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Music CD - Prince: Emancipation
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Music CD: Emancipation
Artist: Prince
List Price: $29.98
Our Price: $5.58
Your Save: $ 24.40 ( 81% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: NPG Records
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Jam of the Year
2. Right Back Here in My Arms
3. Somebody's Somebody
4. Get Yo Groove On
5. Courtin' Time
6. Betcha by Golly, Wow
7. We Gets Up
8. White Mansion
9. Damned If I Do
10. I Can't Make U Love Me
11. Mr. Happy
12. In This Bed I Scream
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0724385498220
Format: Explicit Lyrics
Label: NPG Records
Manufacturer: NPG Records
Number Of Discs: 3
Publication Date: 1996
Publisher: NPG Records
Release Date: 1996-11-19
Studio: NPG Records
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Top-heavy & bloated, but contains some ESSENTIAL material.....
Comment: As a SERIOUS Prince fan since 1981, I'm compelled to write this review today because I've recently been listening (once again!) to this sprawling collection of songs.
I completely understand The Purple One's enthusiasm & relief at being set loose from Warner Brothers; in typical Prince fashion, his response to a profound personal event is prolific musical output (and, as a fellow multi-instrument-playing musician, my response is the same).....however, his inspiration on "Emancipation" doesn't measure up (as a whole) to his greatest works; to be blunt, two out of three songs here are not memorable AT ALL. To be fair, his faultless musicianship, gift for engaging arrangement & ultra-slick production are ABSOLUTELY intact on this album.....but had Prince chisled it down to a single disc, it could have been a classic and perhaps hailed as a masterpiece.
I MYSELF chisled it down to the classic album I suggest; the sequencing is my own:
1 Emancipation
2 In This Bed Eye Scream
3 Face Down
4 Saviour
5 New World
6 Joint 2 Joint
7 La La La Means I Love U
8 Slave
9 One Of Us
10 Friend Lover Sister Mother Wife
I challenge y'all that already have the album to burn a CD with the sequence of tracks I've listed.....and see if I'm wrong!! PRINCE: If you're reading this, CALL ME; I'd be more than happy to lend a hand on any project you're working on!! :-)
The songs I've listed above are the DEFINITE highlights of this (disappointingly) bloated set of music.....but I must make special note of the INCREDIBLE "Friend Lover Sister Mother Wife"; it is EASILY one of the greatest tracks His Royal Badness ever created.
If you're just getting into Prince, start with the "Dirty Mind" & "1999" albums, progressing to "Sign O' The Times" and the SUPERB & underrated "Lovesexy".......bearing in mind that "Purple Rain" ain't too shabby, either!! :-)
Customer Rating:
Summary: a HUGE and very excellent collection of songs
Comment: I'm personally glad that Prince has the courage to release such a gargantuan album. I'm not going to describe every song/disc, because simply that would take too long.
But as I had been reading the reviews of some people about this album I can't help but to throw my own two cents in.
First of all, Prince doesn't/never needed a comeback, as a few level-headed reviewers have said.
You Purple Rain obsessers were upset from 'Around The World...' and every sequential release by Prince, and you call yourselves fans?
When I first heard of this album, I was said to myself 'Oh my god! 36 tracks!' and I couldn't have been happier. Prince's work lies both in the regions of quality and quantity. He could sneeze a b-side good enough to be a single.
I can't stand people calling this album 'overwhelming'... geez, just take the music in song by song, and you'll be able to appreciate all there is. This isn't the era of records, people can make big albums now, and finally someone is embracing the fact.
Some of the tracks are a bit lacking, sure, but there's enough material on here to satisfy everyone's tastes. I personally enjoy his electronic-oriented pieces, so I give this album a good plenty spins. In comparison, I'd say the music sounds/feels like a lot like Gold Experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of these tracks were rejected from that project, not to say of course that they were bad, but GE is basically a concept album, so you can't expect everything to fit into it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This? Indulgent?
Comment: This three-hour, thirty-six song triple album is my favorite Prince release - and yes, I've heard Purple Rain, Sign o' the Times, 1999 and Dirty Mind. All are good to great. This tops 'em all. Think of it like this: 36 tracks, and out of the 36, one filler. Holy frig.
