Ocean of Violets: Prince song by song

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Lance LaSalle, Jul 21, 2020.

  1. Freek999

    Freek999 Forum Resident

    So Blue 2/5
     
  2. Joker to the thief

    Joker to the thief Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Competent, ultimately forgettable (like pretty much all the ballads on For You), some nice rhythm guitar work. 2.8/5
     
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  3. Arthur Pewty

    Arthur Pewty Always crashing in the same car



    So Blue: he’s clearly besotted with Joni here, and probably had played Hejira constantly in ‘76 and ‘77.
    This sounds like a loving homage, and I always liked this side of his influence, as it was a great counterpoint to his Funk and Soul roots.
    As I mentioned in a previous post, this gained a lot of exposure in High Fidelity on Hulu, and its use fit perfectly and made me appreciate this more than ever, especially his vocal.
    3/5
     
  4. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    Catching up:


    Just as Long as We're Together - Pretty slick but I'm not keen on this one. Reminds me of lightweight, run-of-the-mill disco song.
    Baby - Expertly executed but a little too soppy (à la Stylistics) for me.
    My Love Is Forever - Even more twee and bland as the previous track.
    So Blue - Ditto. Dreadful lyrics. Nice instrumentation though!
     
  5. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    "So Blue"

    Another highlight on the album for me - as alluded to above, this could almost be considered as a companion piece to "Crazy You".

    Both bring to mind that 70s hi-fi aesthetic - you know, ideal for a pair of those headphones with slider controls on each can and a telephone cord...


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    Presumably the "Orr bass" on here is the fretless?

     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
  6. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    Pretty track, agree with the Joni comparisons, especially the opening of it. Sounds like it could've been a hit in the early 60s. Not a fave but cool that it was dug out for an episode of High Fidelity giving it attention it usually won't get being buried near the end of an album only huge Prince fans seem to care about.

    3.5/5
     
  7. smokeverbs

    smokeverbs Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit, MI, USA
    "So Blue" is OK. Thing is, it's so slight! It doesn't make a lasting impression to me. The Joni influence is definitely there, that's some pretty guitar. Good vocal. But you could blow it away with a feather. 2/5
     
  8. Jayseph

    Jayseph Somewhere Between Penny Lane & Alphabet St.

    Location:
    Philadelphia
    I like 'So Blue' for what it is. It really seems like an atmospheric track. I included it on a Prince mix of laid back music for the evening called 'Paisley Chill'.
     
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  9. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Yeah, but it's bad 1978 disco. Chic released C'est Chic this year and redefined disco with it. And I can't excuse his being young, either. Kate Bush released The Kick Inside the same year and she was around a month younger than Prince. It demolishes For You. Sorry.
     
  10. therunner

    therunner Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    By the time the album gets to "So Blue" I've had enough of this type of forgettable ballad so I would probably like it better if I just heard it as a stand alone track, but I never seek it out on its own so I have to rate it as part of the album and since it doesn't stand out at all...2/5
     
    Lance LaSalle likes this.
  11. thekid87

    thekid87 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Absolutely true about the figures, but you are comparing single albums and ‘band vs solo act’. Every year there has been a better album or song in the charts. On the long run Prince demolished both Chic and Kate Bush (and many other big acts).

    I love Kate, Never For Ever is in my top10 albums, but she didn’t record The Kick Inside by herself. One famous guy helped her out big time and she had a band recording the songs and helping out.

    Chic was also a band and, yes, they were big at the time. I do think that the music didn’t survive and aren’t as good as it was in the 70s.

    For You is an album by one man (‘almost one man’) trying very/too hard to do it perfect. He made a good album (by himself...), learned from it and improved himself very quickly.
     
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  12. YMC4

    YMC4 EVthing or Nothing

    Location:
    The Valley, CA.
    you make it sound like i praised For You to be the equivalent of OK Computer or somethin' :shrug:
    i just said it's a competent effort from mid-west teenager with little life experience...

    besides, i don't think the album's intent was to 're-define' disco or any other genre for that matter.
    it was to showcase this whiz-kid that Mo Ostin & WB were hoping to market as next Stevie Wonder...produced, arranged, written & played by...well as genre bending.
    overall vibe of disco is just product of its time...and that's what i was trying to point out, especially to some of our 'youngbloods' who may have a rather contemporary perspective on these songs (not you, per se ;) ).
     
  13. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Mileage. I don't think he was any better than Bush even at his peak. Parade vs. Hounds Of Love? Hmmm... I'd have to think about that one...

    And Prince wasn't totally alone on this outing either. He just chose to ignore some of the talented people around him and who he had access to. His loss, and ours, because this album could have been a lot better.

