There are maybe 100, maybe 1,000 ways I could finish that sentence. And when it comes to Prince, there are many more. My to-do list when it comes to his music is always so long. Even more than just his music. I've been throwing around ideas of what I can do for a book on his music and my interpretations based on my "observations" and what I know about his life at the time of the music's creation. That alone is a tall order.

I'd recently started a job at a microbiology lab as of last Tuesday. As of yet, I'm not doing what I was hired to do, but after a month or so of sterilizing equipment and creating buffers and broths for agar plates and such, I'll become a lab tech. For how long, I'm not sure. I doubt I'll be doing this forever, but it'll prove to be a great learning experience. Some skills I gain can help later on. The only downside is that it eliminates a lot of my free time and I'll definitely need that as a writer.

My time for listening to the music has been cut down to close to nothing. The last time I had heard anything Prince related was playing Playstation a couple weeks ago. I played an RPG from start to finish while playing all three discs of Emancipation.

Clearly, I had played that game way too many times if I can beat it in three hours.

On our trip to an outdoor shopping center, I brought my iPOD and for the fun of it, played three songs from each disc of Emancipation. The first three of Disc I, 4-6 on Disc II and 7-9 on Disc III. I planned to finish this attempt at incorporating an even amount of songs from each disc into one 12-song set, but hadn't played my last three picks.

1. Jam of the Year
2. Right back here in my arms
3. Somebody's Somebody
4. Emale
5. Curious Child
6. Dreamin' about ya
7. Sleep around
8. Da Da Da
9. My Computer
10. In this Bed I scream
11. ??
12. Emancipation

It's bad enough I hadn't listened through Disc III enough times to really know where I stand with it. Do I prefer it to Disc I or II or both? I'd only made my decision between the first two, but not so much on the third.

A lot of people have discussed making their own "Emancipation" album by putting their favorites from all three into one 12-song tracklist. Based on the pattern I used, I got some of the best out of all three in here. I love the "Curious Child-Dreamin' about ya" arc, combines some of the most romantic, senusual, breath-taking odes in the whole set. In my opinion, at least.

To be fair, it was strange coming back to this music. There'd been so much focus on Michael Jackson the past few days and just a few hours ago, I watched some of VH1 Classic's marathon, doing a retrospect on some of his videos. It's a three-hour special that'd been playing back to back and so on all weekend.
I'd seen a few example already of why he's such a success and also why he'd been more universally accepted than Prince. He's more mainstream, down-to-earth, and his material is more fun, easier to digest.

The two have been compared so much, but they each have one area where they will dominate the other no matter what.
Prince has been noted for his dancing back in the 80's, but nowhere near a trendsetter. After seeing the video for Michael's "Smooth Criminial," my exact words were, "he really is a bon-diggidy dancer."
Michael Jackson, as far as I can tell, hasn't mastered an instrument, let alone picked one up.
Whether or not one's music is better than the other is debatable, but I'm not about to get into that when I don't know enough about the other side for a compelling enough argument. Or rather internal dialogue.

It took a while to get used to the music again, but I started coming into it as soon as "Right back here in my arms" began. The synth-line is unbelievably good. The song doesn't really have much of a chorus, but that segment repeats enough to be called an instrumental chorus. It brings forth a complex set of emotions that even Prince can't put to words.

One interesting thing that started happening when I started getting his music, because I listen so closely, I've been picking out a lot of the instruments in the songs. Somebody's Somebody has a nice guitar line that begins it. I'd tried to find it on keyboard, but nothing matched. Then when I listened closer, I found that it sounded more like sitar than any guitar. Then in Curious Child, you get some what of a medieval "Romeo & Juliet" type vibe like in the days of Shakespeare of knights serenading damsels on balconies. I get the harpischord from that.

"Sleep around" is easily one of my favorites on disc III, which made me think of some similar tracks. Chelsea Rogers came to mind as well as Damned if I do and Get your Groove on. Somehow of a fun 70's vibe with some influences of Earth, Wind & Fire. But "Sleep Around" is a lot more uniform than the lot of them.
I need to double-check, though, how much involvement Prince had in it. According to my iPOD, it was written by Chester Thompson, but for all I know, it could be a cover or it was co-written by him.

It's things like that as well as some of the guest vocalists or samplings on a bunch of songs on this album that I'm NOT a fan of that has me thinking that I need to check out the album insert again to clear a few things up. Also out of sheer curiousity. Hadn't read through it since I first started listening to the album.
"Da Da Da" already has a few strikes against it as it is.
First of all, it's a song that's nothing but rap. This coming from someone very much opposed to the hip-hop movement, but I won't use the word "sell-out" until he does an entire album of it and puts his name on the cover.
Second of all, the title is not compose of what I would call "legit lyrics." La-la's, na-na's, doot-do's, and da-da's, all shouldn't be song titles (with the exception of them being with other regularly used words and them being in partheneses).

I get more out of "Jughead" than that song. The only highlight was maybe one section where Prince raps and his lyrics seem legit to a cause. Giving it reasoning for belonging among the other tracks, many brilliant on this album.

Every song had a purpose on the album from Prince's point of view or it wouldn't have made it to the final pressing. Part of my plan with this album when I ulimately write the review that will go in "The Word" is to find the reasoning behind the placing of each track on this album set. What purpose does each have and how does it accomplish it.
All I can get from this lyrics of the rap track is some emphasis on the whole "slave" storyline, how life is hard and you can't let it get you down. The guest rapper says a lot of things that make no sense, but those that do talk about the sign o' the times, how its hard to find employment, especially if you live in a poor neighborhood.

So far, I've written a couple reviews of Disc I and maybe two of Disc II. I have yet to do my typical best for Disc III. I might have done a very brief review and posted it, but what I need to is to start condensing the whole into one HUGE part of "The Word."

If only I had the time...