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

YES. And "Chelsea Rodgers" off the last one.

"Chelsea Rodgers" is the only Prince song I've truly liked over the course of the last three albums. "Black Sweat" was a close call, but not quite.

Come is THE overlooked Prince album. Batman is kinda close.
I will cop to being mistaken on 'One of Us'; I thought Prince wrote it.
Never quite got Planet Earth, but 3121 has the title track, Incense and Candles and Black Sweat which is the best thing Prince has released in years.

That song does sound like Prince shoulda wrote it.

How have I missed this thread till now? Jeez.

A project I've always wanted to make for myself: find all the reviews of new '90s Prince albums that pronounced him as "back" or it as "his best since Sign O' the Times" (RS on I'm Going to Change My Name to the Title of This Album, Charles Shaar Murray in Q talking about Chaos & Disorder) or if it was Greil Marcus talking about Come in Artforum, since Dirty Mind.

Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic is completely unmemorable. I loathe The Rainbow Children, and Dan doesn't. And I adore Emancipation--need to re-acquire it on the cheap sometime soon, I think, it's been long enough.

secret hits on 3121: 'lolita', 'love', 'satisfied'

New Wendy & Lisa has a couple of great tunes. "Balloon" is one.

Never did get around to actually playing this!

"The Love We Make," people.

Even now, I haven't.

Don't know where it is, even.

Funny, yesterday I was thinking: Did he ever release anything since that Daily Mail Freebie CD?

The first time I heard Emancipation, I thought the "romance" disc (disc 2) was the worst, but the more I've listened to it, the more I feel it's actually the best. That mid-90s r'n'b sound fits the slower tunes better than the uptempo ones, and the songcraft on that disc is really impressive. IMO "Soul Sanctuary" is the most beautiful ballad he's ever released, alongside "Sometimes It Snows in April".

I'm sorry. As much as I've wanted to love this album, I mostly hate it. "Sleep Around" is about the only redeeming part of it for me.

Finally bought yesterday for $5 at Mr. Cheapo records on Long Island. Will kick it with during the coming wkend.

Just found it.

Still in it's shrinkwrap.

A month ago I asked...

Did he ever release anything since that Daily Mail Freebie CD?

― Mark G, Friday, 28 May 2010 15:04 (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

And I haven't played his Daily Mirror one either...

Has any artist lost his "legend" status as much as Prince, without actually falling from grace?

i feel like most 'legend' acts are in more or less the same position tbh

HMV Piccadilly Circus are selling a pile of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/21-Nights-Prince/dp/1847373836

at £5 a pop.

Bargain or overpriced?

despite being under my desk for a month, i've still not cracked the shrinkwrap on 21 nights.

and its too bloody heavy to carry home.

Check the reviews: It's a nice Programme for the gigs, that's it.

The CD is worth the £3. Having said that, I'd get one and never read it, going by past...

"Soul Sanctuary" is heartstopping.

Yeah, IMO it's the best Prince ballad of them all, alongside, "Sometimes It Snows in April". Just gorgeous.

Ha, looks like I said the exact same thing in this thread 3 years ago. It's still true, though.

anyone read that new toure book on prince? i just did. kind of didn't like all the gen X stuff at the start but it picked up steam in the second half. recommended!

got this in the post today for a grand total of £1.27. The length is daunting, but halfway through the first disc, it's pretty good.

Anyone got any further thoughts on this monstrously-long album?

i made a CD of it as thus -

Courtin' Time (wish the drum machine on this didnt sound so plastic)
White Mansion
Damned If I Do
I Can't Make U Love Me
In This Bed I Scream
Soul Sanctuary
Curious Child
Dreamin' About U
The Holy River
Let's Have a Baby
The Plan
slave
My Computer
One of Us
The Love We Make

theres lots of other good songs on this, but for some reason, i wasnt that into his funkier tracks on this album (jam of the year is good but it just doesnt really sound like prince is that into partying). the ballads are all great. but theres maybe too many of them. its a weirder album than i thought actually. its meant to be triumphant but theres this slightly, not deflated exactly, but a sort of tempered, or cautious feel to it. it sounds sort of humbled. lacking in energy. his best crafted album of the decade by a long shot, but the supposedly happy songs like sex in the summer for some reason dont quite ring true. theres a sort of hollowness or sadness about the album. i might be projecting, but i wonder if he knew things werent looking too good for his son while recording, and if this maybe filtered into the album. or maybe all the record label battles just left him tired. and he wanted to make this a big celebration, but he just didnt really feel that way deep down.

bought this on cassette today

There's a lot of good stuff on Emancipation, eye think... but eye do remember at the time that the general feeling was that it kinda justified WB's stance on Prince releasing "2 much music"

will no 1 stan for "Emale"

WB were quite right about swamping the fans, we only have a finite amount of available time to listen to stuff, and other musics are also available. Even quality concerns don't enter the equation.

All of which means, yep I never did get around to playing this.

I really should, now, should not I? Hang on, I'll find out where it is.. Plastic Box 01

sleep around is the best george michael song george michael never wrote.

i think having slave at the start would make for a good opening.

the weird thing is that yes, WB were right that prince shouldn't flood the market with material as it diminishes the value of his music

but that was 1996, long before the bottom fell out of the record industry. soon enough the value of recorded music would be greatly diminished in ways WB could scarcely have predicted. and the negative impact of flooding the market with new music would be seriously mitigated by this. the idea of releasing a ton of music to a smaller but super-eager base of aficionados is not such a bad scheme these days when the wider "casual" audience just isn't very interested in buying music in almost any form. but of course prince wouldn't have known this in 1996 either, so we can't really credit him with being a visionary.

anyway the biggest objection i have to this album is the godawful artwork.

