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This album has always been a spectacular world wonder. Now everyone also understands why - Walla! culture

2020-09-29T20:41:51.882Z


Prince's 'Sign' O 'the Times' album is more than the sum of his many songs. It is a purposeful display of virtuosity in production, playing and mastering every genre or instrument, every vocal octave or rhythm. Thanks to its re-release it also sounds like a shell, even on streaming, raising the question of whether this is the best album ever


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This album has always been a spectacular world wonder.

Now everyone also understands why

Prince's 'Sign' O 'the Times' album is more than the sum of his many songs.

It is a purposeful display of virtuosity in production, playing and mastering every genre or instrument, every vocal octave or rhythm.

Thanks to its re-release it also sounds like a shell, even on streaming, raising the question of whether this is the best album ever

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Nir Mammon

Wednesday, 30 September 2020, 00:04

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The eighties died thirty years ago, and their dignity as a musical decade is no longer as battered as it once was.

A little less embarrassing nowadays to love eighties, whether because of the hipster movement, or just because of the retro blossom in culture and the healthy human longing for nostalgia.

And yet, even from the height of 2020, this is accompanied by the aroma of Guilty Pleasure.

The automatic eighties image that comes to mind usually includes a variety of images that are considered ridiculous - from the sound of drum machines and synthesizers that hang around the neck like a guitar, through lasers that cut smoke clouds of machines, puffy hair and leggings, oh the leggings.



Prince was one of the greatest heroes of the eighties.

He had puffy hair, definitely.

He excelled at drum machines and even patented (real!) A guitar-like synthesizer.

His first clips also had lasers and smoke, and yes, he has a selection of great photos with leggings.

But, Prince was also the most exciting, virtuoso and cheeky musical genius this world has perhaps known since Mozart - an important, very important artist, and in a world where quality and glitter produce dissonance, it took him too long to gain recognition as such, if at all.



In real time, the Sixties, Seventies and Nineties gained musical icons that reflect "importance" and "seriousness": the boy bands of the Sixties, Beatles and Stones, reached a level of sanctity pretty quickly;

The mischievous cross-dressing of David Bowie or Elton John was perceived as a groundbreaking ideology, and the guitars of Nirvana or Pearl Jam - as a musical revolution.

Prince, on the other hand, was missed by many for whom the eighties were this annoying decade of growing over-sexual, over-extroverted, over-black, over-happy MTV heroes - interfering with the "important and good" music of yesteryear.

Just ask 190,000 Rolling Stones fans: in 1981 they were the ones who drove the frightened Prince behind the scenes, with shouts of contempt, juicy curses and tossing cans and juice cartons onto the stage, warming up Mick Jagger and his friends in two Los Angeles shows.

True, the one who put him on this stage was their protagonist, Jagger, who saw Prince perform in New York and ignite.

For him - being a true Renaissance man, it was raw and mesmerizing genius.

For his fans, those fixed white and pink-necked rockers, Prince (as well as Madonna or Michael Jackson) was a terrifying threat to the hegemony of male and very homogeneous but very heterosexual white rock.

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Renaissance man.

Prince (Photo: Estate of Prince, Jeff Katz)

Prince of course is not the only one who suffered from this approach (in the end he is one of the first and probably the few to have defeated it).

In the conservative circles of the press, such as the important rock newspaper in the world of Rolling Stone - Depeche Mode or the Fat Shop Boys were not perceived as "serious" like the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan or Pink Floyd, and eighties such as the growth of electronic music and hip hop, or the rise of MTV, were reduced. Significance compared to spilling on prog rock or punk.



In the new list of the 500 greatest albums of all time released last week at Rolling Stone, a major move of affirmative action has been made in favor of genres and colors that have previously gained the least recognition there.

With how much it feels politically correct and so fake to see hip hop suddenly get over-represented, the heart still expands when Marvin Gaye suddenly holds first place.

Just what about the eighties?

In the first hundred places you will find 32 albums from the seventies, 23 from the sixties but from the eighties only 13 (two of them belong to the prince).

For the years 2000-2020 there are also together 13 albums in the top 100, and these are the two decades that murdered the album.

The nineties are represented on 18 albums.

In the next hundred places you will find only 20 eighties albums versus 31 seventies albums, 22 nineties albums and 17 sixties albums.

Too bad there has been no lobby for decades.



Prince is pretty much the only eighties artist to have been significantly upgraded on the list, as part of a growing recognition of his importance.

Originally, the album for which we came together, "Sign 'O' the Times", won a lukewarm critique (in 1987) of Rolling Stone.

In their list of "Great Eighties" from 1989, he reached only 74th place, but in the 2000s they published a five-star corrective review.

