IF Prince wouldn't have been accused of selling out for making "POP" music in the late 80's, What direction do you think he would have gone instead of the whole rapper/R&B era?

I'm not sure I understand the question... late 80's was SOTT, Black Album, Lovesexy. All of which he was NOT trying to fit into the trends on the radio.

"Black Album" was a reaction to him being accused of going too "white" pop from Purple Rain onward.

But "Diamonds and Pearls" was an abrupt halt to the sound he developed from 1999 through Graffiti Bridge (very anti Linn Drum, right?). It was a new sound for him to put out as a Prince studio album. It also seems very traditionally retro in it's songs (outside the more creative arrangements of Thunder, Daddy Pop, and Gett Off).

This sound was continued with the "symbol" album. And "Come" and "Gold" and "Emancipation" and "New Power Soul". this was the streak of non-Linn Drum Prince that was not looking back at his 80's sound.

Am I remembering this right?

ufoclub said:

I'm not sure I understand the question... late 80's was SOTT, Black Album, Lovesexy. All of which he was NOT trying to fit into the trends on the radio.

"Black Album" was a reaction to him being accused of going too "white" pop from Purple Rain onward.

But "Diamonds and Pearls" was an abrupt halt to the sound he developed from 1999 through Graffiti Bridge (very anti Linn Drum, right?). It was a new sound for him to put out as a Prince studio album. It also seems very traditionally retro in it's songs (outside the more creative arrangements of Thunder, Daddy Pop, and Gett Off).

This sound was continued with the "symbol" album. And "Come" and "Gold" and "Emancipation" and "New Power Soul". this was the streak of non-Linn Drum Prince that was not looking back at his 80's sound.

Am I remembering this right?

When I say era, I was meaning 'D&P', 'Symbol', 'Come' actually. I don't believe Prince would have had rappers on his albums at all or the R&B sounding stuff if black people weren't calling him a sell-out. When he switched his sound to this point, it was pretty much the beginning of the end for Classic albums, & He never fully recovered after 'D&P' [TGE comes closes to 80's Prince imo, but still not quite a return to form]...

I'd argue D&P was considerably more pop-oriented than projects just prior. It certainly was better received by that audience based on chart performance.

And I think Prince's conscious effort to appeal to the pop sound actually drove his incorporation of hip hop (arguably the most popular genre of the time) more than some attempt to reclaim a more urban and less crossover sound. I mean, Tony M is a lot closer to the Dollar Store version of, say, Hammer or Vanilla Ice than MC Eiht or Bushwick Bill.

[Edited 4/28/11 20:34pm]

I'd like to think even if the Lameboyz weren't part of the band, Prince would've still moved towards the sound he had on D&P//Goldnigga - I love that band and the sound they had, I wish Rosie had stuck around for too. I think she softened the band's image and gave it a bigger mass appeal angle than Tony M ever did. I love the rhythm section of that band, and Levi's whatever that guitar is called (I'm so knowledgable on instruments you can tell!)

I'm thinking the sound of Strollin', Willing & Able, Money Don't Matter, Oilcan, Love 2 The 9s etc.

As an aside, just little while back from that, I would've liked to hear what that SNL band would've done - with Patrice Rushen and Margie Cox as part of it. I'm a big fan of Rushen's own catalog.

I've always thought that the whole D&P/LoveSymbol era was a cold (but brilliant and successful) attempt to conquer the 1990-1993 pop AND modern R&B/New Jack audiences, AND, at the same time, it was a big (and successful) "FUCK YOU-YOUR SOUND IS OLD-I NEVER NEEDED YOU ANYWAY-LEAVE ME ALONE" rant against the funk purists...

gunner82 said:

R&B and Jazz. Prince was headed in that direction.

If you listen to SOTT, you can hear it. SOTT is a much, much, muuuuuuccccch more traditional sounding album than his last 3, even with songs like "If I was Ur Girfriend" and "Hot Thing". LoveSexy is a brief return to craziness, but the "New Power Soul" sound in LoveSexy really is just R&B with psychedelic flourishes. Prince was moving away from Old Wave and Beatlesche stuff towards more traditional sounds. He continues this in Graffiti Bridge, and finally to D&P.

