Sign 'O The Times vs Songs In The Key Of Life

Sign 'O The Times is regared as Prince's best album. His Magnum opus. The same is said about Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life". They both are double albums with killer songs (and very little filler IMO).

Which album do you guys think is the best? "Sign 'O The Times" or "Songs In The Key Of Life"? And why.
[Edited 3/11/08 12:55pm]

Sign O The Times. Prince's best album and the great album ever.

Songs is a Great too but I don't think it's Stevie's best.

My Favorite Stevie Wonder Albums are Talking Book and Innervisons.

Stevie and Prince are two of my all-time favorites, with Stevie being No. 1 and Prince being tied with Bob Marley, depending on which way the wind blows on any given day. lol
Being as objective as I can, it's easy to determine that Songs In The Key Of Life is arguably (and it has been argued) the greatest album ever.
Both are amazing and groundbreaking albums.
Songs In The Key Of Life has no filler imo, but definitely far fewer "filler" candidates than Sign 'O The Times - and I love Sign 'O The Times.
True that they are each signature albums for both artists, but Songs In The Key is better, and as much as Sign had a great impact on music, Songs had an even greater impact.

SITKOL shits on SOTT

Hard 2 compare.
I'd say Stevie's is better but I'd rather have Prince's.

I am a huge stevie fan, but I'm shocked that anyone would say Songs in the Key of Life is better than SOTT. I doubt Stevie himself would say that. Sign O the Times the song, draws parallels to village Ghetto land or Pastime Paradise, but Sott is Way better. There is not one love song on Songs that can compare with Adore. As far as fun and live feel you would put sir Duke and I wish up against it's gonna be a beatiful Night and Play in the sunshine and SOTT wins again. Spiritually you put Have a talk with God up against The Cross and Sott wins Again. IF you want to talk funk, once gain there's nothing on Songs as funky as Housequake, and the sweet pop stuff like Summer Soft is great, but not better than the pop on SOTT like Strange Relationship. To me, there is not one second of filler on SOTT, so I don't understand the filler argument either. SOTT rules.
However, that being said, I think Innervisions was Stevie's best work. I just imagine putting that one on when it first came out and having my mind blown. I would say that Innervisions is probably just as good as Sign O the Times. Every songs in Innervisions is GREAT!!!!

Please, Songs in the Key of Life without question.

These two brilliant albums should be on anybody's top twenty of all time! They're both better than half the stuff you see in RS mags list (Sex Pistols! Don't make me laugh)

But I would agree that Innervisions is better than Songs but just barely.

And Parade (quirky cool new alternative funk) has grown into my fav P album but I would probably say that SOTT is more diverse, complex, astonishingly brilliant.

according 2 british airways, sott is 'an essential album'. mile high prince was very nice indeed.
stevie wonder wasn't on the list.

Sign O The Times gets my vote-just cuz I'm a bigger fan of Prince's than of Stevie's.

This one is tough.

OK, SOTT wins.

Key Of Life has been beautifully remastered, and that may be it's problem in this fight. Stevie's record sounds that much more "dated" and stuck in it's decade than SOTT.

If SOTT were remastered and I hadn't heard it before, I would belive it to be a new Prince record.

But shit, I'm purply biased. This aint StevieWonder.org...

Sign O The Times by a landslide. Not to say SITKOL isn't a bad album, but SOTT is just genius. Not only his best album, but my favorite album of all time.

Stevie has yet to write anything that compares to "Adore", "If I was Your Girlfriend", "Slow Love", etc

Ion said:

tough, tough one, too tough to really answer. Both great albums, I'd say each is better in different ways than the other. Songs had more great songs even counting the extra two on the diskette that came with the double set. The sound was fuller and the arrangements more developed. Sign o' the times seemed to be more innovative even though some of the songs were weak. Forever in My Life, Play In The Sunshine, The Cross could be left out of my version and i wouldn't miss them. The same cannot be said of Songs, the songwriting was much more consistent and even the breadth of styles was much more vast than on sott. However, I think that in comparing each's genius moments, sott contains more of those than songs. Just my opinion and i have no arguemente with anyone saying the opposite, two great, unusually great black albums which will never get the proper recognition.

pennylover said:

Ion said:

Sign O The Times by a landslide. Not to say SITKOL isn't a bad album, but SOTT is just genius. Not only his best album, but my favorite album of all time.
Stevie has yet to write anything that compares to "Adore", "If I was Your Girlfriend", "Slow Love", etc

I totally agree. SOTT is pure genius from beginning 2 end

SITKOL wins this quite easily, this album is just incredible..SOTT is a pretty overrated album anyway, it is not Price's most interesting or best album, play in the sunshine? Slow Love? Hot Thing? It? ...good songs ok, but not good enough to make SOTT a all time high..

maybe it could have been even better if he put shockadelica,or some of his brilliant other tracks on it, I can't understand why some of those tunes would placed sott.

Ion said:

Both albums are very similar, I can't choose one; sometimes, I think that SITKOL sounds like the 70's version of SOTT and viceversa...

Sign O The Times is the greatest of these 2,

it's 100% pure genius, a Prince masterpiece, one of the finest albums ever made,

Song In The Key is great too, but hey I'm a Prince fan for Gods sake!!!

I only rate Songs In Key 99,99% pure genius

purpleworld said:

jackson35 said:

mozfonky said:

'Songs In The Key Of Life' is the greatest album ever.Nothing compares to it.

drclay said:

jackson35 said:

Songs. easily. It's just my favourite album from start to finish, every song has meaning. no filler, unlike Sign which has a few tracks that warrant skipping.

Stevie is doing well on this thread.

SOTT.

songs in the key of life is a huge sprawling beast, yes, it's full of remarkable things, etc. etc. etc.

but, um. i just don't like it as much as SOTT, which is full of *astonishing* things. SOTT is weirder, kinkier, hipper and downright sexier in almost every way.

i'd give stevie props for a more mature and developed overall political consciousness than prince; and his lyrics are by and large better than prince's.

but prince peaked with SOTT, which contains his best songwriting, his most innovative and cohesive production, his greatest lyrics ('girlfriend', 'strange relationship'), his most confident arrangements and his best deployment ever of all the tricks at his disposal. on SOTT it all came together and it all makes sense. pure, unrushed class from start to finish.

SOTT is a colder patchwork of songs and styles, and some things on it do come across as banal to the average listener.It's also done in an off putting minimal way at first listen where repetitive snares overshadow everything at times. Of course this leads to more and more listens to see what he was getting at.

Songs is incredibly moving, much more so than SOTT.... to me. SOTT is technically inspiring, but Songs is emotionally inspiring.

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I can go with Prince's because while Songs In The Key of life is a fantastic album, it drags on after a while to me. SOTT keeps me excited through the whole thing