Today, on the new list, he is already in 45th place of all time, and from the eighties albums he jumped from 74th place straight to fifth place.

"Purple Rain", by the way, was upgraded to eighth place overall and first of all eighties albums.

Prince worked hard for this honor, and it was not given to him in real time but thanks to a rich, dignified and accomplished career, which for forty years carved his way to the present iconic status of a revered godfather.

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Hall of Fame.

Prince (Photo: AP)

In real time it was hard for an eighties artist to earn a standard mark of an "important" artist, even if he is a natural phenomenon like Prince.

Even with his guitar he does not look tormented or serious like Hendrix for example.

And what will it look like?

For God's sake, he also did disco, sang on the palette and danced like James Brown.

How unfortunate that this outdated perception is what wrote the Israeli taste in the eighties-nineties, and scarred the local collective taste to this day, because we do not have a strong lobby for black music.

How can something happy, black, sexual, shimmering that sits stamp on the rhythm, even be "quality"?

For most Israelis, Prince is the one with this song, Keys, who when he gets married at weddings, even his aunt from Hadera gets up to dance.

Too few serious music lovers pay homage to Prince here, and this is also evident in the rather casual reference to his tragic and sudden death, compared to the national grief that surrounded the death of David Bowie (11 years his senior).



But things are changing here too, pop and hip hop are starting to take their place, and even RNB is here.

So maybe it's time for a fix, and maybe an exemplary, mega-influential, and spectacular album like "Sign 'O' the Times", Prince Magnum's opus and in general the groovy side of the eighties all together - will be properly considered the Hall of Fame here, alongside "Sergeant Pepper" , "Siggy Stardust" or "Dark Side of The Moon".

Yes, it is "important" enough, because already in 2020, what's more, this damned year has given us an excellent excuse to test it again, Bull when we have extra time courtesy of the God of closure.

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An inconceivable commitment to music.

Prince, 1987 (Photo: AP)

Just this week the special and highly anticipated release of this double album was released.

Until a few years ago, Prince's albums were not reissued, and "Sign 'O' the Times" was especially notorious for poor mastering quality.

Prince himself managed to reconcile with his historical label, the Warner Brothers, mainly to work on an equally necessary remaster for "Purple Rain," his most successful album (since 1984).

Work on the set did not end during his lifetime but in 2017, about a year after his death, at just 58, the box was finally released.

In its most expanded version it contained a collection of demos, B-sides, as well as a live DVD appearance.

Since then, several successful releases have been released by the company that manages the estate of Prince and the Warner Brothers.

Until now, the most significant of which is the deluxe release of the double album "1999", originally from 1982, which contained a terrifying flood of unseen and unheard-of material, and is considered a perfect box.



Either way, thankfully it was time for a respectable representation for the album "Sign 'O' the Times".

This beautiful and expensive box will probably be remembered as one of the most impressive and comprehensive special editions in the history of pop / rock.

It is spread over 8 discs or 13 records, an elegant 120-page book (on the introduction: Lenny Kravitz), and a live DVD from Minneapolis, which hosted one, Miles Davis.

In this context it should be noted that this DVD replaces the great and stylish film that accompanied the tour of the album.

It was not added to the new box because of a tangle of copyright, but it is considered by many to be one of the greatest records in the history of rock, and a must-watch for any music lover.



Even without it, Sign 'O' the Times' super-deluxe release gives a broad, in-depth and instructive look at an album that is a milestone, revealing Prince's inconceivable commitment to music, and music to Prince.

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Originally, after the release of the relatively successful album "Parade", which accompanied the (failed) film "Under the Cherry Moon", Prince launched a triangular album called "Crystal Ball", which was a project that combined several of Prince's void albums from 1986. Be with me for a moment, because The business gets a little complicated: in late '86, the hyperactive genius from Minneapolis felt a sense of exhaustion from the Revolution band that had accompanied him since about "purple rain."

Immediately after the end of the sweeping world tour that accompanied "Parade" he fired most of the band members, and in light of this he also archived "Dream Factory" - a double album he recorded in the months before that.

In most excerpts from this album an extraordinary contribution was made to the members of the Revolution (in previous albums most of the songs were written and recorded by Prince alone, playing all the instruments).

In light of turning the revolution into chilblains, the songs that relied on their contributions were placed in Prince's legendary vault, and the turbo-musician passed without blinking for the recording of his next album, "Camille."



This album was recorded entirely as if by a fictional character named "Camille", whose voice is Prince's voice but when the recording film is accelerated by a few percent, it gives the singer an androgynous and mysterious hue.

This album was also canceled, not before several copies had already been printed (for those who have one, send it to me).

