Hello, i'm off a few days but no worry i scheduled regular posting back by wednesday meanwhile feel free to asks for re-ups from the rotational list i posted.
Today's artist will be with us for sometime here, after all he has an enormous ouvre with lot's unreleased stuff as well. He commands the biggest space in my collection. Normally i'd post chronically but this time i will post cross his discography from 4 different decades. You can wait to see what i'll post or your welcome to request a title, first request can be found here ... N'joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums, and wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, his music was inconsistent, in part because of his eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeeded; no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.
Prince's first two albums were solid, if unremarkable, late-'70s funk-pop. With 1980's Dirty Mind, he recorded his first masterpiece, a one-man tour de force of sex and music; it was hard funk, catchy Beatlesque melodies, sweet soul ballads, and rocking guitar pop, all at once. The follow-up, Controversy, was more of the same, but 1999 was brilliant. The album was a monster hit, selling over three million copies, but it was nothing compared to 1984's Purple Rain.
Around the World in a DayPurple Rain made Prince a superstar; it eventually sold over ten million copies in the U.S. and spent 24 weeks at number one. Partially recorded with his touring band, the Revolution, the record featured the most pop-oriented music he has ever made. Instead of continuing in this accessible direction, he veered off into the bizarre psycho-psychedelia of Around the World in a Day, which nevertheless sold over two million copies. In 1986, he released the even stranger Parade, which was in its own way as ambitious and intricate as any art rock of the '60s; however, no art rock was ever grounded with a hit as brilliant as the spare funk of "Kiss."
By 1987, Prince's ambitions were growing by leaps and bounds, resulting in the sprawling masterpiece Sign 'O' the Times. Prince was set to release the hard funk of The Black Album by the end of the year, yet he withdrew it just before its release, deciding it was too dark and immoral. Instead, he released the confused Lovesexy in 1988, which was a commercial disaster. With the soundtrack to 1989's Batman he returned to the top of the charts, even if the album was essentially a recap of everything he had done before. The following year he released Graffiti Bridge (the sequel to Purple Rain), which turned out to be a considerable commercial disappointment.
Diamonds and Pearls In 1991, Prince formed the New Power Generation, the best and most versatile and talented band he has ever assembled. With their first album, Diamonds and Pearls, Prince reasserted his mastery of contemporary R&B; it was his biggest hit since 1985. The following year, he released his 12th album, which was titled with a cryptic symbol; in 1993, Prince legally changed his name to the symbol. In 1994, after becoming embroiled in contract disagreements with Warner Bros., he independently released the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," likely to illustrate what he would be capable of on his own; the song became his biggest hit in years. Later that summer, Warner released the somewhat halfhearted Come under the name of Prince; the record was a moderate success, going gold.
Gold Experience In November 1994, as part of a contractual obligation, Prince agreed to the official release of The Black Album. In early 1995, he immersed himself in another legal battle with Warner, proclaiming himself a slave and refusing to deliver his new record, The Gold Experience, for release. By the end of the summer, a fed-up Warner had negotiated a compromise that guaranteed the album's release, plus one final record for the label. The Gold Experience was issued in the fall; although it received good reviews and was following a smash single, it failed to catch fire commercially. In the summer of 1996, Prince released Chaos & Disorder, which freed him to become an independent artist. Setting up his own label, NPG (which was distributed by EMI), he resurfaced later that same year with the three-disc Emancipation, which was designed as a magnum opus that would spin off singles for several years and be supported with several tours.
Crystal Ball However, even his devoted cult following needed considerable time to digest such an enormous compilation of songs. Once it was clear that Emancipation wasn't the commercial blockbuster he hoped it would be, Prince assembled a long-awaited collection of outtakes and unreleased material called Crystal Ball in 1998. With Crystal Ball, Prince discovered that it's much more difficult to get records to an audience than it seems; some fans who pre-ordered their copies through Prince's website (from which a bonus fifth disc was included) didn't receive them until months after the set began appearing in stores. Prince then released a new one-man album, New Power Soul, just three months after Crystal Ball; even though it was his most straightforward album since Diamonds and Pearls, it didn't do well on the charts, partly because many listeners didn't realize it had been released.