I think what makes D&P's a line of demarcation is that it sounds dated. LoveSexy and GB may have traditional undertones, but the Prince signature is undeniable and they don't easily date themselves. When you listen to D&P, you know it's a 90's album. You can also place many of the tracks into specific genres.

I was disappointed in D&P and shocked when it had all those top 10 hits on it. The title song, I hated from the very first listen.

Now, I loved which was really just more of the same, but a bit more fierce--I think that's all I needed--some real screaming and hollering to like that sound or template.

As far as his modern day albums, to me they're just rehashes of his older material with a few changes.

Planet Earth is an update to ATWIAD, but with not one single iconic song on it.

Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic is Graffiti Bridge all over again.

What I appreciate about his new material is that he seems to have moved past the 'dating himself' phase (for the most part). Lotusflow3r, 3121, and 20Ten all have songs that skirt with mainstream but aren't exactly current sounding.

Ultimately, I don't see D&P as being a career changing album. His dispute with WB had a much greater impact. Prince could have easily seen the Gold Experience enjoy considerable radio play and we'd probably get some more interesting stuff than what we were downloading the plastic npgmc years.

.

[Edited 4/29/11 7:16am]

SagsWay2low said:

When you listen to D&P, you know it's a 90's album. You can also place many of the tracks into specific genres.

That was an interesting period - the very late 80s, very early 90s. The pop music sounds of that period are really distinctive (not necessarily in a good way) and dated REAL fast.

NouveauDance said:

SagsWay2low said:

When you listen to D&P, you know it's a 90's album. You can also place many of the tracks into specific genres.

That was an interesting period - the very late 80s, very early 90s. The pop music sounds of that period are really distinctive (not necessarily in a good way) and dated REAL fast.

Thanks for agreeing with me.

I really appreciate it.

NouveauDance said:

SagsWay2low said:

When you listen to D&P, you know it's a 90's album. You can also place many of the tracks into specific genres.

That was an interesting period - the very late 80s, very early 90s. The pop music sounds of that period are really distinctive (not necessarily in a good way) and dated REAL fast.

I agree, lol. 1988 pop music was already dated by 1990, and by September 1991 it sounded like crap...

I won't answer the "what if" question, but I'll just try to reflect on my memories of the early 90s.

I became a fan in 1993-94 when I was 13-14. I didn't really "understand" Prince's music until a few years later. However, D&P always seemed like such a huge watershed album stylistically. I remember chatting about that thing at Hammer's (a Prince chatroom in the mid-90s). There seemed to have been an agreement that D&P is the album that Prince changed the most with. That material was also seen as an indication of the name change in 1993. A lot of people bought that "Prince is now and there's no going back" stuff he was on at the time.

Stuff like "Gett Off", "My Name Is Prince", "Come", "Pheromone", "Loose!" etc. sound nothing like the 1980s records. They were comparable to the stylistic change MJ went through with Bad and Dangerous. Suddenly pop music was darker and the beats had gotten aggressive. You also had things like David Lynch movies that were all the rage back then.

When Emancipation came out I was surprised to hear songs like "Get Yo Groove On" or "New Worlds" on it. They had a lighter sound that was reminiscent of the 80s - at the time I had thought we most likely wouldn't hear that type of stuff from him anymore . The closest thing to the 80s Prince there was on the other 90s albums was perhaps "319", but even that one had that aggressive 90s sound to it.

Now in retrospect, the change between GB and D&P doesn't seem as drastic. When I listen to "Thunder" it just sounds like it could have been on GB as well. The melody on "Push" is vintage Prince, even if the rest of the track lacks the synth-funk sound of the 1980s. "Insatiable" isn't that different from the earlier "ballads about fucking". GB also had rap on it, so that aspect wasn't exactly new either.

[Edited 4/29/11 8:16am]

Man, to me, the change between "Diamonds and Pearls" and "Graffiti Bridge" is HUGE!.

I figure he was so dissapointed with the reception of that movie and the album, that he decided to not look back to his old sound.

I can't imagine "Thunder" with it's "I've got the Power"-busy rhythm, non-Linn drum, heavy deep bass, sampled instrument sound being on "Graffiti Bridge".

