emancipation should've been one good disc with about 17 songs. instead, it was three disappointing discs with 36 tracks. it was released in 1996, just a few months after chaos and disorder which was his final album for warner bros. the album was supposed to be a celebration of prince's new life as a married man and expectant father, as well as a free man fresh off the warner bros. plantation. instead emancipation is just prince trying to prove he's happily married and overjoyed to be finished with his contractual obligations and all the music on emancipation was tied up until it found freedom on three discs. despite his intent, it ended up coming off as an ego trip on a forked road.
disc two was supposed to be the mayte/baby album, prince's expression of how in love he was with mayte and how glad he was to be having a baby with her, but it's some of the most uninspired work he's ever done. it's painful to sit through and i'm still recovering from the one time i did it. the most beautiful and most inspired song on disc two wasn't even written by prince and that's "soul sanctuary" which was penned by singer and former warner bros. labelmate, sandra st. victor. she scored a big hit "ghetto heaven" with her band, the family stand, in 1990.
another indicator of prince's lack of inspiration is in all of the mediocre remakes on emancipation. in "betcha by golly wow" he even says, "sometimes a man can't find words to express all the things he feels inside. but every just so often the words of another who's truly in love, seem to work out fine" what?! the man who wrote "private joy," "the beautiful ones" and "joy in repetition" is using someone else's words to express being in love? that's a cop-out.
then there's "eye can't make u love me," "la la la means eye love u" and "one of us" which are on disc one and three, respectively. while "eye can't make you love me" and "la la la means eye love u" are pretty forgettable, "one of us" is actually pretty good. but pretty good is just as bad as saying horrible when it comes to a musician of prince's caliber.
on the upside, emancipation has some great dance tracks like "courtin' time," "the human body," "face down," "style" and "sleep around." the mid-tempo grooves are pretty fantastic, too: "somebody's somebody," "white mansion," "damned if eye do" and "in this bed eye scream"--which shows more vulnerability and honesty in its nearly six minutes in length than the entire 60-minute disc two does, and it was inspired by ex-bandmates wendy & lisa and ex-girlfriend (and wendy's twin sister), susannah!
prince would've had a better chance of having a proclamation to make with emancipation if he would've just taken all the filler out of his speech first.
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