The feverish Prince (while simultaneously working on several other projects, such as jazz albums, or a solo for singer Jill Jones) regretted, and aimed for a new solo album, the same triangle "Crystal Ball" mentioned above.

For this purpose, he collected a few songs from the two hidden projects, especially those not related to Revolution, but as a compulsive creator he also continued to record a song or two every day, creating an impressive collection of dozens of tracks that will definitely suffice for a pentagonal or hexagonal album.

Warner insisted on reducing it to "only" double, because of the high production costs.

Prince grumbled but removed seven songs (and added a new one, the hit single "U Got the Look") and you have "Sign 'O' the Times".

During artistic and publicity wise, the theme song, which survived from the days of "Dream Factory" (thanks to being recorded by Prince apparently), became a leader on the album and the first single.



Even without CDs or vinyls, all this goodness is currently in great remaster quality, in the preferred streaming service For you, and even on Prince's official YouTube, for free. In all of them, Prince is waiting for you to lead you with a confident and stable artist hand, with a swollen chest, and with a soul that explodes - in a thousand different explosions - to an experience no one else could, can now and will provide in the future. It's a single of independence singer, a soloist, who enjoys demonstrating all the peaks of his abilities, while at the same time exploring their limits.



Short of the album's records. What to praise? The theme song, which was not only a hit but also the first in mainstream pop, mentioned The AIDS epidemic already in his opening sentence (and of the album)? This mesmerizing song has given a final stamp that Prince is a mature and sophisticated artist with social insights and nuance control, and not just the host of the best parties in town.And what about "HouseQuake" devouring the cards James handed out Brown, with a hip-hop vibe, and with the Minneapolis sound to the soundtrack of the eighties?

Maybe talk about "Forever in My Life", the most beautiful love song ever written, until "Adore" arrives which is also the most beautiful love song ever written?

These two songs are a university for voice delivery.

The other was written - by the way, on purpose - to remind black radio stations in the US that he still knows how to do RnB. Fuck, he knows.

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Even if all of this and many others are mentioned, "If I Was Your Girlfriend" should not be missed, perhaps the most daring song Prince has ever written (and remember, the guy would go on stage shirtless, in bikini bottoms and heels with heels, and knee-length leggings).

Get the new Prince, who deals with gender games instead of sex games.

Bold, not in the sense of "rude" but in the sense of "brave".

In the text he confronts his girlfriend (in a tone that becomes more and more stressful as the song progresses, and in the androgynous voice of "Camille") with the claim that if he were a girl, she would have treated him differently.



In 1987 there was nothing trivial about an African-American, super-hetero man who fantasizes in front of his girlfriend about what it's like to be a woman, and you know what?

today also.

But Prince of 1987 insisted on challenging everything to do with defining mainstream identities.

Anyone who came across the poster or single cover of "Sign 'O' the Times" apparently saw Prince wearing a peach-colored skirt and tummy tuck, his legs clean-shaven and his sturdy hands swinging over his shoulders a large heart shape that hides his face.

In fact the character in the photo was his new dancer, the muscular CAT (Cat Glover) who was also chosen in light of the physical resemblance between the two.

According to legend, even Prince's father himself fell into the trap.



The album "Sign 'O' the Times" is more than the sum of his many beautiful songs.

It is a purposeful display of virtuosity in production, playing and mastering every genre or instrument, in every vocal octave or rhythm, in every dance step.

Thanks to the remaster it finally sounds a shell, even in streaming.

It is not a trivial change, in a work with so many musical nuances.



All of Prince's characters from his previous eight albums hit the ground running and came to play: the guitar idol from "Purple Rain" breaks strings in "The Cross" and "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" (a pop-like song that turns into a guitar solo Insane for 4 minutes, all a trip between pop-rock and jazz and back to pop).

The horniness about the programmed and minimalist punk bedding of 1999 reaches creative heights in sections like "Hot Thing" or "It".

The perfect performer, James Brown's successor, juggles a live punk piece (for the first time on Prince's album, a live piece - from a live performance with Revolution), "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night".

The girls' lovable gigolo with the big Bambi eyes gives serenades like "Slow Love".

And the adventurous loyalists with the psychedelic vision were not deprived either - they will be pampered on "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" - from the twisty and unique songs that only Prince dares to write, a kind of primitive, funky but intimate low-fife to an exciting quote from his goddess Johnny Mitchell.



If all this sounds for a moment like a supermarket of ideas and tastes, think more in the direction of a neatly oiled and focused kaleidoscope, with a premium finish (and of course Pali in exaggeration).

But if your mind still wanted the supermarket, for you just arrived the super-deluxe release of "Sign 'O' the Times", which offers tiredly laden shelves of bonus materials from the sessions of that period (1986-1987).