To my ears, "Thunder" is basically a reworking of the musical idea/mood of "When Doves Cry" done with a dramatically different sound. If it had been on Graffiti Bridge with the Linn Drum sound, then it would have sounded to obviously like "When Doves Cry".

The exceptions on Graffiti Bridge that come to mind are "Love Machine" and "Round and Round". Of course we know someone else is responsible for the final sound of "Round and Round" (Junior Vasquez?). But "Love Machine" is different from the old Prince sound. Funny how "Love Machine" turned into "Glam Slam '91" which turned into "Gett Off".

As for the aggresive sound of things in the 90's like "Pheremone", "My Name is Prince", "319" or "Days of Wild"... I think he hit this same attitude with the entire "The Black Album" (even within the framework of the 80's Linn Prince sound). That album is just wild, aggressive, and hyper in strong musical attitude.

On a side note I do think some of "Diamonds and Pearls" is a retro attitude towards song construction. Songs like "Willing and Able", "Live 4 Love", "Strollin", "Walk Don't Walk" are very generic in song idea. Anyone could have come up with those ideas. And they sound like any great band could have played them. Nothing new there. Kind of like how "Slow Love" on SOTT is a retro song idea that doesn't really have a unique Prince style on it.

I think Prince enjoyed showing that he didn't have to always be musically weird or progressive in his arrangements to make songs. His current live shows are all about this full, more traditional arrangement attitude. It's middle age friendly!

The "Symbol" album plus D&P would make a very cohesive mega album.

Is "Thunder" really that different stylistically from, say, "Thieves In The Temple"? Sure, the drums are different, but as you said, something similar was used on a few GB tracks as well. That's where I got the association from. Tracks like "Daddy Pop" and "Walk Don't Walk" sure aren't that far removed from GB. I don't think the main drum machine used on any of the albums after SOTT / Black Album was the Linn anyway. Although I haven't exactly counted on how many tracks it appears on those albums either. Wasn't it some sort of a rackmount (Pearl? Yamaha?) unit that he mainly used after SOTT?

Anyway, what I meant was that the change from GB to D&P doesn't seem as drastic to me now as it did back in the day.

I agree about the "retro" comment, although I'm not sure if it was perceived that way then. Most of the synthesized sounds that dominated the 80s had started to sound dated by the 90s and the band approach was again the "new thing" for a while. That lead to the whole "unplugged" craze. It's surprising how dated some of the songs on D&P may sound now, because you'd think it could have been avoided with all the live instrumentation involved. Maybe that's partly due to the songwriting?

I can't agree with The Black Album sounding anything like "Pheromone", "My Name Is Prince" or "Days Of Wild" though. That album has always been more or less an extension of SOTT to my ears. The production style is just too different. The darker aspects of those two different periods also seem like two different shades of dark.

[Edited 4/29/11 9:58am]

I hear what you're saying about "Thunder" and "Thieves", but to my ears, Thunder just has a strikingly different sound because of the little mallet-like perc hits on the drum track, and the proportions of the bass drum to almost non hit snare. Normally Prince is hitting the snare hard and loud and almost flat. It's been the biggest loudest thing on most all his songs. Here all of a sudden it's all about the kickdrum, and this softer sampled snare part, and it's drenched in reverb.

I think "Thieves" is a step in that direction, but he is still hitting the snare hard in that one like he always normally does.

when I first put on the cd of D&P, I was so fascinated that Thunder and Daddy Pop sounded like completely new flavors for Prince as far as instrument sound.

It was only later that a friend pointed out that you could sing out loud "When Doves Cry" and "Thunder" and alternate the chorus' freely. I'm surprised Prince hasn't done this live.

Oh yeah, that's 90s, alright. Diminishing the role of the snare and letting the kick drum and maybe the hats to drive the track.

'D&P' has some really great songs on it, but it has some of the most annoying songs on it from any Prince album imo. I hate "thunder", "Daddy Pop", "Walk Don't Walk", "Jughead". "Push" & " Live 4 Love" are just okay. The album doesn't start for me until the title track comes. My whole point is, it would have been nice if Prince avoided the whole era about proving how black he is. If he would have avoided that trendy shit that was going on in the early 90's, I strongly believe he would have taken his sound to a another level from everybody. was definitely an improvement over 'D&P' imo, but it still sounds like he's reaching on some of the songs on there too. "Come" was the most consistant of the three albums imo, but it was the shortest & worst reviewed of the three [which is weird]. "TGE" was Prince's slight return & imo Prince's last album that was anything near what he did in the 80's....btw It's also funny to me that Mj's "Dangerous" album came out in '91 also....

novabrkr said:

Oh yeah, that's 90s, alright. Diminishing the role of the snare and letting the kick drum and maybe the hats to drive the track.

