Originally Posted by
tortfeasor:
“That album comes up as 'The Love Symbol Album' on my mp3 player
Mind you I'd rather it appear as that than 'squiggle.'
How do you stand on that album anyway?
Along with 'Diamonds and Pearls,' they are 2 albums I normally disagree on with most Prince fans. I love the Diamonds and Pearls album - it was the first album of Prince's that I got into when it was out at the time and I even had the Diamonds and Pearls video, which sadly was worn out. For some reason (
) I was particularly fond of the video for 'Gett Off.' I seem to remember the videos for 'Cream' and 'Diamonds' were heavily rotated on MTV at the time.
On a random note, Jughead was a nickname for one of my poor mates at school for many years. That song aside (although it is quite funny), 'Diamonds' features some of Prince's strongest tracks in my opinion, aided in particular by Rosie Gaines. Even heard 'Gett Off' on Radio 2 last Saturday.
Personally I think O{+> is worth owning for 'The Morning Papers' and '7' alone though it is in my opinion an underrated album. I was over the moon when he did '7' the night I went to the O2; even my mate who isn't a Prince fan likes '7.' Compared to some of the banal stuff that was released in 1992, it is a pretty darn strong album.”
d&p and O{+> are very close albums as far as i'm concerned, in a similar way to come and the gold experience and even exodus, in that they were recorded with a band, and a new band at that, so were the first albums with a real band feel rather than prince playing everything himself on most tracks, and as a result they have more of a live band sound
both albums have patchy moments, and many fans dislliked tony m's rapping, particularly on tracks like jughead (this was the name of a character in the archie comics btw) and daddy pop, but on d&p you have the great title track, gett off, live 4 love, money don't matter 2nite and cream, so some great laid back jazzy style tracks, likewise on O{+> you have the morning papers, sexy MF, my name is prince, damn u. it's perhaps the segues that spoil the album a bit, but there were originally a lot more seques on the earlier sequence of the album
i think the NPG's best period was the 93/94/95 era when he changed his name to a scribble, went on a strop with the record company and recorded tracks like pussy control and days of wild, super funky hard hitting tracks. the previous 2 albums and even goldnigga were just them getting started. he also recorded the i'll do anything sessions at the time, a whole album worth of material
the 91/92 period is pretty overlooked for prince, but he was still riding the popularity wave and playing some of his biggest gigs in stadiums, and still having hit singles with gett off, cream and sexy mf, and nothing compares 2 u was a recent hit for sinead
after that we have the come/TGE period, then he left WB and released emancipation which was a bit patchy, and he left a bunch of tracks off it which could have made it even longer, and some of the leftovers weren't bad either, then the truth was a great album, but then newpowersoul was comparatively crap compared to previous albums, and rave wasn't the return to form it promised. more patchiness, but still some great tracks like pretty man. i'd say prince's poor patchy albums are comparible to MJ's post bad albums in that there are a few good tracks, but most of the rest wont appeal to much more than the gans. at least he then recovered with some good works like TRC, ONA, NEWS and lotusflower
gett off had a long form video with videos for the b sides violet the orger grinder and clocking the jizz, as well as a dance mix of gett off, which was pretty cool. sexy MF also had a long form video released, but just the one track with a carmen electra promo on the end. there was also the diamonds and pearls video ep which was pretty good, and the 3 chains of gold long form video album for the O{+> plus a couple of long form video tv specials for d&P called ryde dyvine that had live and studio footage plus the act1 tv special that was like the 3 chains o gold video but with interview footage etc from the band mixed in. you then had the sacrifice of victor live aftershow video, the undertaker video, and then the beautiful experience tv show that mixed come and TGE tracks, and then the love4oneanother tv special, so in that short period you had all these videos and tv shows. there was also plans to release one of the london 92 gigs on video but it was pulled last minute just like many of prince's projects
along with all the released material, there is a ton of unreleased studio material and music videos in the vaults, then all the live stuff. he's kept a fantastic recorded document of all his live shows plus rehearsals, so he could stop recording and performing today and still have decades worth of excellent material to release. as he's still recording and performing it's going to be a while till the well runs dry