    Even Joni wasn't entirely self-sufficient, and her best work was done with collaborators, from David Crosby to Henry Lewy to Tom Scott to Jaco Pastorius.

    Stevie Wonder didn't write "Fingertips". Part of being talented is knowing your limits. Prince learned the hard way.
     
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  14. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    I think it's actually hard to compare Prince with Bush. Personally I rank Prince higher but Kate, especially during the 80s, really raised the bar herself. The difference is that she is so meticulous and also will stay out of a studio for many years at a time and only make a peep when she feels like it, that the waiting can be brutal. Obviously she and Prince had mutual admiration for each other as peers since they both appeared on each others' albums in the 90s
     
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  15. thekid87

    thekid87 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Prince’s peak, according to many, was either Purple Rain or SOTT. If you wanna keep comparing Kate with Prince, you might want te compare those albums with HoL.

    If you want to play the compare game... yes, I too like The Kick Inside more than For You and no, I definitely don’t like Hounds of Love more than Parade, Purple Rain or SOTT.

    Still, you are comparing totally different artists and discographies (9 vs 40+ studio albums) and taste is always a pretty important factor if you compare...
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
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  16. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    It's an auspicious debut, but it isn't like a lot of artists who drop debut albums so mediocre they essentially disown them. Prince was definitely in the process of finding his voice here and there are hints of the genius to come as well as signs pointing to things to come. There are some really terrible debut albums by great artists, "For You" isn't among them, it's just an "okay" album that looks worse than it really is because of how much we'd be spoiled in the future.
     
  17. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Well, that's what some people may think, but they're wrong. Prince's peak was Parade. I love Purple Rain and Sign Of The Times, but Parade is on yet another level of creativity.
     
  18. alugjk

    alugjk Senior Member

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    So Blue

    Another song that does very little for me, and yes, one I usually skip.

    2/5

    -George
     
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  19. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Sooner or later I think that it must be addressed: throughout his career, Prince played songs all by himself, even doing engineering for vocals and such.
    But he was not a complete island, and I don't mean that he occasionally played with people. I

    think a lot of his arrangements came out in the endless rehearsals he conducted with his bands, which he recorded. In the eighties he was rehearsing with two bands (The Time and his band, which evolved into the Revolution) up to ten hours a day. (and recording all night long -- he went days without sleep.)

    You bet that their ideas made it onto his records, even if he played them. Furthermore, it was not unusual for him to record something with someone and then wipe a part and play it himself: sometimes to perfect it, but sometimes just because. His drum parts in Madhouse were played by Sheila E for example, and he used her drum patterns when he added his own, (wiping hers off the tape.) And of course, he was not exactly generous with songwriting credits.

    I don't want to lessen his talent: he was clearly a great songwriting talent and an amazing once-in-a-century multi-instrumentalist/producer, and he was the one taking all of these ideas and arranging them into his songs; but I do think that credit should go where it's due.

    Some of the songs on this record were at least 2 years old and I'm sure that he spent many a night jamming on them with Morris Day and Andre Cymone (who was also a multi-instrumentalist) and I would be surprised if some of their ideas didn't make it to the record.

    Anyway our votes for "So Blue"

    1-0
    2-5
    3-6
    4-1
    5-0
    Average: 2.5
     
  20. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Today's song is "I'm Yours", written and produced by Prince.

    I'm Yours
    LYRIC.

    A demo version of this was recorded at Moon Studios, Minneapolis, in Summer 1976.
    Unusually, he played this song live during 2009 and 2014.
     
  21. opiumden

    opiumden Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    I'm Yours 4/5
     
  22. Joker to the thief

    Joker to the thief Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Although he did credit many many songs (on the protege albums in particular) solely to other people that he wrote himself, and credit them as performers on songs where they didn’t play a note. And I’d argue that contributing to an arrangement doesn’t necessarily warrant a writing credit (if I were to cover purple rain and there in substitutes chords it wouldn’t make me a writer of purple rain).
     
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  23. Joker to the thief

    Joker to the thief Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Love for you, memorable hooks, great guitar work. Whereas other songs on the album are generic disco funk, this feels like a genuine evolution - it doesn’t sound like Prince would in future, but it does sound like it’s own thing 4/5
     
  24. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    I'm Yours
    Quite a nice Eart Wind & Fire type thing (though not as richly produced). Some great guitar playing.
     
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  25. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    That's true re: the songwriting credits (though I believe he kept the ownership of the copyright) .

    As to the second point, I actually tend to agree with you, though at times it can be a very thin line between arranging and songwriting; nevertheless my point about him not being generous is, I think, true and my main point is, that, leaving aside the matter of songwriting credits, not every single note he played had its origin in his own teeming creativity (even if it's also true that he initially underplayed his role in his protegee/surrogate bands.)
     
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