The Infidel

This went completely under the radar for me. Just found out about this the other day...

Remember The Family, Prince's side-project from 1985? They did the original version of "Nothing Compares 2 U" that Sinead O'Connor covered a few years later. Well, 26 years later, after occasional rumors over the last few years, they finally released a new album of music.

They're calling themselves fDeluxe now, and it's all the original members, except for Jerome Benton. But more on that in a second.

The album apparently came out last September, titled Gaslight, and they've already done a handful of shows. I downloaded the album, and it's not too bad. The website is: http://www.fdeluxe.com

Also, in trying to find out why Jerome wasn't a part of the new group, I found that the original members of The Time, including Jesse Johnson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, got back together, and THEY also are going by a different name, as well. They are now The Original 7ven, and the new album (the last being Pandemonium back in 1990) is called Condensate. It sounds pretty good, too. Go to http://www.theoriginal7ven.com

So anyway, Jellybean Johnson is part of both projects, as he was one of the original members of The Time, and was picked by Prince to be part of The Family. But for some reason, Jerome decided to sit out for fDeluxe, but is part of The Original 7ven. Go figure.

Just wondered if anyone else knew about these releases, and what you thought!

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Apparently fDeluxe doesn't have any official videos out yet, but there are some live clips on YouTube.

vili

Both albums have been mentioned here.

I really like the Original 7ven album. The fDeluxe one, a bit less. It's ok, but doesn't seem to hold my interest.

The Infidel

Guess I missed that too! My bad.

mostaccioli

why the name change?

vili

Prince owns all rights to the original names, and wouldn't allow them to be used.

The Infidel

And because he's a dick.

vili

I can kind of understand his (possible) reasoning here.

The Time albums (apart from the last one) and The Family album were practically Prince albums with only vocal overdubs from the "actual" band members. Since he wrote and performed the music, and told the band members how to sing the songs, they are fundamentally different from these new albums, which have no Prince input.

Hence, although on paper the band members are the same, the actual creative talent behind these albums is very different, and therefore these bands (under this logic) are different bands than their original counterparts.

It's still something of a dick move, but I think nevertheless an understandable one. I'm not sure if I wouldn't have made the same decision if I were in his shoes.

The Infidel

This is why I don't like the business part of music, especially where trivial things like names are concerned. Sure, he may have performed a great part of The Family's album and the first few Time albums, but the members of each group are obviously talented in their own right, having shown that in abundance over the years, and capable of performing the music themselves, so the "creative talent behind these albums" was trivial in itself.

If they wanted to use the band names, I'm sure they'd have to pay for them, and I'm sure Prince would pull another dick move and charge an incredibly exorbitant fee for them, which would make any kind of profit from their current work moot.

If they wanted to record music that he wrote, I can see where he would have something to say, but it's just a stupid band name.

DRG

By that logic, just about every pop star today would have to change their name from song to song.

vili

I certainly see where you guys are coming from, and I'm not sure if I agree with Prince's decision, either. But I think that I can understand it.

I obviously cannot speak for the man himself (and neither do I want to), but since The Time and The Family albums were practically Prince studio albums under an alias and with different vocalists, it is perfectly reasonable if Prince considers them his own artistic projects, rather than projects he did for others. In other words, he did not write those songs for the bands, but put the bands together to put out those songs.

It is true that the individuals who did the vocals and performed those albums live are themselves extremely talented, but that is sort of beside the point. I would also say that it is not the same thing when a pop star has a range of writers supplying material. Here, there was just one person doing pretty much everything, and I can understand if that person feels that should those projects be taken further without his involvement, it should be done under a different name. It's not a business decision as much as it is an artistic one.

Or so I believe. Again, I really don't know what Prince's reasons really were.

The Infidel

If Prince wanted credit for performing on those albums, he should have taken the credit, and used talentless people who weren't capable of recreating the sounds. Instead, he gathered great musicians and singers, credited them by name with the performances, and put their faces on the albums. As far as I'm concerned, the group names are theirs.

But like you said, it's not up to me.

hdtv00

Jesse Johnson has left The Time or whatever you wanna call them now. He said they just don't see eye to eye. I don't like either one of these albums really. But Jesse's last album was so great it was like a time machine back to the good music of the time period.

The Infidel

That actually makes sense now. They were making regular posts on their Facebook page right up to December 15th, the date of the announcement he was leaving, and the only other post since then was on December 31st, saying they'd be back soon.

That's okay...they should have called themselves The Original 6ix, anyhow. If you look at their first album, there was only six of them, not seven.

vili

I'm sorry to hear that Jesse Johnson has left. While I didn't really like his latest album (thanks for the recommendation though hdtv00!), I think he is an important part of the Time/7ven sound. I hope this doesn't mean another hiatus for the band.

hdtv00

Wow I can't believe you don't like his last album. Sure it's to big an album with left overs but tracks, 2,3,4,7,9,10, 12, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29 is the perfect version of the album to me. It's just to large but those tracks are good, and tracks 3,4,10 are great, better than every track on new Time and Family albums combined.

DRG

I don't think it's a bad album, but stylistically it reminds me more of the mid-90s era Prince (somewhere in that Come to Emancipation range) than the early 80s MPLS funk stuff that I consider the "classic" era. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just not what i usually associate with The Time and JJ.

Meanwhile, The Original 7ven album -- for me -- feels like it picks up right where 1990's Pandemonium left off. Of course, also not the 80s era sound, but I loved that album nonetheless so a return to that sound wasn't frowned upon by me.