The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale A year later, with "1999" predictably an end-of-the-millennium anthem, Prince issued the remix collection 1999 (The New Master). A collection of Warner Bros.-era leftovers, Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, followed that summer, and in the fall Prince returned on Arista with the all-star Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. In the fall of 2001 he released the controversial Rainbow Children, a jazz-infused circus of sound trumpeting his conversion to the Jehovah's Witnesses that left many longtime fans out in the cold. He further isolated himself with 2003's N.E.W.S., a four-song set of instrumental jams that sounded a lot more fun to play than to listen to. Prince rebounded in 2003 with the chart-topping Musicology, a return to form that found the artist back in the Top Ten, even garnering a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2005.
3121 In early 2006 he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, performing two songs with a new protégée, R&B singer Tamar. A four-song appearance at the Brit Awards with Wendy, Lisa, and Sheila E. followed. Both appearances previewed tracks from 3121, which hit number one on the album charts soon after its release in March 2006. Planet Earth followed in 2007, featuring contributions from Wendy and Lisa. In the U.K., copies were cover-mounted on the July 15 edition of The Mail on Sunday, provoking Columbia -- the worldwide distributor for the release -- to refuse distribution throughout the U.K. In the U.S., the album was issued on July 24.
LotusFlow3rLotusFlow3r, a three-disc set, arrived in 2009, featuring a trio of distinct albums: LotusFlow3r itself (a guitar showcase), MPLSound (a throwback to his '80s funk output), and Elixer (a smooth contemporary R&B album featuring the breathy vocals of Bria Valente). Despite only being available online and through one big-box retailer, the set debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart. A year later, another throwback-flavored effort, 20Ten, became his second U.K. newspaper giveaway. No official online edition of the album was made available.
From mid-2010 through the end of 2012, Prince toured throughout Europe, America, Europe again, Canada, and Australia. During 2013, he released several singles, starting with "Screwdriver" and continuing with "Breakfast Can Wait" in the summer of that year. Early in 2014, he made a cameo appearance on the Zooey Deschanel sitcom The New Girl, appearing in the episode that aired following the Super Bowl. All this activity was prelude to the spring announcement that Prince had re-signed to Warner Bros. Records, the label he had feuded with 20 years prior. As part of the deal, he wound up receiving the ownership of his master recordings, and the label planned a reissue campaign that would begin with an expanded reissue of Purple Rain roughly timed to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Art Official Age First came two new albums: Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum, the latter credited to 3rdEyeGirl, the all-female power trio that was his new-millennial backing band. Both records came out on the same day in September 2014. (Two years later, the Prince reissue program and the expanded edition of Purple Rain had yet to appear.) Almost a year to the day, he released HITnRUN: Phase One, with contributions from Lianne La Havas, Judith Hill, and Rita Ora. A sequel, HITnRUN: Phase Two, was released online in December 2015, with a physical release following in January 2016. In early 2016, Prince set out on a rare solo tour, a run of shows he called "Piano and a Microphone." The tour was cut short in April due to sickness, however, and Prince flew home to Minneapolis. On April 21, 2016, police were called to Paisley Park, where they found Prince unresponsive; he died that day at the age of 57. His early death and incredible achievement prompted an outpouring of emotion from fans, friends, influences, and professional associates. On the following week's Billboard charts, he occupied four of the top ten album positions and four of the top singles positions.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
With Dirty Mind, Prince had established a wild fusion of funk, rock, new wave, and soul that signaled he was an original, maverick talent, but it failed to win him a large audience. After delivering the sound-alike album, Controversy, Prince revamped his sound and delivered the double album 1999. Where his earlier albums had been a fusion of organic and electronic sounds, 1999 was constructed almost entirely on synthesizers by Prince himself. Naturally, the effect was slightly more mechanical and robotic than his previous work and strongly recalled the electro-funk experiments of several underground funk and hip-hop artists at the time. Prince had also constructed an album dominated by computer funk, but he didn't simply rely on the extended instrumental grooves to carry the album -- he didn't have to when his songwriting was improving by leaps and bounds. The first side of the record contained all of the hit singles, and, unsurprisingly, they were the ones that contained the least amount of electronics. "1999" parties to the apocalypse with a P-Funk groove much tighter than anything George Clinton ever did, "Little Red Corvette" is pure pop, and "Delirious" takes rockabilly riffs into the computer age. After that opening salvo, all the rules go out the window -- "Let's Pretend We're Married" is a salacious extended lust letter, "Free" is an elegiac anthem, "All the Critics Love U in New York" is a vicious attack at hipsters, and "Lady Cab Driver," with its notorious bridge, is the culmination of all of his sexual fantasies. Sure, Prince stretches out a bit too much over the course of 1999, but the result is a stunning display of raw talent, not wallowing indulgence.
