Prince Album of the Day (Day 4): C-Note (2003)

Prince Album of the Day (Day 4): C-Note (2003)

Standout track: Empty Room

You're probably asking, "C-Note? What the hell is C-Note?" C-Note, my friends, was a fan club-only release (and you thought I only liked him for his body) that Prince released after promising members four albums just for them and then not following through, which led to lawsuits from the fans. A pretty ugly situation, no?

The album itself is a live New Power Generation recording, taken from soundchecks and live performances during the 2002 tour. The title is named after the order of the song titles, most being the cities where they were recorded: Copenhagen, Nagoya, Osaka, Tokya, Empty Room. (There is a sixth song that I have as a bonus, Copenhagen (Slight Return), which is, as you'd expect, a slightly different version that the opening track.)

It is a mostly instrumental album, Empty Room being the only cut with any actual lyrics. (Tokyo features Prince occasionally chanting "Tokyo," but that's as far as it goes.) It's very jammy and jazzy, which is pretty great because the NPG who perform on this stuff are all super at what they do. The most notable member is long-time NPG player Maceo Parker, probably best known for playing with James Brown back in the day. So musically, there are a lot of good things happening here.

I'm a little unimpressed with the recording quality, however. Osaka has way too much distortion, so the very prominent bass sounds really bad and everything else on the track thus sounds a little fuzzy, where it shouldn't. (I listened to the album through three different sets of speakers, and this track sounded horrible on all of them, so it wasn't just a bad speaker here.) Copenhagen and Empty Room have the best quality for sound, but Copenhagen, while a fine jam, just wasn't powerful enough to sit strong in my mind. Empty Room is killer though, as close to rock and roll and you're going to find here. I would put the song into regular rotation on a playlist, which I may create when all this is said and done.

Nagoya just misses the mark of being a standout track, only because of the sound quality. It has some nice horn solos and the usual inspired guitar work, but it just sounds so muddy to me.

The bottom line is, musically, this has a lot going for it, but if you care about sound at all like I do, you'll walk away a little unimpressed. This would be perfect music to study by though, at the right volume, and would maybe even be something you could sleep to.

Rating: $350 (out of $500).

Prince Album of the Day (Day 3): The Black Album

Prince Album of the Day (Day 3): The Black Album (1994)

Standout tracks: When 2 R in Love, 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton, Rockhard in a Funky Place

This album is probably more infamous than any of His Royal Badness's catalogue. Originally intended for release in 1987, Prince withdrew the album only days before it was to hit the shelves. Rumors at the time revolved around all kinds of crazy ideas, one I remember was that the album was too dirty for the label to release it. (It's dirty, but not too dirty.) A few promo copies got out and the album was bootlegged to high heaven (my first copy was a bootleg I bought at Off the Record in Royal Oak), but The Black Album did not receive an official release until 1994. Shortly after, Prince stopped being Prince for awhile and was spotted around town with the word "slave" written on his face. Warner Brothers' decision to release this album may have played a part in all that, along with many other things. That said, the album is a funk paradise, with great grooves everywhere. The only clunkers are the profane, bizarre, unnecessary Bob George, and a rap (of sorts) called Dead on It. Everything else is gorgeous, from the funky Le Grind that opens the record all the way to the bumpin' Rockhard in a Funky Place. 2 Nigs... is a super mostly instrumental jam with some wicked instrumentation, including a bass solo that would make Les Claypool blush. The sole ballad, When 2 R in Love, is stunningly beautiful. (That track was released on Lovesexy in 1988, which came out as a replacement for The Black Album.) A very good album, definitely one to brighten the mood, but skip the two clunkers. They bring the overall score down.

Rating: 3 1/2 copies of Smell the Glove (out of 5)

Prince Album of the Day (Day 2): Batman Soundtrack

Prince Album of the Day (Day 2): Batman Soundtrack (1989). 

Standout tracks: Lemon Crush, Trust.