Seemed to me that Prince added that vibe from the popular "I've Got the Power song" by C&C Music Factory of the bells (using bells or similar perc noises in "Thunder" and "Daddy Pop")

I actually love "Thunder", "Daddy Pop", "Gett Off", "Insatiable". Those come to mind as the ones I would listen to.

I also appreciate that "Jughead" is actually just a complete rip off of the Housequake song idea, with the same triple beat rhythm driving it on the chorus.

I like the bootleg version of "Live 4 Love" better.

By the way, I think of the symbol album and D&P as coming from the same recording sessions, so they really are the same production vibe to me. I think he added sound effects and cut up stuff for the symbol album to give it its own identity, but used the same musical approach. And same players.

If Prince would have released Diamonds and Pearls without Daddy Pop, Jughead and Push, it would have been an excellent album.

Tony My is actually GOOD (for a change) on Willing and Able, which was a great retro song back then and not unlike anything that was being made. And yeah you can hear it's music recorded in the 90's, but so can you hear that on the Symbol album, Come and TGE. Still I don't think it sounds so "dated" at all today. It sounds pretty good still.

Seems to me that there is a bit of revisionist Prince history going on here.

In 1990, Prince was seen as an act from the past by most people. O.k., the bad GB movie didn't exactly help it, but still, GB - the album - sounded pretty dated already when it came out.

The music scene changed dramatically in ca. 1988 to 1990. New house-influenced dance music came along, with things like "Ride on time" by Black Box being huge hits. A song like "Manchild" by Neneh Cherry, "I'm not the man I used to be" by the Fine Young Cannibals or also the Soul II Soul singles would not have been possible in, let's say, 1986.

Prince though was still stuck to his second-half-of-the-80s trademark sound on GB. He simply had to do something about his sound and had to come up with something new. Please remember here that many people still saw Hip-Hop as a new flavour in 1991 and not as the boring self-repeating bullshit that it has degraded to these days after its far-too-long domination of popular music. I was 15 when D&P came out, and many people from my class (myself included) started to get into Prince as a result from D&P. This would not have been possible with another GB-like sounding album. Don't get me wrong, I actually like GB, but the sound on it had its time and that time was over in 1991. O.k., one can argue nowadays that D&P sounds like a typical album made in 1991, that you can clearly tell that the record is a child of its time. But one could say the same about Dirty Mind, which also sounds like an album made in 1980.

Graffiti Bridge sounds extremely dated, I only like a few songs on it. And his sound there is quite similar to the Flyte Tyme sound, which in my opinion did the Minneapolis sound in a cheap way. It just sounds cheap and plastic. The warmer sound of earlier albums was not achieved on this one. Diamonds & Pearls is personally a much better album.

So what qualities about "Daddy Pop" are irritating to some of you?

And... what is the revisionist element you noticed, Emancipation Lover?

ufoclub said:

So what qualities about "Daddy Pop" are irritating to some of you?

And... what is the revisionist element you noticed, Emancipation Lover?

It's the whole sellout argument I'm talking about. Usually it goes like this: Prince was sooo creative, innovative and unique up to 1990, but in 1991, he sold out to the black music mainstream of the early 90s by just following some trends, mainly rap. In contrast, the vibe I got during the period was more like "Prince refreshes his act and drops the whole dated 80s stuff, that's cool". This is what I meant.

The popular music scene from 1988-1991 is its own weird little bubble in music history. The 80s were stylistically over (synth-pop, hair metal, etc) and the 90s hadn't really defined itself yet. So you had these strange in-between years with a huge group of stars who were only popular/relevant at that time: Roxette, Paula Abdul, Wilson Phillips, Amy Grant, C+C Music Factory, MC Hammer, Milli Vanilli, NKOTB, even Bobby Brown to an extent. Those acts couldn't have been popular before those years, and they all faded once that period was over. The Milli Vanilli scandal even helped create the desire for unplugged, authentic music and is why vocal acts like Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, and En Vogue surged in popularity afterwards.