Prince - 1999 (flac 416mb)
01 1999 6:22
02 Little Red Corvette 4:58
03 Delirious 3:56
04 Let's Pretend We're Married 7:20
05 D.M.S.R. 8:05
06 Automatic 9:24
07 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute) 4:00
08 Free 5:00
09 Lady Cab Driver 8:25
10 All The Critics Love U In New York 5:55
11 International Lover 6:35
Prince - 1999 (ogg 170mb)
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Prince spent the latter half of the '80s courting the pop audience, and by the time of Graffiti Bridge, he had lost much of his R&B fan base. As a response, he formed the New Power Generation and recorded Diamonds and Pearls, his first record to reconnect with the urban audience since 1999, as well as his first to acknowledge the hip-hop revolution. Although he still has a problem with rap -- "Jughead" is simply embarrassing -- he manages to skillfully reinvent himself as an urban soulman without sacrificing his musical innovation. The New Power Generation is a more skilled band than the Revolution, and they are able to make Prince's funk jazzier, particularly on "Willing and Able," the breezy "Strollin'" and "Walk Don't Walk." It's clear that these subtly textured songs are where his heart is at, but the songs designed to win back his audience -- the slamming dancefloor rallying cry "Gett Off," the sexy T. Rex groove "Cream," the extraordinary Philly soul of the neglected masterpiece "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," and the drippy mainstream ballad "Diamonds and Pearls" -- are all terrific pop singles. However, much of the rest of Diamonds and Pearls is comprised of middling funk and R&B that sounds less like inspired workouts than stylistic exercises. Even with such weak moments, Diamonds and Pearls is a fine record, even though it's only marginally better than Lovesexy and Graffiti Bridge.
Prince & The NPG - Diamonds and Pearls (flac 436mb)
01 Thunder 5:45
02 Daddy Pop 5:16
03 Diamonds And Pearls 4:43
04 Cream 4:12
05 Strollin' 3:46
06 Willing And Able 4:59
07 Gett Off 4:31
08 Walk Don't Walk 3:06
09 Jughead 4:56
10 Money Don't Matter 2 Night 4:48
11 Push 5:56
12 Insatiable 6:37
13 Live 4 Love 6:58
Prince & The NPG - Diamonds and Pearls (ogg 157mb)
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Upon leaving Warner Brothers in 1996, Prince agreed to let the label release a collection of unreleased recordings from his legendary prodigious vaults at some point in the future. Warner unveiled that collection, unimaginatively titled The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, in the summer of 1999. Instead of an official release for several of Prince's legendary songs though, The Vault is a brief collection (under 40 minutes) of ten songs, recorded between 1985 and 1994 according to the liner notes -- though they all feel like Graffiti Bridge (or maybe Symbol) outtakes. That's not a complaint, actually. There's a wonderful carefree feeling to the record, heavy on jazz and light funk, constantly swinging, and nearly always engaging. Only the title track has the necessary weight to announce itself as a major addition to his official catalog, but that doesn't matter since the songs are all enjoyable. After all, it's hard not to be impressed with Prince's songcraft or the casually sophisticated flair to the musicianship throughout the album. That might not be what most observers expected from The Vault, but consider this -- of these ten songs, eight tracks have never been heavily bootlegged before. That means that even some hardcore followers may not have heard all of this material, which is noteworthy in itself. But the nicest thing about the compilation is that even though it's a minor addition to his catalog, it holds together as an album better than Come or Chaos & Disorder, the two other Warner-era odds-and-ends collections, or even the tossed-off New Power Soul. It's an unassuming, jazzy little record that's damn near irresistible.