The best thing about Emancipation, other than the song quality (which is very high) is the variety. Prince touches on several styles of music here: funk (Jam of the Year, Get Yo Groove On, We Gets Up, Damned if I Do, In This Bed I Scream, Sex in the Summer, Joint 2 Joint, Slave, Emancipation), ballads, sometimes with huge climactic endings (The Holy River, my favorite Prince song EVER, Let's Have a Baby, I Can't Make U Love Me, Friend Lover Sister Mother/Wife, Soul Sanctuary, with an amazing falsetto, Saviour, a stunning religious song), old-school R&B (La-La-La Means I Love You, Betcha By Golly Wow - both covers of Philly Soul classics given stunning rearrangements), rap (Da Da Da, the only loser, White Mansion, Style, emale), even a bit of big-band jazz (Courtin' Time) and house music (most of disc 3). How many other artists have released an album this varied? Not even The White Album reaches that level of variety, though it comes close. (This is a bit of an aside, but the only artist I can think of who's explored more styles than Prince is Zappa). He even makes What If God Was One of Us sound good, okay? Yes, the same What If God Was One of Us that inspired all kinds of parodies, from the Bob Rivers parody right down to my cousin's version, "What if I was one of us!" I thought that song was a piece of toxic waste until I heard Prince's cover. Good stuff.
Yet another reason why I love Emancipation is because of Prince's musicianship. He plays most of the instruments, as always: Guitar, bass, keyboards and drums, as well as obviously singing, and his guitar solos throughout are well worth listening to. Every guitar solo is good.
What can I say? Prince is the man. This might cost you quite a bit (then again, because of the joy of used record stores I got my copy for a mere $11.99 - a bargain!) This is a concept album of sorts, or at least the second disc is, as it deals with Prince's marriage and how happy he was with it. I like the music Prince makes when he's happily married.
Another point I'd like to make is that I love this album's liner notes. If there's a Grammy award for "best liner notes", I hope this took the '96 award home.
P.S. My absolute favorite songs on it are Jam of the Year, Get Yo' Groove On, Courtin' Time, Betcha By Golly Wow!, We Gets Up, Mr. Happy, In This Bed I Scream, Sex in the Summer, Dreamin' About U, Joint 2 Joint, The Holy River, Let's Have a Baby, Saviour, The Plan, Friend Lover Sister Mother/Wife, Slave, The Human Body, La-La Means I Love You and Emancipation. And that's just the metaphorical tip of the figuarative iceburg.
Customer Rating:
Summary: PRINCE'S BEST ALBUM SINCE SIGN O TIMES
Comment: This album is 3 hours of the most creative, catchy, and lyrically prolific music from the Artist since Sign O Times.
This album will keep you jamming for hours...
Favorite Tracks:
1. Jam of The Year
2. Friend, Sister, Lover, Mother/Wife
3. Face Down
4. Somebody's Somebody
Those are just my personal favorites, but the album is packed with great music!
Customer Rating:
Summary: IF AMERICA COULD EMANCIPATE OURSELVES TOO FROM OUR OWN CORPORATE SLAVEOWNERS
Comment: .
LIKE THE PASSIONATE PRINCELY PURPLE PUNCTUATION
POINT
Triple disk
First disk:Ain't nothing but a party
The first disc is pure party music uptempo joyful in its emancipation from the Warner monopoly
Hendrix had to take the hard way out of his contract with
Warners- death. THe orignial gangster way
THe Purple Punctuation legalized it, and here are his basement tapes and rooftop rave-ups that he kept hiding while cranking out contractual
obligations for Warners like the very dark Come. Now he is free and happy and the first disc ain't nothing but a party and that won't do you no harm; it's all upscale party music, including the Manhattan Transfer style
Courtin Life. In fact, like Musicology this whole trip shows Mister Nelson experimenting and mastering several different pop and jazz styles
THe second disk is more like soft rock, soft ballads,and folk country rock. Take a listen to Holy River. SOunds like a seventies uptempo pseudo-Bob Dylan. Hear it again. What's that song it sounds like, only here better? And on that second disc: The final cut. Keep that one roilling all
night long: Friend Sister, mother wife great song the more you hear the more you hear and then the great green mother sea. See all things, my brother. Oh,yeah, and his favorite prom night covers: BEtcha ByGolly Wow
(the hard techno angry disk three is relieved by Lalalalala means I love you). Also folkrock. Think I'll rest and hear it again.
