albohemia said:
3121 is a poorly concealed attempt to recapture past glories at the expense of a wilder creative muse and that unpleasant vocoder over-usage serves to further fortify my bewilderment of why what is essentially a speech analyzer continues to be used like an industry crackpipe.
Come on now. The album, whilst nothing spectacular, had some standouts - Black Sweat is a great track, Love is a full electro funk dancefloor smasher, and Satisfied is a great bluesy slow jam. And the vocoder you speak of was only used on the one track "incense and candles", which i'll admit, was a poor track.
Chocolate Invasion and Slaughterhouse are nice but neither pieces push the envelope on a level that can constitute a true return to form. It's all a bit synthetic.
You can't please everyone. I thought those albums were great. So tell me, what was the last Prince album you enjoyed from start to finish? For me it's 1995's
The Gold Experience, and 1998's
The Truth acoustic album.
The idea behind Dream Factory was to showcase The Revolution, and it was going to feature more prominent contributions from the other band members (particularly Wendy & Lisa). The final version made before the project was shelved had actually started to move away from this idea and turn into a more Prince orientated project.
I'm well aware of the concept behind
Dream Factory. I just don't think the concept was particularly great - if I wanted to hear a Wendy & Lisa album I'll listen to one. Whilst they did contribute heavily to some of my favorite Prince tracks (most notably
Sometimes It Snows in April), I think
Dream Factory
would have pushed that too far. I mean, I love outtakes like "In A Large Room With No Light" and "Power Fantastic" as much as the next man (using those as examples of tracks with a high W+L input), but I wouldn't want to hear a whole album of it, without Prince busting out the full funk workouts like "Hot Thing" for example.
If Prince REALLY wanted to showcase The Revolution, then he should have let Brownmark and Matt Fink step up and have just as much contribution as Wendy & Lisa. Fink's synth's are what made
Dirty Mind and
The Time's first album so great, and Brownmark more than proved himself with the
Mazarati album.
The earlier configurations of Dream Factory far surpass the one that contributes to the watered down tracks featured on Sign O The Times. Additionally, I've always thought that the vast reverence conferred upon Sign O The Times is unjustifiable. Beyond covering a wide array of musical styles, it's just another nice double album that would have benefited from editing down to a classic single album.
Which configuration are you referring to in particular? I assume you mean the one that contained "Data Bank", "Can't Stop This Feeling I Got", "We Can Funk" and "Girl O My Dreams"? That was one of the early configurations, but The Revolution didn't contribute much to those songs. As for Sign, I don't see how you can not give that album it's due props. It's progressive, balanced and almost perfect. And, for the matter, I pretty much DO consider it a single album - it's running time is only 80:06. The fact that it's spread over 2 discs is largely irrelevant. I would switch "Slow Love" with "Crucial", and try and tack "Shockadelica" in there somewhere, and then that album would be perfect in my eyes.
If you consider Sign to be over-rated, what's your favorite Prince album and why?
Rosie Gaines is the only thing about NPG I'd consider to be "tight". Unleashing Tony M to the world in an effort to appeal to a more urban audience is ill conceived and unforgivable.
I have to agree with that, Tony was an abomination, particularly on "Diamonds & Pearls". However, he was tolerable on the "Love Symbol" album, and his own album with NPG, "Gold Nigga".
Rosie wasn't the only good thing about NPG. Michael B is one of the best drummer's P has worked with. Certainly higher than Bobby Z and Kirky J and on a level with Sheila E. Gotta love Mr. Hayes, too.
The majority of Revolution material is not unfinished. After making a few elementary sequencing decisions, remastered joints could easily be put out without having to be remade.
[/QUOTE]
There is a lot of finished Revolution material, yes, but the tracks intended for Roadhouse Garden were unfinished ones. My guess is that Prince wanted closure on those tracks, decided to finish them, then decided against it. As I said, I'd rather he released CB2 than Roadhouse Garden - tracks he started with the Revolution in the early to mid 80's and and finished by himself 10-12 years later.
This is what was officially written on his love4oneanother site and another music site at the time.
(10/07/1998):
After announcing on September 30 that "Prince & the Revolution r releasing a new
album on NPG," Prince now claims that "the group needn't b 2gether 2 release an
album" and that he most likely "can and will finish the album alone unless the tide
turns otherwise."
From "Sonicnet Music News" (fron 10/10/98):
Prince claims to be doing overdubs on a new album by Prince & the Revolution to be
tentatively entitled Roadhouse Garden and released on NPG Records, presumably in
1999. In addition to several new tracks, the album will consist of completed "songs
that were left unfinished when the band broke up."