Prince - The Vault (Old Frieds 4 Sale) (flac 287mb)
01 The Rest Of My Life 1:40
02 It's About That Walk 4:26
03 She Spoke 2 Me (Extended Remix) 8:20
04 5 Women 5:13
05 When The Lights Go Down 7:11
06 My Little Pill 1:09
07 There Is Lonely 2:29
08 Old Friends 4 Sale 3:28
09 Sarah 2:53
10 Extraordinary 2:28
Prince - The Vault (Old Frieds 4 Sale) (ogg 108mb)
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Left to his own devices, Prince will indulge in his peculiar vice of releasing triple-albums. He celebrated his freedom from Warner with Emancipation, following that with another triple-disc in Crystal Ball, which just happened to be the provisional title of the scrapped three-LP iteration of 1987's Sign o' the Times, he had a triple-live set in 2002, and now in 2009 with another triple-disc set called LotusFlow3r. Technically, one of the three discs here isn't a Prince album: Elixer is the debut of Bria Valente. LotusFlow3r his guitar showcase, and MPLSound a revival of his '80s funk. By its very nature, the Bria Valente disc winds up as the most consistent and least interesting of the three, never straying from its seductive template, but that doesn't mean it's the worst; it just lacks the highs of the other two, but it also lacks the lows. Of the three, MPLSound winds up with the greatest number of both highs and lows, while LotusFlow3r is constrained by its guitar-heavy concept, offering great moments instead of great whole songs. This suggests that LotusFlow3r has moments of fury akin to the closing solo of "Let's Go Crazy" or the glorious passion of "Purple Rain," but apart from the Hendrixian "Dreamer," the album is nearly as smooth as Elixer, with even the clenched, pumping riff of "Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful" soon giving way to an amiable funk work-out. Amiably pretty much defines all of LotusFlow3r, which winds up being all about groove and fleeting bits of six-string color which may be enough for the faithful, but not many others. .
Prince - Lotusflow3r (flac 322mb)
01 From The Lotus... 2:46
02 Boom 3:18
03 The Morning After 2:06
04 4ever 3:47
05 Colonized Mind 4:47
06 Feel Better, Feel Good, Feel Wonderful 3:52
07 Love Like Jazz 3:49
08 77 Beverly Park 3:04
09 Wall Of Berlin 4:16
10 $ 3:57
11 Dreamer 5:30
12 ...Back 2 The Lotus 5:34
Prince - Lotusflow3r (ogg 84mb)
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Today's artist will be with us for sometime here, after all he has an enormous ouvre with lot's unreleased stuff as well. He commands the biggest space in my collection. Normally i'd post chronically but this time i will post cross his discography from 4 different decades. You can wait to see what i'll post or your welcome to request a title, first request can be found here ... N'joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums, and wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, his music was inconsistent, in part because of his eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeeded; no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.
Prince's first two albums were solid, if unremarkable, late-'70s funk-pop. With 1980's Dirty Mind, he recorded his first masterpiece, a one-man tour de force of sex and music; it was hard funk, catchy Beatlesque melodies, sweet soul ballads, and rocking guitar pop, all at once. The follow-up, Controversy, was more of the same, but 1999 was brilliant. The album was a monster hit, selling over three million copies, but it was nothing compared to 1984's Purple Rain.
Around the World in a DayPurple Rain made Prince a superstar; it eventually sold over ten million copies in the U.S. and spent 24 weeks at number one. Partially recorded with his touring band, the Revolution, the record featured the most pop-oriented music he has ever made. Instead of continuing in this accessible direction, he veered off into the bizarre psycho-psychedelia of Around the World in a Day, which nevertheless sold over two million copies. In 1986, he released the even stranger Parade, which was in its own way as ambitious and intricate as any art rock of the '60s; however, no art rock was ever grounded with a hit as brilliant as the spare funk of "Kiss."
By 1987, Prince's ambitions were growing by leaps and bounds, resulting in the sprawling masterpiece Sign 'O' the Times. Prince was set to release the hard funk of The Black Album by the end of the year, yet he withdrew it just before its release, deciding it was too dark and immoral. Instead, he released the confused Lovesexy in 1988, which was a commercial disaster. With the soundtrack to 1989's Batman he returned to the top of the charts, even if the album was essentially a recap of everything he had done before. The following year he released Graffiti Bridge (the sequel to Purple Rain), which turned out to be a considerable commercial disappointment.
