Read: Sharon Nelson is 77. Read: "I'm not a millionaire yet." Also note that Sharron is not represented by the same counsel as the rest of the siblings, which was her choice. Therefore, there is no united front amongst the siblings from a legal standpoint. No doubt that Prince dying without a will has jeopardized the estate. Moreover, early on, the siblings all made a few mistakes that have contributed to their current ills, yet what does any of this have to do with Prince "resting" or any "peace" that might be derived from said hypothetical "rest?" That's a superstitious call to the wild masquerading as a cloying nicety. She's full of ****.
I will grant that there is a chance that it was just my age, how i processed music, my own changing tastes, that make me agree with the standard concensus that the post-Warner years were largely a wasteland for Prince; RAINBOW CHILDREN the only all-out great lp i think from that whole period. I do think a great three-cd set could be made from everything 1999-on; i will say that to my ears, and minus a careful re-listen to everything, just my impressions from the usually five-10 listens i'd give everything as it came out---Prince lost his unique weirdness and his interesting lyrics for the most part after that time. He seemed to be, deliberately or with loss of inspiration or drugs or whatever, just working in the medium mode of 'things that sound roughly like Prince songs' without an edge of beauty, strangeness, lyrical fascination, that made the 80s Prince such a giant. (Prince is to me much like Van Morrison in that regard, very productive but in the middle range of their ambitious possibilities). To give a sense of where my tastes lie, here are some songs EMANCIPATION on I did think excellent: Holy River, My Computer, White Mansion, Tangerine, 3121, Illusion Coma etc, Musicology, Black Sweat....while i find CHOCLATE INVASION to be a real treat everytime i play it straight through it reads to me like just one thing, i don't detect "oh THAT SONG blows me away!" feeling.
Wow, I find Holy River and White Mansion to be among the blandest moments on Emancipation. Different strokes.
Purple Jim that any Prince fan does not find "Holy River" to be among his 20 or so greatest accomplishments BLOWS ME AWAY, for real. It's also to my mind beyond its whole gestalt, for sure his best, most interesting, revealing, and moving lyric of the post warner years. TBH i could do without the instrumental coda in it, so it ain't perfect, but up til then it is.
it's too late for me to correct it but lest people call me crazy, when i typed 1999-on in post above, i meant 1996-on, the post warner years, not everything after the ALBUM 1999!!
lol that's what I initially thought, and I was thinking if you think there's only about 3 discs worth of good material post "1999", maybe Prince isn't for you lol. Then i figured it out when reading the whole post
I actually prefer songs like Face Down or Style (if we're talking Emancipation) over Holy River. I think Prince tried to recreate Purple Rain and the whole "epic, torch song" aesthetic a couple times in his career and never really matched it. Gold (from TGE) is a decent try though.
Never heard holy river. Great song. Not trying to be anything. Just a cool song. Thanks. Love some acoustic sounds dring the song.
There are actually some pretty great songs on Emancipation. Whenever I put it on, I know I am in for the long haul. But the real stand out for me from the whole set is In This Bed I Scream.
New release: Prince Estate to release Originals, which consists of his original versions of songs he gave artists. Prince Estate to Release ‘Originals’ Album: His Versions of Songs He Gave to Other Artists (EXCLUSIVE) Cliff Notes: On June 7th (Prince's birthday), Originals will exclusively stream on Tidal for 14 days. On June 21, Warner Bros. will release the recordings, sourced directly from Prince’s archive of “Vault” recordings, via all download and streaming partners and physically on CD. 180 gram 2LP and limited edition Deluxe CD+2LP formats of the compilation will follow on July 19th.
Finally a (hopefully) pristine version of Love...Thy Will Be Done. The only demo I have of that is so muddy.
You know what this also means? That the estate confiscated the album of new material that Prince had turned into Tidal and Jay-Z before Prince died. The courts made Jay-Z cut this deal, because he was owed one under contract, yet he couldn't release the one he wanted. Oh, I like this release. No doubt. That means there is hope for other great songs to be released that Prince wrote for others. I saw the writing on the wall, though. When later articles said that Jay-Z was "picking" songs, I knew this was all done so that the estate could satisfy a binding contract (one that Jay-Z took the estate to court over), and so the estate could release Prince's final true album. Compromise. I'm sure this will be grand.
Present reality: this Originals compilation looks to be pretty solid. Past, present, and future dream: A series of box sets that consist of archival material and rarities that span his entire career - chronologically, of course.
But I don't get what Tidal And Jay-Z get out of this. I thought the old deal was that Tidal would get an album to stream exclusively, in the same way that they had the HITnRUN albums (they still have Phase One exclusively). With this deal it "will stream exclusively on Tidal for 14 days." I hope this eventually will turn out to have been a teaser sampler compilation.
I'm especially glad Wouldn't You Love To Love Me is on there. It's a 1981 recording according to the Variety tracklist, according to Princevault it was recorded in 1982. I'm curious which version is on there, hopefully not the 1978 version, since that is circulating in great soundquality already. The 1981/1982 (?) demo that circulates sounds horrendous.
Also out this year - his unfinished memoirs: Prince's 'deeply personal' memoir announced for October Prince's 'deeply personal' memoir announced for October Wonder how they are going to pad this out to be a full book? Oh, who am I kidding? If there are any book stores left come this October, I'll be there at opening time to snap this up!
Emancipation is his last great record for me, Musicology comes close. After that it's a couple of tracks per album. Live it's a different story. So many powerful shows from 97 on.
Yeah, with 50 handwritten pages, if he was indeed "starting from the beginning from my first memory" maybe he had gotten the story up to around starting school.
Just received word that an expanded reissue/remaster for 1999 is slated to be released in time for the holiday season later in the year.
