Prince – BET Lifetime Achievement Award 06/27/2010
Introduction
In 2010 I hadn’t seen Prince play live for almost 8 years. That was about to change. He was scheduled to perform on July 10th in Werchter, Belgium. That day the new Prince album 20Ten would be released as well. Excitement all around!
Prince
The last time I had seen Prince play live was on November 3, 2002, at Nighttown in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, during an aftershow as part of the phenomenal One Nite Alone… Tour 2002. A night to remember. In 2007 Prince performed an astonishing 21 nights in London, but I wasn’t there. I didn’t have the time, the money and wasn’t particularly impressed with the band he had brought along.
The music he had released since my last concert was mixed. Xpectation (2003) was a bit mundane, I personally loved C-Note and N.E.W.S. (2003), but that’s up for debate in Prince circles. The twin release of The Chocolate Invasion and The Slaughterhouse (2004) was okay. The first big commercial release in years came in 2004 with Musicology, a disappointing release. Two years later Prince surprised with the great and exciting 3121, only to release Planet Earth a year later, one of the most terrible albums of his entire career. In 2009 the Lotusflow3r three album set followed, of which 1 album was truly great.
Prince – Werchter Boutique 07/10/2010
On April 22, 2010, ticket sale for the Prince show in Werchter, Belgium, under the moniker Werchter Boutique, commenced. I acquired tickets and was psyched. Finally, after all those years, another Prince show! On June 24, DrFunkenberry, a person and website Prince regularly used to publish news, announced that Prince would release a new CD on July 10, 2010 (the day of the show), called 20Ten.
Extra! Extra! Prince To Release New CD Via Newspaper; WB Update
Prince’s new CD 20Ten (some title) will be released first through a Belgium newspaper on July 10. An interview took place with the newspaper which teases the release.
Other newspaper deals may follow as deals were trying to be reached. Warner Bros. was mentioned as releasing the CD to other countries not participating in the newspaper giveaway. More than likely that means the U.S. as when he did the giveaway before, the U.S. was not part of it.
As we previously reported, Prince met with Warner Bros. Records on Tuesday, and the distribution deal appears to already be in place. We have learned what was discussed was the deal, but also something else. So, this distribution deal could actually lead to something else. Hmm. I still want a live DVD.
Tuesday night, Prince attended a show by Cassandra Wilson in Hollywood. As we mentioned before, he is in town for the BET Awards this Sunday where he is receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, but is not performing.
© DrFunkenberry, 06/24/2010
Het Nieuwsblad 07/10/2010
Even though the announcement proved not to be 100% accurate, particularly the part about the cont(r)acts with Warner Bros. turned out to be inaccurate, a new album was underway. Preceding the concert and the album the English The Daily Mirror published a Prince interview on July 5, 2010, containing a number of remarkable quotes.
The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.
The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.…
people, especially young people, don’t have enough God in their lives
…
It’s what I always dreamed of when I was a young musician, playing in the basement. Music is my life. It’s my trade. If I can’t get it out of my head I can’t function. Someone told me they saw me at my peak, but how do they know when my peak is? I think I’m improving all the time. When I listen to my old records I’m ashamed of how I played then.
…
Playing electric guitar your whole life does something to you. I’m convinced all that electricity racing through my body made me keep my hair.
© The Daily Mirror, 07/05/2010
Once again, Prince came off as a recluse with no clue as to what was really going on in the world. The remark “The internet’s completely over” was particularly critisized and ridiculed in the (inter)national press.
Concert (Prince 20TEN Tour)
The concert in Werchter was part of the 7 day Prince 20TEN Tour. The show was as much of a letdown as it was great. It started off slowly. The expected turn-out far exceeded the actual number of people that showed up. The terrain could house about 65,000 people, and ‘just’ 37,000 showed up, despite an elaborate campaign in Belgium and The Netherlands, raffling/giving away 6,120 tickets. The weather wasn’t exactly helpful, thunder, rain and lightning took hold of the evening. But there were some magical moments. Purple Rain in the pouring rain was moving. Prince played Mountains (!), a personal favorite. Prince really gained momentum when the fourth (and final) encore was underway with a steamy rendition of Musicology (the song). A decent score, but it was too little too late, and the show could have used some more magic.
Prince – 20Ten – Newspapers 07/10/2010
Newspapers
And then there was the album. Again, Prince opted for a remarkable strategy. On July 15, 2007, he first released Planet Earth as a free bonus with English newspaper Mail On Sunday. Following the free edition, the album received a regular release, making it available for retail sales.