Diamonds and Pearls In 1991, Prince formed the New Power Generation, the best and most versatile and talented band he has ever assembled. With their first album, Diamonds and Pearls, Prince reasserted his mastery of contemporary R&B; it was his biggest hit since 1985. The following year, he released his 12th album, which was titled with a cryptic symbol; in 1993, Prince legally changed his name to the symbol. In 1994, after becoming embroiled in contract disagreements with Warner Bros., he independently released the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," likely to illustrate what he would be capable of on his own; the song became his biggest hit in years. Later that summer, Warner released the somewhat halfhearted Come under the name of Prince; the record was a moderate success, going gold.
Gold Experience In November 1994, as part of a contractual obligation, Prince agreed to the official release of The Black Album. In early 1995, he immersed himself in another legal battle with Warner, proclaiming himself a slave and refusing to deliver his new record, The Gold Experience, for release. By the end of the summer, a fed-up Warner had negotiated a compromise that guaranteed the album's release, plus one final record for the label. The Gold Experience was issued in the fall; although it received good reviews and was following a smash single, it failed to catch fire commercially. In the summer of 1996, Prince released Chaos & Disorder, which freed him to become an independent artist. Setting up his own label, NPG (which was distributed by EMI), he resurfaced later that same year with the three-disc Emancipation, which was designed as a magnum opus that would spin off singles for several years and be supported with several tours.
Crystal Ball However, even his devoted cult following needed considerable time to digest such an enormous compilation of songs. Once it was clear that Emancipation wasn't the commercial blockbuster he hoped it would be, Prince assembled a long-awaited collection of outtakes and unreleased material called Crystal Ball in 1998. With Crystal Ball, Prince discovered that it's much more difficult to get records to an audience than it seems; some fans who pre-ordered their copies through Prince's website (from which a bonus fifth disc was included) didn't receive them until months after the set began appearing in stores. Prince then released a new one-man album, New Power Soul, just three months after Crystal Ball; even though it was his most straightforward album since Diamonds and Pearls, it didn't do well on the charts, partly because many listeners didn't realize it had been released.
The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale A year later, with "1999" predictably an end-of-the-millennium anthem, Prince issued the remix collection 1999 (The New Master). A collection of Warner Bros.-era leftovers, Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, followed that summer, and in the fall Prince returned on Arista with the all-star Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. In the fall of 2001 he released the controversial Rainbow Children, a jazz-infused circus of sound trumpeting his conversion to the Jehovah's Witnesses that left many longtime fans out in the cold. He further isolated himself with 2003's N.E.W.S., a four-song set of instrumental jams that sounded a lot more fun to play than to listen to. Prince rebounded in 2003 with the chart-topping Musicology, a return to form that found the artist back in the Top Ten, even garnering a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2005.
3121 In early 2006 he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, performing two songs with a new protégée, R&B singer Tamar. A four-song appearance at the Brit Awards with Wendy, Lisa, and Sheila E. followed. Both appearances previewed tracks from 3121, which hit number one on the album charts soon after its release in March 2006. Planet Earth followed in 2007, featuring contributions from Wendy and Lisa. In the U.K., copies were cover-mounted on the July 15 edition of The Mail on Sunday, provoking Columbia -- the worldwide distributor for the release -- to refuse distribution throughout the U.K. In the U.S., the album was issued on July 24.
LotusFlow3rLotusFlow3r, a three-disc set, arrived in 2009, featuring a trio of distinct albums: LotusFlow3r itself (a guitar showcase), MPLSound (a throwback to his '80s funk output), and Elixer (a smooth contemporary R&B album featuring the breathy vocals of Bria Valente). Despite only being available online and through one big-box retailer, the set debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart. A year later, another throwback-flavored effort, 20Ten, became his second U.K. newspaper giveaway. No official online edition of the album was made available.
