Customer Reviews

Lovesexy

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I hated "Lovesexy" when it first came out in the spring of 1988. Following the tremendous "Sign O the Times," I thought "Lovesexy" was a big disappointment and was too quirky for my taste. But, as a stand-alone album, this CD is a fine effort that has its strokes of brilliance. Yes, there's the Top Ten "Alphabet St.," but my singles of choice are the severely underrated "Glam Slam" and the beautiful yet underrated "I Wish U Heaven." Other funked-up gems are the title track and "Dance On." Prince never releases the album you'd expect him to make. He's always two steps ahead of the game and continues to challenge us with interesting material. Again, I didn't care for "Lovesexy" when it came out, but over the years it grew on me and it's now become one of my favorite Prince albums.

Lovesexy is perhaps Prince's greatest cd ever. In this album, he takes the listener on a spiritual journey with God and sex, without sounding condescending or preaching. The listening experience is smooth and funky. There are nine tracks on the album, but Prince put them all into one track (that lasts 45 minutes with all 9 songs) because he didn't want people to skip tracks while he was listening, but rather hear the album as a whole. I don't mind that at all, its great to listen to the album the whole way through.

Highlights on the album include Alphabet St., a funky little number that will keep you singing and dancing. Dance On, which will have you doing just what the title implies. Lovesexy which is perhaps my fave track, beautiful song. When 2 R In Love which is a classic Prince ballad. And more.

This is a must have for any fan of music. Lovesexy takes you on a musical journey through God and sex, and does it very well. This is one of the best albums I've ever heard, it is often overlooked by critics but it is one of his best, most solid albums ever.

"Welcome to the New Power Generation . . . the reason why my voice is so clear is because there's no smack on my brain."

With those words, Prince kicked off one of the most exhilirating and mesmerizing LP's in recent memory. Armed with funky bass lines, horn riffs, guitar licks, clever lyrics, and supreme confidence and openness, Prince puts out a new message of spirituality and love.

The 9 tracks of Lovesexy are nearly flawless. I could rave about each of them all day, but a few stand out in my mind. The first track, "Eye No" is the perfect marriage of gospel soul and JB's funk, with a clear, terse message of faith ("Eye No there is a heaven/eye no there is hell/listen 2 me people/I've got a story to tell/eye no there was confusion lightnin' all around me/that's when I called His name/don't u know he found me.") "Alphabet St." is a timeless pop ditty infused with sly sexual inunendo. "Dance On" features fierce drumming and some great social commentary on drugs and gangs. The title track is pure joy, with some great synths and horns. "When 2 R in Love," a holdover from the Black Album, is a classic, minimalist Prince "slow jam." As with "Sign," Prince explores a wide variety of topics on these tracks, but the pace and flow of the LP tends to bring them all together into one masterpiece.

I truly believe that, along with "Purple Rain," "Sign O' The Times," and "1999," this is one of Prince's landmark albums. Unlike other LP's, Prince is unequivocal about his views on spirituality, and begs the listener to join in on the fun. He still uses Lovesexy imagery in his current music ("New Power Generation," "NewPowerSoul"). Thematically, the album has endured.

Two years after releasing "Lovesexy," Prince said of the LP, "you either had a mind-blowing experience or you didn't." Well, I did. And while I cannot fathom some of the other reviews on this site (James Brown imitations? "Eye No" being one of the "worst" Prince songs? HUH?), reasonable minds can disagree. Sure, the album cover isn't the best (I think the LP would have gone platinum with another cover), and the 1-track CD is supremely annoying, but I can live with that. Hopefully, you will too. Buy this album.

LoveSexy is my fave Prince album of all time. And definitely in the top 5 best Prince albums of all time. I have worn out this album on cassette, vinyl and cd. I am so glad for MP3's now. AnnaStesia is my fave Prince song all time, GlamSlam is incredible and Positivity always puts me in a great mood. I Wish U Heaven is great both lyrically as well as musically. Love is God--God is Love. Girl and Boys Love God Above. A must for any True Prince Fanatic.

MonicathePRINCEFAM69

Definitely in the top 10 Prince albums. Of course, the goofy sequential tracks kind of damper the fun. I want to listen to Alphabet St., not Eye No!!

Anyways, I figured out what the times are for each track, so it's useful if you want to fast-forward to said time or to split them apart via Audacity or some other mp3-editing software.

A1 Eye No 5:47
A2 Alphabet St. 5:38
A3 Glam Slam 5:04
A4 Anna Stesia 4:56
B1 Dance On 3:44
B2 Lovesexy 5:48
B3 When 2 R in Love 4:01
B4 I Wish U Heaven 2:43
B5 Positivity 7:15

I'm revisiting this album now as I'm adding the tracks to my internet radio station (BlackLight Radio, if you care), and decided to see how others felt about the album.

A couple of things you should know about me: I'm a huge Prince fan, but I DO believe he can do wrong, I think The Black Album was one of the worst albums of his career ("Prince" being the other), I like old and new Prince, Sign O The Times was NOT the masterpiece I hear everybody else here saying it was (should have been one album instead of cramming all the lesser cuts on it to make it a double), and... I'm a Lovesexy fan.