I feel like the innovators of the 80s...Prince, MJ, Springsteen, Madonna...struggled to find themselves during that era. The sounds they had defined had evolved, but they weren't leading the new direction for what was to come. That's why everyone was blindsided by albums like Nevermind and The Chronic. These were the new innovators, the artists who changed the game and decided the musical direction of the 90s. And it nearly overnight made all the music going on at the time sound silly and irrelevant; a sound Prince had incorporated into Diamonds And Pearls. In 1991 it seemed like a bold new direction, but within a year or two it was locked into the sound of a discarded era. Prince was trying to re-invent himself as a contemporary sounding act but the sound he was trying to achieve faded from popular grace as soon as he joined it. Once the 90s really got started musically, he was buried in the 'slave' era turmoil. It was a perfect storm of bad timing his career never 100% recovered from.

renfield said:

The popular music scene from 1988-1991 is its own weird little bubble in music history. The 80s were stylistically over (synth-pop, hair metal, etc) and the 90s hadn't really defined itself yet. So you had these strange in-between years with a huge group of stars who were only popular/relevant at that time: Roxette, Paula Abdul, Wilson Phillips, Amy Grant, C+C Music Factory, MC Hammer, Milli Vanilli, NKOTB, even Bobby Brown to an extent. Those acts couldn't have been popular before those years, and they all faded once that period was over. The Milli Vanilli scandal even helped create the desire for unplugged, authentic music and is why vocal acts like Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, and En Vogue surged in popularity afterwards.

I feel like the innovators of the 80s...Prince, MJ, Springsteen, Madonna...struggled to find themselves during that era. The sounds they had defined had evolved, but they weren't leading the new direction for what was to come. That's why everyone was blindsided by albums like Nevermind and The Chronic. These were the new innovators, the artists who changed the game and decided the musical direction of the 90s. And it nearly overnight made all the music going on at the time sound silly and irrelevant; a sound Prince had incorporated into Diamonds And Pearls. In 1991 it seemed like a bold new direction, but within a year or two it was locked into the sound of a discarded era. Prince was trying to re-invent himself as a contemporary sounding act but the sound he was trying to achieve faded from popular grace as soon as he joined it. Once the 90s really got started musically, he was buried in the 'slave' era turmoil. It was a perfect storm of bad timing his career never 100% recovered from.

There is a lot of truth in this post. I just would like to add that I think that this "weird little bubble" 1988-1991 was a great period for popular music imo. There were many fresh sounds that later on paved the way for what was to come in the 90s, mainly in the dance music section.

Prince's new direction with D&P might be in question here for the simple reason that he renewed his act rather late. There was so much stuff going on in 1989 and 1990, and what was he doing? 1989: Making a soundtrack album for a blockbuster movie where his songs were barely noticable in the movie (granted, his album sold well and it gave back some public attention after the Lovesexy era, which was often seen as a bit weird outside of his fanbase). 1990: Finishing an album mostly filled with old 80s outtakes and a movie we'd better not talk about too much. It's almost as if he was musically asleep in 1989 and 1990, just to realize then that the music world has changed. It wasn't too late for him in 1991 to turn things around, but it surely was too late to be seen as an innovator within the 1988-1991 period of drastic changes in popular music - although strictly speaking, he just did in 1991 what he's always done: soaking up musical influences to create something new on his own. It's not that different from 1980 somehow, but back then, he was at the forefront of a movement, and not nearly part of its aftermath. Anyway, in 1991, the feeling I and many others got was that Prince has renewed his act for the better and that he has brought fresh and attractive stuff to the table.

Regarding his bad timing with the 'slave'/name change era, I definitely agree. From Nirvana's huge success onwards, there has been a massively regained interest in handmade, 'organic' sounding music (just look at the success of other grunge acts plus G'n'R, Metallica, U2 etc.). The music on TGE somehow fit this trend perfectly, and Prince could have been a leading figure in the mid 1990s. But the WB feud kept things from really taking off in the eyes of the general public, and Prince was seen as some weird 1980s has-been. A wasted chance indeed...