((maybe not /long before/ -- just a few years before, really))

it is the tragic start of prince's descent into albums with almost uniformly terrible artwork (barring a few exceptions)

I had never noticed the two fists until recently, thereby making the terrible artwork that much worse:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prince_emanc.jpg

"Joint 2 Joint" is p. terrific BTW.

I really should, now, should not I? Hang on, I'll find out where it is.. Plastic Box 01

― Mark G, Sunday, April 24, 2016 8:48 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Went for "Sign ☮ the times" instead.

The artwork really does feel like a Lyndon Larouche poster:

http://www.loriferber.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/l/a/larouche_for_president_poster.jpg

after revisiting this, i have discovered (after 20 years of having it), that nearly every other song seems to have these weird, unnecessary endings. a song will seem like its about to end.... and then it will suddenly come back with a new vamp, or a latin section, or some other unnecessary instrumental breakdown or flourish. at first i thought it was something to do with him trying to just stretch out (sometimes its memorable like the end of in this bed i scream), which might be the case, but sometimes it just seems like irritating filler. and then i read that there was something about him needing to make every disc 60 mins (i suppose if it was less than it wouldnt constitute a triple album in the CD era), and it suddenly made complete sense. argh. why, prince, why. lot of good songs on here, but not that many that i think are 'great'. if he had just released the second disc and left it there, i think it might have been better. the ballads and slow jams are def the most inspired stuff on here. the christgau review seems to have it about right -
"Yet although there's not a bad track in the 36, I bet he himself would have trouble remembering them all"

Listened to nearly all Emancipation yesterday. Yikes. Don't think I can handle that much again. Custom playlists would be appreciated here.

People always keeps saying how Emancipation would be a brilliant album if reduced to a single disc, but to me the over-abundance of it has always been its charm! For all its flaws, it really is the ultimate statement of artistic freedom Prince undoubtedly meant it to be: "without any labels or produceers to limit me, I can do this and this and this and this and this, all on the same album!". Of course such freedom also leads to silly indulgencies, but IMO Emancipation just wouldn't have the same "anything goes" charm if it was reduced in any way, if it didn't have the pointless cover of "One of Us", and the weird house experiments on disc 3, and the stretched R&B jams StillAdvance mentions, and the endless ballads of disc 2, and...

I wouldn't want all of Prince's albums to like this, but I'm glad Emancipation is! It's still among my personal top 5 Prince albums, alongside Controversy, 1999, Sign 'o' the Times, and Love Symbol.

the one of us cover is excellent! one of the most spiritually inspired performances hes put on record actually. its a song that was written for prince to do. im glad its there, but its the kind of epic album that id rather he made 10 years earlier. at that point, when the inspiration was running dry somewhat, it seems a bit surplus to anyones requirements. i think it has a lot of great ideas, novelty aspects, and of course, its just ridiculously varied, but even a lot of the weird/unusual aspects like tap dancing, a song about email, etc, etc, theres something just a bit flat about it all. you dont get that sense of someone with boundless ideas like on 1999, its more someone thinking quite hard about how to extend each song. maybe thats also the production. he was obv trying to discard his rockier sonics for something more contemporary, more 90s R&B, but even so, its just a chore to listen to. and i like long albums!

i often change what songs i like, but if im being esp ruthless, and thinking about it in a pop-ruthlessness kind of way, i would only keep these -

Courtin' Time
I Can't Make U Love Me
In This Bed I Scream
Soul Sanctuary
Curious Child
Dreamin' About U
The Holy River
Let's Have a Baby
The Plan
My Computer
One of Us
The Love We Make

also, its a shame he didnt get people to remix some of these songs. its so obviously trying to keep up to date with R&B or house at the time, if he had gotten MAW or babyface or carl craig or someone else to remix some of them, it could have been interesting.

Agreed... Some of the remixes on his earlier singles, like the Femi Jiya remix of "I Wish U Heaven", the house remixes of Batdance and The Future by Mark Moore/William Orbit, and the Junior Vasquez remix of Thieves in the Temple, are excellent, so it's too bad he didn't get any good remixers for Emancipation (it's not like anyone would've refused). IIRC the house tunes at the beginning of disc 3 are done in collaboration with some other producers, but they still sound more like what Prince thought house was rather than proper house music.

I once started a whole thread on Prince's relationship with house music, might be relevant to this discussion:

Prince and house

I'm glad its there, but its the kind of epic album that id rather he made 10 years earlier. at that point, when the inspiration was running dry somewhat, it seems a bit surplus to anyones requirements.

precisely why I like it -- I wouldn't have wanted Emancipation during his peak. In 1996 it was a farewell.

a farewell to what? i thought it was the start of something new. a new period of endless bounties. i thought he would be releasing a triple every year after that. just to show he could. (thank god he didnt).

A farewell to good artwork

a farewell with trying to broach pop. Emancipation is his most realized R&B album of the '90s.

Alfred you're right about disc 2, it's magnif

isn't it?

*rushes to play it*

oh great
now you think you're my soulmate
you don't even know what kind of cereal i like

wrong

cap'n crunch
with soy milk

Emancipation was this last one I bought, should try to locate my copy. Basically agree with StillAdvance's take, and the only tunes I can really remember are these two from him short list "My Computer," and "One of Us."