful one Nikki broke his heart and he only wants to see her dancing in the purple rain.

Around The World in a Day - Crushed, he retreats into his room with his Crayola 64 and Beatles albums. Draws lots of paisley parks and raspberry berets.

Parade - Shows said drawings of parks and berets to friends. They like! He starts to come out of his shell.

SOTT - Doesn't like what he reads in the paper about some new disease. Hits on waitresses in his favorite coffee shop, one of whom he'd love to date even though he can never take the place of her man. Rediscovers how much he loves Jesus. Not that it matters.

hey, I didn't say it! He just told an arena full of central pennsylvanians that!

By the way I like your choices on the calendar thread, we're locked in a duet over there.

Better get back to the calendar thread. I think I'll have to go find some of your choices, since I'm very much new to them.

Hell, the same guy, a fucking Four Twaet fan, looked at me the same way when I played him glitchy melodic elctronica records.

very underappreciated and awesome album. "Pop Life", the title track, "raspberry beret", man fuck people who don't enjoy this...with scissors and mayonaise

I like a lot of this album actually. And the tracks I don't like are the gospel influenced somewhat repetitive ballads that also exist in the rest of his catalogue (for instance, the title track is the only thing I don't like much on "Purple Rain")

This was, if I recall, one of the first threads to which I contributed.

(for instance, the title track is the only thing I don't like much on "Purple Rain")

http://paintermommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/shocked.jpg

sorry for the triple post, something's up with my internets....

Your ire.

"Pop Life"

When asked, I'll probably tell you this is my favorite Prince song 7 out of 10 times.

i thought it was intentional

xp

lol, it did kind of inspire that level of "wtf"ness in me.

whatever track 3 is called is also a favorite...

Geir doesn't like blues-based music, film at 11, posts very much in character, etc., etc.

Meanwhile, "Let's Go Crazy," with the exception of the pre-chorus, consists entirely of a I-IV chord change. Whereas "Purple Rain" is incredibly harmonically complex.

But it sounds like gospel.

But it's not that Geir doesn't like "black people" music.

But a song that's just I-IV, over and over, is better than the complexity of "Purple Rain." Also, too.

Because this album is beloved by a coterie and I love Prince, I give it a chance every few months -- it's still mostly a dud.

Anyway, "Paisley Park" and "Raspberry Beret" are fantastic songs because they sound like something The Beatles might have done in 1967.

And, no, "Purple Rain" is not complex. It has four chords. And that's it. And they are being repeated as an ostinato all the time with no build, not climax (other than some annoyingly improvised screaming, that is, but the climax shouldn't be in the performance, it should be in the melody).

Propably still in my Top 5 but it could do with a good remastering/ fix up. If only to correct that pain in the arse lag between the left and right channels on Pop Life when you listen on headphones. I love it mind, full of brilliant tricks that you forget about like that stop-start-stop-start intro to America. Condition Of The Heart contains my favourite Prince lyric moment ever when the girl leaves him for 'a REAL prince.. from Arabia'. Anyone who doesn't get the warmth and the humour of the man after listening to this album is *nuts*.

Plenty of his albums before and since exude his warmth and humor.

I should have said upthread: maybe I'm tainted because I heard Parade first. ATWIAD, by contrast, was one of the LAST Prince albums I bought (2001? 2002?). I've written thousands of words in my rockcrit career defending unloved mutts, especially those released in the eighties, but this one, unfortunately, still sounds half-assed and nattering.

This is my favorite Prince album.

Parade is ironically the one I never liked much...although there are some amazing songs on it.

really the only Prince album I've ever heard that I went "uh, why?" was the one a few years ago with the song "Guitar" on it....

I hear the title track and "Paisley Park" and think, well, okay, sitars and finger cymbals and Magical Mystery Tour -- so what?