Prince Albums Thread

It’s interesting but that’s it. I don’t think I’ve listened it more than twice since it was released
For completists only

 

Yeah this one is easy to write off as completists only. It’s difficult to recommend any of the Prince instrumental jazz albums (and I say that as a big jazz fan). The madhouse albums are ok, but not great, and represent the best of the bunch of that type of album(although an album of instrumental tracks from Prince in the vein of the ones on The Family album would get more repeated play from me). This is one I never go back to (I can’t even recall any of the melodies). It’s not embarrassing, but that don’t make it interesting either...

Would be one of the last Prince albums I’d recommend for anyone unfamiliar with Prince.

 

Agree with this. If someone told me in 1988 that Prince was cutting a jazz album, I'd imagine something that built on the innovations of Miles Davis's A Tribute to Jack Johnson, or if it was 1992, maybe something that recalled the ensemble work of Duke Ellington, but what came later was massively disappointing. A C- album.

 

Yes. I would have expected something in the vein of 22 Nigts United 4 West Compton. That track smokes

 

Considering Prince’s ‘jazz’ and instrumental work, I think I would rank the albums like this:

1. Madhouse 8
2. Xpectation
3. Madhouse 16
4. NEWS
5. C-NOTE - I have not gone back to this one a lot....but it’s got to be better than:
10. Kamasutra

 

C-Note does have "Empty Room," which is actually good, but there are better live performances circulating. I don't think there's a Prince album I'd give a failing grade to - at minimum the musicianship props up the grade - but these are definitely the worst and disposable.

 

C Note is my favorite of that bunch. News and Kamasutra are just... terrible

 

Absolutely agree with that.

 

Does anyone like Hit N Run II? Just played it once and nothing really stood out, is it a grower?

 

We'll get to that one.

 

I like it a lot

 

Me too. Good album.

 

I got behind on this Thread.

Rainbow Children is a masterpiece 10/10.

One note alone is my least favorite Prince album. It's ok if I'm in the right mood, which I rarely am. Best tracks, Avalanche, great vocals and Pearl's Before The Swine. 6/10

Xpectation I don't listen to this very often but when I do I enjoy it. I never remember the song titles. I think if this got a proper hard copy release I would play more often. 7/10

 

N.E.W.S. (2003), NPG



Track listing:

1. North
2. East
3. West
4. South

N.E.W.S. was Prince's second instrumental album released in 2003. In fact, he recorded the whole thing very shortly after the January release of Xpectation. All of the songs were recorded on one day in February and then the album was released in May. Though the album was originally another online-only release, it was made commercially available in late July. All things considered, it probably should've stayed an online-only release. Sure, it made the top ten on the Billboard Internet sales chart and received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Instrumental album, but it is Prince's lowest-selling album at 30,000 sold copies
30,000 copies! If that's true, that means more people bought the Jehovah's Witnesses brochure posing as an album than this.
I checked a bunch of Prince album rankings and N.E.W.S. tends to place near the very bottom, and I'm not entirely sure why. The Guardian published its own ranking after his death and put N.E.W.S. in last place, saying:

To be honest, that description of the album makes it sound better than the author probably intended. "Saxophone-heavy instrumental jazz funk" is a collection of words that you'd have to try impossibly hard to make unappealing.
I didn't mind this album, but maybe I'm in the minority on this.
What do you think?
Do you have any unpopular opinions on this album?
Would you recommend it with or without a caveat?

 

At it's best, this album sounds like post-Aja Steely Dan - that is, the smoothest and most boring work Steely Dan's ever done. Eric Leeds and John Blackwell were great for Prince's other work, but I wonder what it would've been like if Prince had someone like Kamasi Washington and Jack DeJohnette driving and challenging him? A C- album.

 

I liked Two Against Nature, but Gaucho was definitely underwhelming. Point taken, though.

 

I love jazz funk , something this album isn’t. It’s dentist office background music, extremely boring.
I remember buying the cd with the hope of an instrumental funk blast and to be disappointed quickly after first listen. This was the only time I had doubts about my purple faith.
Avoid

 

I quite like N.E.W.S.

The vibe is a lot more relaxed, sure, but the band he has assembled is fantastic and it is fun hearing the musicians interact with each other. I would recommend it to any musician looking to have a fun time hearing other musicians converse with each other musically. More of a musician/jam album than a traditional song laden album

 

Quite. Not in any camp. Don't need faith. Just Prince doing his thing. Did get a Grammy nod for best Pop Instrumental Album.


North

 

News is ok. I really haven't listened to it much over the years.

His best instrumental stuff is The Flesh sessions, which remains unreleased.

The hour long Junk music is just marvellous.

The Paisley Jam tracks out done Madhouse 8 and 16 for me.

I would love a Flesh box set.

 

Musicology (2004), NPG/Columbia



Track listing:

1. Musicology
2. Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance
3. A Million Days
4. Life 'o' the Party
5. Call My Name
6. Cinnamon Girl
7. What Do U Want Me 2 Do?
8. The Marrying Kind
9. If Eye Was the Man in Ur Life
10. On the Couch
11. Dear Mr. Man
12. Reflection

Chart performance:

• #3 on Billboard 200
• #3 on UK Albums
• #3 on Dutch Albums
• #2 on Swiss Albums
  
• Musicology - #3 on Hot R&B
• Call My Name - #75 on Hot 100

Certifications:

• Switzerland: Gold (20,000)
• Netherlands: Gold (40,000)
• UK: Gold (100,000)
• US: 2x Platinum (2,000,000)

This was Prince's big commercial comeback.

Oh sorry, I wrote that wrong.

This was Prince's big commercial comeback?

I figured the album would be more memorable given how big a deal it was. Usually, with Prince's most successful albums, there's something worth committing to memory beyond the singles. 1999 had D.M.S.R., Purple Rain had The Beautiful Ones, Sign O' the Times had The Ballad of Dorothy Parker, The Gold Experience had P Control, etc. I don't remember anything from Musicology beyond Cinnamon Girl, but only in the sense that I remember what Cinnamon Girl is about and that it isn't a Neil Young/Crazy Horse cover. I was wondering what people liked about it, so I checked the other Prince album thread and I had a hard time finding someone praising the album without some variation of "This is good, but..."
I initially hesitated to say the album was undone by its own hype, but it turns out I'm far from the first to hold that opinion.
So instead of asking the usual questions about recommendations and unpopular opinions, I'm going to do something different.
Prince won two of the five Grammy nominations he received for Musicology. Two of the three nominations he lost were to Alicia Keys.
With that in mind, which is the better album: Musicology or The Diary of Alicia Keys?

 

Musicology is the better one! I like that retro-album a lot!

 

Musicology is easily better. It’s actually one of
My favourite Prince albums - definitely top 10. There’s not a weak song on it. Ok so it’s not one of the 80s run and doesn’t revolutionise Europe but it stands toe to toe with any of his post 80s albums and is top tier Prince to these ears.

personal favourites outside of the singles include illusion, coma, pimp and circumstance
What do you want me to do?
The marrying kind

 

[Musicology] Certifications:

Pretty much, if you bought a ticket for his 2004 arena tour, you bought a "Musicology" CD. (It was a practice which caused Billboard to eliminate album sales generated by ticket-bundles for purposes of tallying for chart position.)

So, I "bought" a few myself. I also saw some lying on arena floors as I exited. YMMV.

 

Oh, so . . . cheating.