- Record Label: Numero Group
- Release Date: Dec 3, 2013
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Dec 17, 2013This compilation is an undoubtedly comprehensive overview of the scene and--while perhaps a little obscure in places for the casual listener--is a dream come true for aficionados of deep cuts and rare grooves.
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Dec 17, 2013How could the scene that gave us 1999 and Control have such an underknown history where its pre-eighties R&B roots are concerned? Thanks to the deep knowledge base and research that went into Numero Group's Purple Snow compilation, it's made clear just why that is--and why, in a fairer world, it shouldn't have been the case.
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Dec 19, 2013The 30 songs follow the scene’s progression: the first half is classically minded R&B and soul that evolves on disc 2 into danceable funk, with Alexander O’Neal’s new wavey Do You Dare and Ronny Robbins’s electro-rap track Contagious.
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MojoDec 18, 2013Highlights include the Earth, Wind & Fire-esque horns and harmonies of The Lewis Connection's Got To Be Something Here and tracks by Flyte Tyme, whose singer Cynthia Johnson left for Lipps Inc and Funkytown one-hit-wonderdom, but who on this evidence clearly deserved much better, [Jan 2014. p.108]
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Dec 17, 2013While there might be a sketchy blueprint here, Prince took R&B to unknown places both musically and by integrating a bizarre personal philosophy that tried to make sense of God, sex, life, and death, but mostly sex.
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Dec 17, 2013As a work of scholarly revisionism, Purple Snow is peerless. How and why the Twin Cities helped transform Prince Nelson into the Artist remains a mystery. But this is a charming addition to the Paisley Park family.
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Dec 17, 2013This isn't Minneapolis blowing mind after mind in the mad rush, this is the groundwork, the early experiments, the demos en route to the full on experience. Drums sometimes barely sound there, mixes are merely what can be done with the tools to hand, it's not slapdash but it's not slick either.
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Dec 17, 2013Those who possess inside-out knowledge of the Prince and Jam & Lewis songbooks should be thrilled with it.
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Dec 17, 2013While it’s not quite all gold--over two CDs the listener’s resistance to slap bass and super-smooth vocals may be tested--the standard as a whole is incredibly high.
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Jan 3, 2014This two-disc set tells the story of that sound ["The Minneapolis sound"], from the proto-disco Seventies to the synthed-up Eighties.