Prince..... the exact point where it all started to go horribly wrong.

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no shit, Jay Vee--but they were frosting before; on Lovesexy they're the cake.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

(I can't explain this... but the whole Lovesexy/Black Album juxtaposition reminds me of those two Christian Death -- *burp* Valor era -- CDs.. one called "All the Love" and the other "All The Hate")

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:42 (twenty-two years ago)

re ATWIAD and Lovesexy - the music is way different as well. ATWIAD is a revolution album and it sounds like it should be the successor to Purple Rain. it just fits. lovesexy may be fruity, but it's quite singular and sits as a nice foil to sign which was definitely dark.

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

i love dance on its like early drill and bass.

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread is taking eight sidetracks at once! (And is therefore like Prince haw haw I'll be going now.)

About the culty thing (the cunty thing I leave to Chaki's fevered imagination) -- to be honest, M., I'm not sure that was consciously or even unconsciously the case. Around that time I was getting into my second wind of really buying music thanks to getting my first CD player, and was picking up a lot of stuff fairly randomly, but a large part of it was to do with The Stuff I Heard on the Radio, not necessarily anything obscuro or obsessive -- I only really got into alt.music as such after I went to UCLA. I don't recall reading into the cryptic lyrics as much as you were (big surprise, me ignoring lyrics!) or at least was perhaps bemused but was more appreciating the music as such (again, big surprise). So I dunno. I haven't listened to the album in god knows how many years.

Actually, Chaki's comment now makes me think of the bassline of the song. He's onto something!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Dude, I ignore lyrics all the time. THey have to jump out at me in order for me to notice them. I notice them on Lovesexy because they're so awkward so often--he's trying to say he's seen God and his life has been changed but without sounding like a preacher, and his personalized use of language, which has always been there (and is very Joni Mitchell, to my ears), codes the epiphanies so that you have to unwrap them. He'd always talked about giving listeners what they needed, not what they wanted, but for a lot of people Lovesexy was the pill they recoiled from. I'm not necessarily one of those people--but I can see their point, and the more I think about it the more obvious it becomes to me. I think what's happened with a lot of people is that the SOTT/Lovesexy demarcation point is such an obvious break in a lot of ways that they tend to overstate the diminishment of quality in the music itself--to my ears it's been a much longer, slower-burning process. His '90s output was uneven, but so was his '80s output, just with fewer hits and a lot more this-guy's-weird-whatever indifference on the public's part.

As far as your cult-appreciation and its intersection w/your Prince fandom, I may have gone too far theory-wise but I do think it's a decent larger point.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

It just occurred to me that the line that probably bemused me the most on the album was the one about M & M killers.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:57 (twenty-two years ago)

i ignore lyrics too thats why the cult aspect of lovesexy doesnt even affect me. just listen to eye know really loud.

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

My perspective on this is probably warped by the fact that I've been thinking about all of this a lot lately for the book I'm doing. Which this thread is helping a LOT on--thanks everyone!

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

i think the lovesexy/sott band was my favorite line up for a live sound. besides the annoying backup singers/ dancers and boni on keys (who wasnt that good)the band was so cartoonish sounding, silly and loose! the horns and sheila e's twisted perspective on rock and funk drumming and dr fink!

i know the people love the revolution but they just werent as flexible as this other band. (which is why the revolution worked better on albums probably)

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

i always thought that prince's early lyrics were the really offputting ones to the public (annie christian or jack u off anyone?)

i'm going to have to listen to lovesexy tonight. i've never heard it in the way m matos describes above...that's way interesting. it seems like the general analysis is that the album is just too self-indulgent and maybe he's just gotten progressively more self-indulgent and insular over the years. his world is so far removed from what the public considers every day reality?

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

like it takes too much effort to decode and really enjoy his music.

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Stu's right! Lovesexy is hardly a difficult album on that front, nor is a lot of what's come after -- no effort needed, really.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

dude what about Sister?!

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

150% agreed w/chaki re: the merits of the SOTT band; the movie shows what a fucking flexible, wobbly-but-don't-fall-down unit they were. and stu, I think my description of Lovesexy is almost the same as yours, just that I'm looking at possible cause(s) and you laid out the effects (quite nicely, too).

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

ARRRGH! I'm not saying he's hard to understand! I'm saying that he made a religious album with some ambiguous imagery and that it was a tougher sell than a sex album with some ambiguous imagery. Is that clearer now?

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Re: "Annie Christian." I have always loved the lyric: "The way Annie tells a story / she's His only Son."

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

chaki -

truly!!

and most of dirty mind for that matter...head

i'm ashamedly ignorant of anything before then.

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Was it a tougher sell because it was religious or because it was religious AND ambiguous, I wonder...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

matos you know that the SoTT movie is not really "live" live right?

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

that's clearer, matos. is it safe to say that prince's sex side has always been a less bitter pill than his god side?

