Prince - Graffiti Bridge

A mixed bag

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3QSCS6IQG5F6W My name is Jeremy Gloff. I am a musician (check me out on Amazon!) and retro music enthusiast. If you enjoyed this review make sure to check out my Amazon user profile to check out my other reviews. I am always up for making new friends and discussing the music I love!!! November 25, 2008

Highly underrated

One of the biggest disappointments of GRAFFITI BRIDGE--the movie--was that many of the great songs on this album weren't even in it. Flashback to 1990: The CD was released that summer, but the movie didn't come out until November. "Thieves in the Temple" was the lead single, a well-written rock number that called to mind "When Doves Cry."

The first 5 tracks offer everything you could want from a Prince record: Rock (Can't Stop This Feeling I Got), funk (New Power Generation), a sense of humour (Release It), blues (The Question of U) and psychadelic pop (Elephants and Flowers). Things do start to take a detour of sorts when the Purple One lets the guest stars take center-stage, though. Tevin Campbell, Mavis Staples, and The Time are all talented artists. But their contributions here pale in comparison to what the Man himself had to offer.

The exception is the George Clinton duet, "We Can Funk." Stepped in a classic p-funk groove, the track offers up some of Graffiti Bridge's most salacious lines: "You know the Karma Sutra?/I could re-write it/With half as many words." Or my personal favorite, as the song begins to fade: "People tell me I got no taste/Blow the candle out. . .we'll see if it's true."

There's really no defending the MOVIE Graffiti Bridge, an amateurish vanity project that only about 14 people even bothered to see in the theatre. But the album has much to offer, and is worth another listen.
July 30, 2008

This Album is a Complete Train-Wreck for Prince

For the most part, Prince would have one of the most successful decades of any artists. Despite a couple of low points (the commercial failure of the movie "Under the Cherry Moon" and poor sales of the "Lovesexy" album), Prince would achieve a great amount of commercial success and even more critical acclaim. At the center of this success was "Purple Rain". Prince's "Purple Rain" was a surprise success at the box office and prove to also garner critical acclaim. At the same time, the soundtrack of the "Purple Rain" album would prove to be one of the true landmark albums of all time. With a successful decade under his belt and plans for the sequel to "Purple Rain", there was much anticipation for both the movie and the associated soundtrack. These hopes would be completely dashed when 1990's "Graffiti Bridge" was released. "Graffiti Bridge" would serve as the sequel to the movie and become a complete disaster from both a commercial and critical standpoint. While something similar happened with "Under the Cherry Moon", the "Parade" soundtrack to that album would still prove to be successful. Such was not the case with the "Graffiti Bridge" soundtrack. In a nutshell, except for a few good points, this album was also a complete train-wreck.

Much of Prince's 1980s's success proved around the "The Minneapolis Sound". "The Minneapolis Sound" contained a mixture of Funk, Pop, R&B, and Rock. Prince was largely responsible for being a contributing architect to this sound movement. Following the success of "Purple Rain", the follow-up albums would go in different directions. Subsequent albums would introduce psychedelic elements ("Around the World in a Day"), a European influence ("Parade"), and even some Hip-Hop ("Sign O' The Times"). For the most part, "Graffiti Bridge" returns to the classic "Minneapolis Sound". There is a "gospel" element toward the end of "Graffiti Bridge" and I also think Prince pushes the Hip Hop element some more. However, just because he maintains and expands the "Minneapolis Sound" doesn't mean it's very good. For the most part, the album disappoints overall.

One big difference from this album compared to "Purple Rain" is that "Graffiti Bridge" is a true soundtrack. "Purple Rain" only contained Prince's contributions to the film (and didn't contain music from The Time or Apollonia). On "Graffiti Bridge", there are non-Prince songs included - such as the music of the Time, Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell (his first break through album), and George Clinton.

There are four tracks that I would term "stand out" tracks":

1."Can't Stop This Feeling That I Got": On "Purple Rain", it was "Let's Go Crazy" that set the intensity and tempo of the album as the first track. I thought this song would do the same thing and I would prove to be wrong. I thought some of the Hip-Hop elements at the beginning worked, but overall this song was classic "Minneapolis Sound". I was surprised this was never even released as a single.

2."We Can Funk": Historically when Prince sings in a duet, he proves to be at his best. This particular song with Funk legend George Clinton is no exception. This might be the album's strongest contribution. Obviously from the title, this song is - Funk (well "Minneapolis Sound" style of course). The last minute of the song is unbelievable and great work by Prince and Clinton.

3."Thieves in the Temple": This song was the first single released. This song has some of the Rock elements that remind you of the "Purple Rain" days. Since this was released before the film, many thought this would be indicative of a true sequel to "Purple Rain" - but not the case. Still a very good song.

4."Graffiti Bridge": Much like the title-track of "Purple Rain" provided the emotional climax for the film and soundtrack, so does this particular title track. It is truly worthy of being the title track. This song brings a gospel element to the music, as well as an orchestral sound Mavis Staples and Tevin Campbell share lead vocals with Prince as he proves he is at his best when sharing vocals with others. Again great stuff.

Honorable mentions go to the tracks "Joy in Repetition", "Shake!" (one of the Time's four tracks), and "Still Would Stand All Time". These songs are good, but don't hold up against the four tracks above. As for the rest of the tracks, there really isn't much to say. In other words, I mention seven tracks above, yet there are still 10 other tracks that I really don't have much to say about.

With the exception of "Shake!" (good bass line), there is not much else to say about the Time's contributions. There is a long awaited duet with Prince on "The Latest Fashion" and while some "Minneapolis Sound" fans embraced this particular track, I found it to be very extremely disappointing. Tevin Campbell got some praise for his track "Round and Round", but again it didn't have me doing handstands. I would also say the same for Mavis Staples' other track, "Melody Cool". Overall, I think the theme as "not much to the other songs" is prevalent throughout the remainder of this album.

Once last point worth mentioning is the "New Power Generation" and "New Power Generation (Pt II)" songs would eventually become the name for Prince's new backing band with that name - soon to be seen on subsequent albums.

The liner notes did not contain the lyrics to these songs. Overall, with the exception of the four very good tracks and honorable mention tracks, this album has to represent Prince's low point of the career. Perhaps it is that this album has less of the Rock elements of "Purple Rain" on why this album disappoints. This would probably be the impetus for why Prince would assemble the New Power Generation band and go back to the drawing board in the 1990s. Overall, I'd recommend the tracks I mention, but not the album as a whole. May 24, 2008

Graffitti Bridge

I enjoy all of Prince - yes ALL of him ! Oops- and his music too. ;P October 3, 2007

Take It 2 The Bridge.............

I think this album would have worked better if they realeased one disc for all Prince songs, and the other disc for the varias other artists. I love all the Prince tracks, and "Round and Round", and "Shake" are the other standouts for me. But it's a mixed bag when u just wanna hear Prince and u gotta skip tracks just 2 b in the Prince vibe. There are alot of classic Prince songs on here including "Can't Stop This Feelin' I Got", "We Can Funk" (The bootleg is better, in my oppinion), "Elephants and Flowers", "The Question of U", "Joy In Repetition", of course "Thieves In The Temple", and the high school musical type number "Graffiti Bridge". This is still a classic Prince album and the only reason I'm giving it 4 stars is because of discombobulated track arrangement with the other non-Prince songs. August 24, 2007

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