>PANDEMONIUM that is, in a sort of Morris Day Marathon I ran
>this weekend.
>
>I still rank it above ICE CREAM CASTLES despite that album
>having 2 of the band's best known (but not best-charting)
>songs, but "My Drawers" was the best thing on there. Title
>track is totally not "The Time", and it only really serves as
>"companion" to Purple Rain in a way, instead of standing on
>its own like the other albums do. All the band members asked
>about it, particularly Jesse, were not fond of that album.
>
>But PANDEMONIUM really can't compare to this record. And as
>OldPro and rev75 have said, I don't think even the last few
>Prince records (as a whole) compare to this.
>
>PANDEMONIUM wasn't bad, but it was disjointed in a way that it
>CONDENSATE isn't. It's like it has sections: the stuff you
>know is Jimmy/Terry/Morris, then the stuff you know is Prince
>cleaned up by Jimmy and Terry, then the Jesse section, then
>back to Jimmy/Terry/Morris and Jimmy/Terry/Monte...
>
>sonically, it sounds like "1990".
>
>And that's not bad in itself. But IMO the best songs off that
>record were ones known by Prince aficionados to be "old
>castoffs": "Jerk Out" and "Chocolate". And I doubt Prince,
>based on what he gave The Time for GRAFFITI BRIDGE and the
>CORPORATE WORLD project, was really in the mindset of using
>either at the time. Considering nostalgia was the order of the
>day, those were the perfect two songs to start off, and the
>band actually took off some of the rough edges of both, adding
>their own distinct flavor.
>
>I liked the "Jesse" songs. "Skillet" especially is a great
>"concert song", and I think that's the one Pandemonium bit
>besides "Jerk Out" that gets regular rotation in Time
>concerts. "It's Your World" and the title track were cool, but
>I had a feeling that Jimmy and Terry did Morris better with
>the tracks on his DAYDREAMING album, and hell, what they were
>doing for other artists were worlds above that.
>
>Monte's "Sometimes I Get Lonely" is the other "takeaway" from
>PANDEMONIUM. Great song, and the kind of material I would have
>hoped to hear from the band after hearing all those Flyte Tyme
>records in between WHAT TIME IS IT? and this record.
>
>The "Prince" songs not mentioned above, aren't bad. However, I
>know for a fact, that the version of "Data Bank" he recorded
>years earlier was a scorcher that his albums of the time
>sorely lacked, and the other songs are just "cool".
>
>I remember reading those song titles on a back of a CD years
>ago and wondering what the music sounded like. I expected more
>out of "Donald Trump (Black Version)" (which again, was a
>"cool" song from an R&B perspective, but rather subdued),
>after seeing the "Jerk Out" video.
>
>Knowing the back story behind this album now (that Warners
>mandated The Time's reunion, rather than them uniting again on
>their own) really puts things in perspective. It's still
>better than what Prince was going to do with CORPORATE
>WORLD... only that title track and perhaps "Murph Drag" (which
>every damn write up I've heard of that set praises, but IMO
>actually "drags") really would have gotten something
>approaching the released product's reception.
>
>If I may Maxxx Up for a bit, in 1988-90 Prince was kind of
>losing his "R&B" ear as his own music was going down different
>paths. I think he was a lil late getting on the "Rhythm &
>Breakbeats" sound (the Time songs on GRAFFITI BRIDGE) and
>while songs like the pseudo-swing of "Housequake" were a life
>preserver, dude was just not really hitting like he used to. I
>dunno what it was. So I'm not surprised that some "old" songs
>he had lying around for The Time were the ones that hit the
>hardest.
>
>Then again, he was writing cool music for Tevin Campbell so
>maybe I can't really call it. He went from surefire to "hit
>and miss" pretty quickly though.



GREAT post....

So true, especially your last point about "surefire to hit-or-miss"...And your funk view of Prince's later '80s/early '90s material in terms of its connection to the Time was spot on....But I always go back to the point that doesn't get talked about enough...

Think about it...From 1980 to 1989 Prince was practically averaging an album a year...This does not include all of the side projects he was doing from the Time to Vanity 6 to writing songs for Tevin Campbell and the like....Quite simply, Prince shot his wad....

I mean, the ridiculous amount of bootlegs from that era tell the story...Prince was seemingly obsessed with writing/recording music...Nigga was on some Tupac shit to infinity before Pac went Pac...Burnout was bound to happen...

Ironically, I believe that prolific insanity only enhances Prince's legend...Which is why I laugh when I hear folks say that Prince only had one great decade...

After the obsessed, avalanche-like rate that Prince was writing songs (I don't know if there was someone as crazed as dude in the history of pop when it came to releasing music) there was no where else to go but down...