From mid-2010 through the end of 2012, Prince toured throughout Europe, America, Europe again, Canada, and Australia. During 2013, he released several singles, starting with "Screwdriver" and continuing with "Breakfast Can Wait" in the summer of that year. Early in 2014, he made a cameo appearance on the Zooey Deschanel sitcom The New Girl, appearing in the episode that aired following the Super Bowl. All this activity was prelude to the spring announcement that Prince had re-signed to Warner Bros. Records, the label he had feuded with 20 years prior. As part of the deal, he wound up receiving the ownership of his master recordings, and the label planned a reissue campaign that would begin with an expanded reissue of Purple Rain roughly timed to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Art Official Age First came two new albums: Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum, the latter credited to 3rdEyeGirl, the all-female power trio that was his new-millennial backing band. Both records came out on the same day in September 2014. (Two years later, the Prince reissue program and the expanded edition of Purple Rain had yet to appear.) Almost a year to the day, he released HITnRUN: Phase One, with contributions from Lianne La Havas, Judith Hill, and Rita Ora. A sequel, HITnRUN: Phase Two, was released online in December 2015, with a physical release following in January 2016. In early 2016, Prince set out on a rare solo tour, a run of shows he called "Piano and a Microphone." The tour was cut short in April due to sickness, however, and Prince flew home to Minneapolis. On April 21, 2016, police were called to Paisley Park, where they found Prince unresponsive; he died that day at the age of 57. His early death and incredible achievement prompted an outpouring of emotion from fans, friends, influences, and professional associates. On the following week's Billboard charts, he occupied four of the top ten album positions and four of the top singles positions.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
With Dirty Mind, Prince had established a wild fusion of funk, rock, new wave, and soul that signaled he was an original, maverick talent, but it failed to win him a large audience. After delivering the sound-alike album, Controversy, Prince revamped his sound and delivered the double album 1999. Where his earlier albums had been a fusion of organic and electronic sounds, 1999 was constructed almost entirely on synthesizers by Prince himself. Naturally, the effect was slightly more mechanical and robotic than his previous work and strongly recalled the electro-funk experiments of several underground funk and hip-hop artists at the time. Prince had also constructed an album dominated by computer funk, but he didn't simply rely on the extended instrumental grooves to carry the album -- he didn't have to when his songwriting was improving by leaps and bounds. The first side of the record contained all of the hit singles, and, unsurprisingly, they were the ones that contained the least amount of electronics. "1999" parties to the apocalypse with a P-Funk groove much tighter than anything George Clinton ever did, "Little Red Corvette" is pure pop, and "Delirious" takes rockabilly riffs into the computer age. After that opening salvo, all the rules go out the window -- "Let's Pretend We're Married" is a salacious extended lust letter, "Free" is an elegiac anthem, "All the Critics Love U in New York" is a vicious attack at hipsters, and "Lady Cab Driver," with its notorious bridge, is the culmination of all of his sexual fantasies. Sure, Prince stretches out a bit too much over the course of 1999, but the result is a stunning display of raw talent, not wallowing indulgence.
Prince - 1999 (flac 416mb)
01 1999 6:22
02 Little Red Corvette 4:58
03 Delirious 3:56
04 Let's Pretend We're Married 7:20
05 D.M.S.R. 8:05
06 Automatic 9:24
07 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute) 4:00
08 Free 5:00
09 Lady Cab Driver 8:25
10 All The Critics Love U In New York 5:55
11 International Lover 6:35
Prince - 1999 (ogg 170mb)
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Prince spent the latter half of the '80s courting the pop audience, and by the time of Graffiti Bridge, he had lost much of his R&B fan base. As a response, he formed the New Power Generation and recorded Diamonds and Pearls, his first record to reconnect with the urban audience since 1999, as well as his first to acknowledge the hip-hop revolution. Although he still has a problem with rap -- "Jughead" is simply embarrassing -- he manages to skillfully reinvent himself as an urban soulman without sacrificing his musical innovation. The New Power Generation is a more skilled band than the Revolution, and they are able to make Prince's funk jazzier, particularly on "Willing and Able," the breezy "Strollin'" and "Walk Don't Walk." It's clear that these subtly textured songs are where his heart is at, but the songs designed to win back his audience -- the slamming dancefloor rallying cry "Gett Off," the sexy T. Rex groove "Cream," the extraordinary Philly soul of the neglected masterpiece "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," and the drippy mainstream ballad "Diamonds and Pearls" -- are all terrific pop singles. However, much of the rest of Diamonds and Pearls is comprised of middling funk and R&B that sounds less like inspired workouts than stylistic exercises. Even with such weak moments, Diamonds and Pearls is a fine record, even though it's only marginally better than Lovesexy and Graffiti Bridge.