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I point out the lyrics on Lovesexy because I think in certain places they fall really flat in a way that similar workings earlier on didn't; I also don't think the larger public wanted a tent-revival from the guy, which is what in essence the Lovesexy tour was. And Ned, I think you're totally right--religion + ambiguity sorta leaves you in the middle of meh as far as public perception goes (let's face it, faith, in America at least, tends to be an either-or kind of thing)

Chaki I'm well aware of how non-live the movie is, but I've heard bootlegs too and by itself "Beautiful Night" from the album, whatever its overdubs, make a convincing case. You know the First Avenue April '87 boot, right, the rehearsal one? Wow. And that's just a rehearsal.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

yah i know the performance is on spot i just didnt know it was lipsynced till recently. (only because the original film of the show was not good quality)

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

a less bitter pill as far as the public is concerned, yes. it's interesting in light of the swelling audience for WOW-type nu-gospel--obviously religious music has substantial popular appeal, but Prince was never interested in being ghettoized anywhere, and when he had the epiphany that led to and produced Lovesexy he probably thought, "I've flouted funk and rock and everything else, I can synthesize/integrate this sudden [and undoubtedly heartfelt] spiritual burst in there too and people will dig it." Steve Perry, City Pages' editor in chief, once wrote something along the lines of Lovesexy's relative commercial failure breaking Prince's heart, and I'd tend to agree with that.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Prince may have had every rock/pop/soul archetype to the mid-'80s up his sleeve but he was never gonna be Al Green and become a minister--his Jehovah's Witness conversion is fairly close, though it's notable that Green did this at the height of his career. Lovesexy in that sense feels like a bit of a half-measure. (haha art vs. life to thread!)

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

>"i think the lovesexy/sott band was my favorite line up for a live sound. besides the annoying backup singers/ dancers and boni on keys (who wasnt that good)the band was so cartoonish sounding, silly and loose! the horns and sheila e's twisted perspective on rock and funk drumming and dr fink!"

chaki -

email me. I have something you will LOVE(sexy). Trust me.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

that's very sad. maybe america just wasn't ready for that kind of sincerity either?

Wow. And that's just a rehearsal.

i would love to see this! is it readily available?

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:37 (twenty-two years ago)

major x-post. i was replying to matos' steve perry comment.

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

America isn't ready for Jay Vee's sincerity either.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

also, "cartoonish, silly and loose" weren't exactly hot selling points in black music at that point--quiet storm radio ascendant, stiff-legged Jam/Lewis funk (which I love but which is let's face it pretty formulaic compared to a wigfest like "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" or "Eye Know" or "If I Was Your Girlfriend"), hip-hop coming up, that kind of thing.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:40 (twenty-two years ago)

(after all purple rain certainly epitomises the american dream in many ways and when we don't get consistency and reliability from our commercial artists, we abandon them)

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

>"America isn't ready for Jay Vee's sincerity either. "

No, man! I have a Lovesexy Tour rehearsal CD that I know Chaki will dig, is all.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I only have an audience cassette--don't know what the visuals were like, I assume they were a lot less defined than in the movie (obv).

I don't know that America was unready for the sincerity as much as the muddledness of the message--and that most of Lovesexy isn't all that hooky compared to 1999 or Purple Rain or SOTT. I like it fine but it's one of his good-not-great albums for me, and the intended depth of its import isn't measured up to by the music.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I tease, Mr. Vee. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

>"I tease, Mr. Vee. :-) "

You scamp.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Er, I mean:

U Scamp!

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Shut up already, damn.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Thank you for putting "Housequake" in my head, Ned.

Shocka locka boom!

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

way, way back someone said:

Sign 'O' the Times may have sold 3 or 4 mil (I think it was around there)

worldwide, perhaps, but it sold nowhere close to that in the u.s. it's a single-platinum album in the u.s., which requires shipments of only half a million copies, since the riaa counts each sale of a double album as two units sold. so that means between a half mil and a mil copies were shipped in the u.s., and that generally means a somewhat smaller number of copies were actually sold. for whatever that's worth, if anything. it's still a stone-cold classic.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 28 July 2003 20:09 (twenty-two years ago)

(matos, are u writing a book on prince?)

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)

(uh, that should be "r u")

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm writing a short book about Sign 'O' the Times, yes. Due in mid-September, out in February '04.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 20:30 (twenty-two years ago)

looking fwd to reading it...

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 20:38 (twenty-two years ago)

at the exact moment the Zappa comparisons started

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 28 July 2003 20:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Your takes on Lovesexy are fascinating, but you really can't underestimate the pain-in-the-ass factor of having to start the whole CD over if you accidentally hit stop...

― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 28 July 2003 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

yah i have a import version of lovesexy with the correct track indexes.

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 28 July 2003 21:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Thing was, at the time it came out I really didn't mind the non-track index approach because, good rockist that I was (still am?) I generally listened to albums all the way through as they stood. I only first got irritated when trying to put songs on mixtapes.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 July 2003 21:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Pete, we mentioned that upthread (or at least I did)

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 28 July 2003 21:47 (twenty-two years ago)

ok i've just listened to lovesexy and the religious ambiguity is definitely is there especially on glam slam where he is basically saying he's horny for god with heavy metaphor. the thing with prince is that there has always been this conflict between ego/sex/raunch and altruism/god/love and then he even flip flops between those combinations. i guess this album is a curveball in his oeuvre in that he flirts with these ideas but with the exception of anna stesia never really comes clean musically and lyrically. it feels honest, but not honest enough like there's something missing. in his earlier work he deals with the same issues, but more convincingly/viscerally imho. the drums (sheila e. i presume) on dance on are fantastic though.

― disco stu (disco stu), Monday, 28 July 2003 23:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, I read the whole thread, I'm just saying that the one-track factor might well have eclipsed the others.

― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 29 July 2003 00:58 (twenty-two years ago)

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