Yes, as a teenager it was hard going to the mall to buy this album with this arresting cover, but I'd heard Alphabet St on the radio and knew I had to have it NOW. I'd bought every other Prince album as it came out starting with Around The World In A Day, why stop now? :-)

I admired that he made it one long CD track at the time, but over the years that has come to annoy me as much as it has others here. I get to craving I Wish U Heaven but don't listen to it because it's too darn annoying to get to.

Some complained about the "electronic" elements. I get the impression Prince didn't care HOW you made a noise, as long as it was an INTERESTING noise. The album has a very "punchy" sound to it, but to my ears there's lots of space between notes and strikes ("gonna drive ya... t'Tennessee..") to make it very listenable. It's clean, clean clean! It doesn't say it's a digital master, but hiss is just not there.

I also heard about companints about the album sounding "thin." Wow.. go back to ATWIAD! THAT was a thin album. This has a lot of really DEEP bass, and it's the first time I can remember hearing him use the ultra-low stuff. The bigger the system, the better this sounds.. and TIGHT bass, too, not this boomy BS that passes today for bass.

Somebody described this as a backyard cookout at Paisely Park, and to me that's the best description. Prince is downright giddy on this album, just so darn happy with life and the universe and love that you can't help but join him in his "Snoopy dance." Even Anna Stesia seems to celebrate the constant craving Prince is feeling in the lyrics.

"You are my God / I am your child.. for you I shall be WILD!"

Many seem to really like Glam Slam, which I find difficult to understand. It's a lame play on words, and the music is only moderately catchy... it and Eye No to me are the weakest tracks.

My favorite tracks are Alphabet St, Anna Stesia, and I Wish You Heaven.

This album is not his masterpiece, that would be Purple Rain. However, this is a VERY good album that is not only good music, but music that is interesting sonicly and lyrically. Please, if you enjoy Prince, do yourself a favor and get this album! It's fantastic.

...Then again, what do I know... I think his new album 3121 is a return to the "old" Prince, and it made me smile the first time I heard it...

Of all time? Yep. No one paid attention when Prince produced this transcendent pop/funk/gospel/r&b sensation. What else is there to say other than, "It's really great, buy it today."

If you only know Prince from "Purple Rain" - or worse, as the "1999" guy - this CD will baffle, frustrate, and enrage you, in that order. Only after you have digested the increasing complexity of "Parade" and "Sign O The Times" will you be able to appreciate this astonishing record - arguably the greatest ever made by this musical titan.

What makes it so extraordinary is its purity. There are no concessions made to radio programmers, Warner Brothers executives, or anyone else. As a result, what you have here is a perfect musical portrait of the inside of Prince's head - a strange, spiritual, and, needless to say, very sexy place. Going inside will, of course, prove a disorienting experience. But once you get the lay of the land, after ten plays or so, you will find, as most of the comments here report, that it's a blissful and uplifting place to be.

This album is wrongly overlooked by most critics. Prince, already riding high after the success of Sign O' The Times, went into the studio and churned out the Black Album, probably the most famous unreleased album this side of the Beach Boys' Smile.

For whatever reasons, personal and/or spiritual, Prince shelved the Black Album forever, and instead produced Lovesexy, adding only "When 2R In Love" from the Black Album to this masterpiece.

Obviously Prince's best album is Purple Rain. That's a given. But in my mind, Lovesexy is his second-best album, beating Sign O' The Times and Dirty Mind by a hair. Lovesexy is his busiest album ever, as Prince threw in everything but the kitchen sink into this record just to see what he could cook up. Gorgeous vocal harmonies, mind-blowing guitar jams, funky bass lines, the masterful Sheila E. on drums and a tight, tight horn section -- all just swirling in and out of nine different songs. Yet these songs flow from one to the next seamlessly and flawlessly.

I hope that with time, critics will come back to this album, because history thus far has given Lovesexy the shaft! It's certainly better than Diamonds And Pearls, or Parade, or Controversy.

Finally, I respectfully disagree with the customer who called this his last great album. He had one more left in him -- The Gold Experience.

I bet we'll see more great albums before he's through.

Prince once commented that, with this album, you either had a mind-blowing experience or you didn't. Count me among the former. While not as groundbreaking as Purple Rain, Sign O' The Times, or 1999, Lovesexy is an exhilirating 45 minutes of spiritual and exhuberant funk. "Eye No," with its pounding bass line and funky horn arrangement, is one of the most awesome Prince tracks ever. "Alphabet St." is, like Raspberry Beret, timeless and uniquely funky. The album also contains some great uptempo cuts such as "Dance On" and the title track. The listener can really tell that Prince is having fun and believes in his spiritual message. I truly believe that the silly controversy over the album cover, and the public's cool reception of the album, changed the course of his career. I hope that, as time goes on, both Prince fans and music fans will recognize the genius of this album.