Prince & The NPG - Diamonds and Pearls (flac 436mb)
01 Thunder 5:45
02 Daddy Pop 5:16
03 Diamonds And Pearls 4:43
04 Cream 4:12
05 Strollin' 3:46
06 Willing And Able 4:59
07 Gett Off 4:31
08 Walk Don't Walk 3:06
09 Jughead 4:56
10 Money Don't Matter 2 Night 4:48
11 Push 5:56
12 Insatiable 6:37
13 Live 4 Love 6:58
Prince & The NPG - Diamonds and Pearls (ogg 157mb)
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Upon leaving Warner Brothers in 1996, Prince agreed to let the label release a collection of unreleased recordings from his legendary prodigious vaults at some point in the future. Warner unveiled that collection, unimaginatively titled The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, in the summer of 1999. Instead of an official release for several of Prince's legendary songs though, The Vault is a brief collection (under 40 minutes) of ten songs, recorded between 1985 and 1994 according to the liner notes -- though they all feel like Graffiti Bridge (or maybe Symbol) outtakes. That's not a complaint, actually. There's a wonderful carefree feeling to the record, heavy on jazz and light funk, constantly swinging, and nearly always engaging. Only the title track has the necessary weight to announce itself as a major addition to his official catalog, but that doesn't matter since the songs are all enjoyable. After all, it's hard not to be impressed with Prince's songcraft or the casually sophisticated flair to the musicianship throughout the album. That might not be what most observers expected from The Vault, but consider this -- of these ten songs, eight tracks have never been heavily bootlegged before. That means that even some hardcore followers may not have heard all of this material, which is noteworthy in itself. But the nicest thing about the compilation is that even though it's a minor addition to his catalog, it holds together as an album better than Come or Chaos & Disorder, the two other Warner-era odds-and-ends collections, or even the tossed-off New Power Soul. It's an unassuming, jazzy little record that's damn near irresistible.
Prince - The Vault (Old Frieds 4 Sale) (flac 287mb)
01 The Rest Of My Life 1:40
02 It's About That Walk 4:26
03 She Spoke 2 Me (Extended Remix) 8:20
04 5 Women 5:13
05 When The Lights Go Down 7:11
06 My Little Pill 1:09
07 There Is Lonely 2:29
08 Old Friends 4 Sale 3:28
09 Sarah 2:53
10 Extraordinary 2:28
Prince - The Vault (Old Frieds 4 Sale) (ogg 108mb)
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Left to his own devices, Prince will indulge in his peculiar vice of releasing triple-albums. He celebrated his freedom from Warner with Emancipation, following that with another triple-disc in Crystal Ball, which just happened to be the provisional title of the scrapped three-LP iteration of 1987's Sign o' the Times, he had a triple-live set in 2002, and now in 2009 with another triple-disc set called LotusFlow3r. Technically, one of the three discs here isn't a Prince album: Elixer is the debut of Bria Valente. LotusFlow3r his guitar showcase, and MPLSound a revival of his '80s funk. By its very nature, the Bria Valente disc winds up as the most consistent and least interesting of the three, never straying from its seductive template, but that doesn't mean it's the worst; it just lacks the highs of the other two, but it also lacks the lows. Of the three, MPLSound winds up with the greatest number of both highs and lows, while LotusFlow3r is constrained by its guitar-heavy concept, offering great moments instead of great whole songs. This suggests that LotusFlow3r has moments of fury akin to the closing solo of "Let's Go Crazy" or the glorious passion of "Purple Rain," but apart from the Hendrixian "Dreamer," the album is nearly as smooth as Elixer, with even the clenched, pumping riff of "Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful" soon giving way to an amiable funk work-out. Amiably pretty much defines all of LotusFlow3r, which winds up being all about groove and fleeting bits of six-string color which may be enough for the faithful, but not many others. .
Prince - Lotusflow3r (flac 322mb)
01 From The Lotus... 2:46
02 Boom 3:18
03 The Morning After 2:06
04 4ever 3:47
05 Colonized Mind 4:47
06 Feel Better, Feel Good, Feel Wonderful 3:52
07 Love Like Jazz 3:49
08 77 Beverly Park 3:04
09 Wall Of Berlin 4:16
10 $ 3:57
11 Dreamer 5:30
12 ...Back 2 The Lotus 5:34
Prince - Lotusflow3r (ogg 84mb)
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2 comments:
Hi,
I would love to get Archive - Londinium again. Ripped
mine a long time ago so at shit-res and then did give
the CD to a friend. Bad idea.
Same thing with Superfunk - Hold Up. Same cause same
effect.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for Lotusflow3r Rho !
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