Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic is the twenty-third studio album by Prince (his stage name at the time being the love symbol he created). Featuring a radio-friendly sound, the album was conceived as a return to commercial success after several years without significant public attention. However, the album received only modest sales, mixed reviews, and is generally viewed by fans as one of Prince's weakest efforts.
The album's first single, "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold", achieved modest success, peaking at number 63 on the Hot 100. Though Prince's duet with Gwen Stefani, "So Far So Pleased", was considered to be a single, plans were halted when No Doubt's label refused to grant permission (fearing it would confuse fans since the band's album, Return of Saturn, was about to be released).
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| The A.V. Club | (favorable) |
| Entertainment Weekly | B− |
| NME | (2/10) |
| Q | |
| Robert Christgau | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Village Voice | (mixed) |
| Yahoo! Music | (favorable) |
Read more about Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic: Track Listing, Chart Positions
Famous quotes containing the words rave, joy and/or fantastic:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervishlike repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstacy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)