The soundtrack for Tim Burton's first Batman movie, this album is mostly a big mess. There is no real cohesion here at all between songs, and on the tracks that don't include Jack Nicholson dialogue, you really have to stretch to connect them to the film. There are random references (lyrically) to Gotham City and there's a song named (ostensibly) after Vicki Vale, which had been actually recorded a year earlier and was named Anna Waiting, after Prince's then-girlfriend, but that's really about as far as it gets. And that's fine, because every song on a Batman soundtrack doesn't need to mention Batman. Musically, there's not a lot to talk about. Trust and Lemon Crush are both pretty great, and Electric Chair (also from an earlier recording session) and the upbeat Partyman are not too shabby either. The duet with Sheena Easton (The Arms of Orion) is not very good. The ballad Scandalous isn't terrible, but not very inspiring either. And the Batdance finale (I had the cassingle!) is fine if you like that sort of thing, but I'm not fond of film dialogue being inserted into songs. All in all, Lemon Crush is worth hearing though. There are snippets of smokin' guitar leads, like Eddie Hazel with Tourette's, and a really solid groove. I would definitely shake it up on the dance floor if it came on in the club. But the album itself? Meh.

Rating: 2 Bat Signals (out of 5)

Prince Album of the Day (Day 1): Around the World in a Day

Here begins a new daily (as time allows) series of posts. For the next several weeks, I am going to work my way through what amounts to be a majority of Prince's catalogue, in alphabetical order, one album a day, and report back each day to the few of you who haven't blocked me already with a small review. That said, let's begin:

Prince Album of the Day (Day 1): Around the World in a Day (1985). Standout tracks: Condition of the Heart, Raspberry Beret, Pop Life, The Ladder.

The follow-up album to 1984's Purple Rain, Prince let loose with some experimentation and came up with a merely mediocre album. The title track has potential but never quite goes anywhere. Paisley Park does even less. Tamborine may be one of the most painfully bad songs I've heard. But the rest of the album is not bad. It's hard not to like the singles, Raspberry Beret and Pop Life (I still have those both on 45). Condition of the Heart is a really solid ballad that I'd put up there with the best of them, not quite as good as 1999's Free, but really damn good. The Ladder is one of Prince's "come to Jesus" tunes, and it's very catchy and has been stuck in my head most of the day. That track is followed with Temptation, a sex and God-fueled romp that features some killer guitar and saxophone work. It gets a little weird near the end, where he has a little dialogue with the Almighty about sex vs. love, which was a common theme of the tour that led up to this album, but it's still a worthwhile listen.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

A Slight Improvisation

I know that smile,
what it means all the way
from the slightest shimmy
to the first itch,

like a reward,
you see,
an omen, a look
at what’s coming.

See you soon,
that’s what you’d say
in the margins
or wherever.

I’ve seen it myself
you know
and can’t be mistaken
every time.

Aimed right
it wouldn’t matter,
but sometimes
it clashes with

the music you played,
from the first rest to the coda,
words you had spoken once

and repeated with
subtle amendments
the second time through.

Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye

I said goodbye
to another bottle today,
the last of the Traverse City
chardonnay, three swigs,
the gritty remains

of decaying cork spit
into the sink. You left it here
and made me promise
not to drink it,

but it's been nearly a year now
without a word and I guess
you won't mind.

I would like to tell you
that I am starting over
yet again, the lonely nights
of loud music and too much gin,

the frenetic dancing, the tears,
the second-guessing and
tossing and turning,

but I know where once
you would have had
the right things to say,

now you'd have nothing
but cold words that
would only make these
unbearable nights hotter.

I've kissed too many women
goodbye on the rims of
bottles, and now that the wine
is gone, I can work on the whiskey,

a taste that will linger far longer
than the stains on sheets
and the rubber on pavement
stretching too many miles from here.

Another Death Rattle for the Monarchy

*A note from the author*

I was cleaning out my hard drive and found this odd little bit of prose that I have only vague memories of writing. It seemed worthy of the blog site, so here it is:




The other day, long before much of anything interesting had occurred on the lawn, Darryl walked solemnly down the stairs of his palatial six-bedroom bungalow, took the large, college-bound dictionary from his son’s bookshelf and heaved it across the room so hard that it left the imprint of part of the word “American” and part of the word “Heritage” on the photograph of Prince Phillip that his son for some reason deemed important enough to frame.

“Show-off,” muttered Darryl.

And then later, some hours after the firemen were able to extinguish the flames at poolside, just as things were returning to their normal, suburban state, not much else happened beyond his son, Chuck, wandering back home in a daze of sun poisoning and a ravenous boner, accidentally kicked his big toe into the hardbound dictionary that lay out of place on the floor of his bedroom, which caused him to look down and see out of the corner of his eye the black and white photo of Liz’s man with a motherfucking trademark curling above his upper lip.

Another death rattle for the monarchy.