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Aside from a few shortened or lengthened versions of the album's songs, and two b - sides from the original singles, the materials here are all new (though many of them are familiar to discarded collectors).

The editors of the collection were given full access to the same famous safe at Paisley Park - Prince's mythical creation center in Minneapolis.

Paisley's safe was broken into after the landlord's death, and the sorting of tens of thousands of recordings, films and hard disks has not yet been completed, but has certainly reached a point that allows for the release of a comprehensive and wide-ranging collection of about 50 previously unheard songs.



If Prince himself had been asked to release these songs, he would have replied "on my dead body."

True, this is what happened in the end.

But, do not worry - these songs were not necessarily shelved because of their quality or because Prince did not like them.

Prince did not use to record demos like other artists, and the hidden songs you will hear in the collection are mostly unfinished, but they did not fit the vision and artistic message he sought to convey on this album.

They took their place in the "safe" to be pulled out of it on a future date, and put on another album.

Naturally the quality of the leftovers falls short of the level of material of the iconic album, but there are at least ten wonderful songs from the first note to the last, which together could have been one of Prince's best albums ever.



Take for example the song "Wally", which for years was considered the Holy Grail of Prince's bootlegs.

The story of "Wally" is worth an article of its own, and the version of the song that survived is the second.

The first Prince wrote and recorded out of a storm of emotions in one gloomy night, alone in the studio with technician Susan Rogers.

She described the session as a heartbreaking self-flagellation, right after Prince broke up with his fiancée Susanna.

With the cost of the morning, at the end of the squeezing session, and out of the ordinary, Prince quietly ordered Rogers to permanently delete all 24 recording channels.

Thus disappeared, she claimed, one of the most exposed and moving recordings she had ever heard.

The reissued version was recorded two days later, in other words, less personal.

Rogers says she thinks Prince deliberately burdened the song with producing more and more musical ideas, in a subconscious attempt to bury the real pain he felt.

However, this pain is still evident in every note in the song.

In the end, he felt it was still too personal, and even in his second version the song was shelved, but not deleted, thank God.

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Such out-takes show how much Prince has expanded his creative canvas during this turbulent period.

They range from uncompromising punk sagas like "Soul Psychedelcide", through experimental jazz / rock with Miles Davis' own trumpet in "Can I Play With U", first attempts at classic gospel ("Walking in Glory"), beginnings of A funky musical he designed for Broadway ("The CoCoa Boys") and even a song that is all played backwards.

There are several songs that appear in two versions, and show the mental transition from a "band" project to a solo project.

Quite a few of the hidden songs were originally written for women - four of them were offered to country singer Bonnie Wright, with whom Prince flirted at the time, one was offered to Johnny Mitchell and one to Sheila Island, his girlfriend.

The new set also features an entire performance from the Netherlands, which well documents Prince's virtuosity on stage, and also features some of the Prince's greatest hits from his previous albums.



This whole body of work, when thrown at an unprepared listener, may leave him shocked and confused.

It takes more than one hermetic lock to digest everything that happens in this box, and I too, the little one, who is very much in Prince's work, felt saturated and had a hard time swallowing it all at once.

Therefore, it is recommended - especially for those who do not know or have forgotten a bit - to focus first on the original double album.

Only after three or four listens is it worth starting to slowly crawl up the other albums.

It is clear that some of the passages are merely an anecdote, for example a version of "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" with unnecessary wind instruments.

Snoozers will find that quite a few important excerpts from the period are absent from the collection - mostly because they have already been released elsewhere.

This is how it is with Prince, his creation is an ocean, and the water is deep.



"Sign 'O' the Times" has always been a treasure.

It is a wonderful and magnificent world wonder, the Taj Mahal of modern music.

The new set not only brings it up for discussion again, it also gives a whole lot of new angles and excuses to enjoy it in 2020.

The release of this collection was accompanied by a particularly massive PR campaign, and hundreds of in-depth articles, interviews, podcasts and reviews of it have been published in recent days, in all major publications around the world.



An article in the BBC's culture section was adorned with the provocative headline - "Is Sign 'O' the Times the best album of all time?".

From the lines it is quite clear that they are a bit of a mockery of the American obsession with such lists.

Just two days earlier, Rolling Stone had put Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" at the top of their list.

But listen to a passage, in the previous list from 2003 Marvin Gaye was only in sixth place.

And Prince?

That one from the eighties with the sequins and the drum machines?

So, he did not put any album in the top 75.

Today he has two in the top 45. Have these albums changed since then?

No.

The Taj Mahal has not changed since the 17th century either.

Probably these are the signs of the times.

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Nir Mammon runs the Forever Prince website, which centers materials from all time on Prince in Hebrew, and the accompanying Facebook group.

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Source: walla

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