Disc three is a trip, angry loving, lovely, check it all out. IN fact it is hard to characterize each disk as Prince never settles into one groove but jumps from one to the next- variety, and masters them all. Side three starts with three strong techno rock tunes that shook the world
six years ago but feel old now. But hear the words to Slave and you will understand. SOunds like Amistad all over again.
HEar and smile with Style, pure poetry of metaphor, and the pothead guy responding correctly to the passing taxi cab. But great metaphor throughout.
Prince is a genius and a master of word and music. Great vocabulary, and I do not see any need to mark this album "explicit" Ain't nothing here your mama don't know.Nothing you won't find in JAmes JOyce, not even that strong, and he got banned in NEw YOrk.
Then DADADA is a whole lot better than the title indicates, making you think of those recent wordless dance tunes. This is a guest speaker telling the truth about our reality today, a young man looking for a job in the face of no hope. Prince's half of the rap comes back with the only hope lies in love, which leads to the next two hymns.The next two tunes One of Us and the Love You Make are really powerful Theology. Listen to them again. One of Us reports the incarnation of Love among us.Try listening to the Other without crying. THe Love you make is pure slow
gospel with killer guitar (how that little man play such good tasteful powerful restrained guitar?? ANd with no producer to hold him?) Cry this song and have a spiritual rebirth. Keep it on all night long and you
will wake up free and refreshed and renewed in the spirit of love. SEriously It's title by the way indicates this side parallels the final BEatles album Abbey Road, as this is the final punctuation point album. Starts out rocking and ends up even more meaningful and melodic How is this guy producing himself without getting self-indulgent, but always
professional and masterfullike no one since the first or second Hendrix album? But mastering ALL the instruments, and the lyrics,always a riot, a joke.
Check out the "pothead" onStyle, the funniest song there is, but also the most,well, stylish Some great music to make babies by, and read the linernotes, which are half the fun, like back in thesixties. Prince has an incredible vocabulary musically, instrumentally, as well as literacy and politically. And here he's just glad to be free, and alive, and kissing. Watch out you might learn something here. Feels more heartfelt and angry than the more matureand settled (but still cranking) Musicology, but he was still a younger man here. Now if we could only emancipate the entire USA from the Bechtel-Halliburton-GOP-military-health
care corporation, we might just get happy too.
Meanwhile turn on disk one. Ain't nothing but a party, baby. How's
Prince do it all? They never got him hooked and burned out on drugs? He cleverly mentions addictionshere, but only as another metaphor for love.And of course "Let's get out of here: I smell like an ashtray" When's
the last time you heard that old joke? somewhere hidden in there is a great curtis mayfield kinda song Curtis MAyfield style vocals. I could've sworn that was a later Curtis tune he was cranking.
THat techno-rock Human Body must have kept a whole lot of joints shaking
the walls in lower Manhattan six years ago. Feels a little dated now, but there's plenty here for everyone- a triple disk at this price? Why buy anything else?
Basically this disk is an excuse for the final Christian ROck stadium anthem The Love YOu Make. Play it all night long and you will see the punctuation point play something from the heart (or not?). THe rest is his usual irony and humor, like White Mansion- funny stuff about capitalist corporate music - what- no publishing rights? ANd that sanctuary song- well that just gets goofy towards the end. Dig it.
But give another listen or a thousand times to that Holy River on Disc Two ("II") and you would swear, with Love You Make, that this is a Christian rock countrified album. I can't believe he's being ironic here. IT sounds real, a call to conversion to You KNow Who, and leave behind the things that make you cry. Listen deep to this one, and step back for rapture at the end as the Dickie Betts Southern Rock double guitar tears it up. Check out the Dylan voice, as he too was famous for his rebirth in Christianity, and so gave the Purple Punctuation Point permission to craft his own songs around the same theme. Prince pays props where due.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Prince's first album after leaving Warner Brothers. Originally released in 1996, this three CD set runs exactly three hours which easily makes it one of the longest albums of all-new original material ever released by a popular artist. Long deleted in the States. Standard triple jewel case. EMI.
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