The 20Ten release followed the first step, making it available in a few newspapers in Europe, but a follow-up worldwide release never materialized. It was released on July 10, 2010, as a CD appendix to English newspaper The Daily Mirror, Scottish newspaper The Daily Record and the Belgian newspapers Het Nieuwsblad and De Gentenaar. On July 22, the German Rolling Stone magazine and French Courrier International followed.
Prince – 20Ten
Album (20Ten)
The day of the Belgium show Edward bought 20 (!) copies of the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, which contained the free CD. I was rest assured, a copy would come my way soon! 20Ten is the 35th Prince studio album, an album that harked back at the 1980s sound. Prince had done everything himself again (except horns and background vocals).
Highlight (and hidden track) Laydown contains the funny remark “From the heart of Minnesota / Here come the purple Yoda”. By and large, the rest of the album sounds rather static and has a kind of throwaway quality. The album cover is indiciative of the lack of commitment/passion the overall release exuded. Maybe that’s the reason the album never received an official release.
The songs on the album were recorded between the summer of 2009 and early 2010 at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios, which saw Prince using the old trusted Linn LM-1 drum computer (just like he did on MPLSound, released a year before).
The 20Ten release was limited to the aforementioned 6 one-time publications. As a result, the album was never officially available in the US. On October 8, 2010, Prince was interviewed by French radio station Europe 1, where he stated he contemplated releasing an edited version entitled 20Ten Deluxe. According to rumors, that release was to contain a couple of extra songs. Little is known about this album version and it was never actually released.
Prince – 20Ten – CD
Review
As stated before I wasn’t that psyched about a new Prince album, those days were in the past. The (20)00s had provided just four interesting albums: The Rainbow Children, C-Note, 3121 and Lotusflow3r. The second half of 1990s hadn’t exactly fared that much better (The Truth was a fine album though). The pinnacle for new music was the 1980s, where Prince seemed to top himself every year from 1980 to 1988, and a creative explosion from 1993 to 1995.
But, hope always remained, this time was no exception. The opening song (Compassion) was a bad start, but it unfortunately accurately introduced the album. Weak, non-descript music, that added nothing, truly nothing at all, to Prince’s body of work. It actually impaired it. It was ‘music by numbers’, Prince didn’t seem to care that much anymore.
The headline of Tony Parsons’ review in The Daily Mirror, one of the newspapers that carried the free CD, was downright ludicrous: “This is his best album for 23 years”. To compare this album in any way with Sign O’ The Times is nothing less than sacrilege.
Barring the songs Future Soul Song, Lavaux and hidden track Laydown, the album is quickly forgotten and an insult to the general public and Prince fans in particular. Three ok songs (out of ten) results in the rating:
Prince – 20Ten – Back cover
Songs
All songs written by Prince.
- Compassion
- Beginning Endlessly
- Future Soul Song
- Sticky Like Glue
- Act Of God
- Lavaux
- Walk In Sand
- Sea Of Everything
- Everybody Loves Me
- Laydown (hidden track)
Officially, Laydown is the 77th track on the CD. Tracks 10 to 76 are nothing more than 5 to 6 seconds of silence.
Musicians
- Prince – all vocals and instruments, unless stated otherwise
- Shelby J. – vocals on Compassion, Beginning Endlessly, Future Soul Song, Sticky Like Glue, Act Of God, Everybody Loves Me, Laydown
- Liv Warfield – vocals on Compassion, Beginning Endlessly, Future Soul Song, Sticky Like Glue, Act Of God, Everybody Loves Me, Laydown
- Elisa Dease – vocals on Compassion, Beginning Endlessly, Future Soul Song, Sticky Like Glue, Act Of God, Everybody Loves Me, Laydown
- Maceo Parker – saxophone on Compassion
- Greg Boyer – trombone on Compassion
- Ray Monteiro – trumpet on Compassion
After 20Ten
After the release of the album the Prince 20TEN Tour came to a close in late July. Two months later, it was announced that Prince would return that very same year with a new tour, Prince Live 2010. The band was revamped, the setlist was changed up and the entire vibe of the shows was turned around. This (European) tour lasted for a month and was like a breath of fresh air. The shows sparkled, Prince was in a great mood and the two shows I witnessed were both of an exceptionally high level. Not one 20Ten song was played…
It would take Prince 4 years before he released new music again, the diptych PLECTRUMELECTRUM and ART OFFICIAL AGE.
In closing
What’s your opinion on 20Ten? Let me know!
Video/Spotify
This story contains an accompanying video. Click on the following link to see it: Video: Prince and 20Ten, the story of the Purple Yoda. The A Pop Life playlist on Spotify has been updated as well.