EmancipationLover said:

There is a lot of truth in this post. I just would like to add that I think that this "weird little bubble" 1988-1991 was a great period for popular music imo. There were many fresh sounds that later on paved the way for what was to come in the 90s, mainly in the dance music section.

Prince's new direction with D&P might be in question here for the simple reason that he renewed his act rather late. There was so much stuff going on in 1989 and 1990, and what was he doing? 1989: Making a soundtrack album for a blockbuster movie where his songs were barely noticable in the movie (granted, his album sold well and it gave back some public attention after the Lovesexy era, which was often seen as a bit weird outside of his fanbase). 1990: Finishing an album mostly filled with old 80s outtakes and a movie we'd better not talk about too much. It's almost as if he was musically asleep in 1989 and 1990, just to realize then that the music world has changed. It wasn't too late for him in 1991 to turn things around, but it surely was too late to be seen as an innovator within the 1988-1991 period of drastic changes in popular music - although strictly speaking, he just did in 1991 what he's always done: soaking up musical influences to create something new on his own. It's not that different from 1980 somehow, but back then, he was at the forefront of a movement, and not nearly part of its aftermath. Anyway, in 1991, the feeling I and many others got was that Prince has renewed his act for the better and that he has brought fresh and attractive stuff to the table.

Regarding his bad timing with the 'slave'/name change era, I definitely agree. From Nirvana's huge success onwards, there has been a massively regained interest in handmade, 'organic' sounding music (just look at the success of other grunge acts plus G'n'R, Metallica, U2 etc.). The music on TGE somehow fit this trend perfectly, and Prince could have been a leading figure in the mid 1990s. But the WB feud kept things from really taking off in the eyes of the general public, and Prince was seen as some weird 1980s has-been. A wasted chance indeed...

You and I are in similar musical boats. You said you were 15 when D&P came out, I was 16. So while I recognize the pop music of that era isn't respected now I do have a great affinity for it (I admit with no shame I owned Color Me Badd's C.M.B., ha ha). And I don't fault Prince at all for not forseeing the changing landscape. How many artists redefine music more than once? U2 were able to successfully set themselves up for the 90s with Achtung Baby, but U2 weren't as heavily identified with an 80s sound as Prince was. And the directions urban music took in the 90s weren't really directions Prince could believably go. His brand of R&B didn't click with many Jodeci and H-Town fans, you know? Those acts presented a tougher 'ghetto' image Prince couldn't appropriate for himself. He had been wearing mascara and heels for a decade, and that made him too 'weird' for most R&B fans in the 90s.

I agree with you about dance music, and that's probably why Madonna was better able to navigate those years. "Vogue" was a landmark single for her. And the emerging sounds of Chicago house music, techno, and European NRG had a heavy influence on everything that came after. Prince dabbled in those elements ("Loose," "The Human Body") but never truly adapted to those sounds (which worked out in his favor in the long-run).

I get that D&P made him look like a trend-follower instead of a trend-setter for the first time in his career, and that's why people look at it with disdain now. The funny thing is that he thought adding Tony M. made him sound hip, and honestly it was Michael Bland that changed his sound and made him more contemporary for what was to come. But there were still some great Prince-ly moments on that album; it's just a reflection of where his head was then. I guess ultimately he does what he wants to do, and sometimes that syncs up with the public and sometimes it doesn't.

[Edited 4/30/11 12:29pm]

[Edited 4/30/11 12:41pm]

renfield said:

EmancipationLover said:

There is a lot of truth in this post. I just would like to add that I think that this "weird little bubble" 1988-1991 was a great period for popular music imo. There were many fresh sounds that later on paved the way for what was to come in the 90s, mainly in the dance music section.

Prince's new direction with D&P might be in question here for the simple reason that he renewed his act rather late. There was so much stuff going on in 1989 and 1990, and what was he doing? 1989: Making a soundtrack album for a blockbuster movie where his songs were barely noticable in the movie (granted, his album sold well and it gave back some public attention after the Lovesexy era, which was often seen as a bit weird outside of his fanbase). 1990: Finishing an album mostly filled with old 80s outtakes and a movie we'd better not talk about too much. It's almost as if he was musically asleep in 1989 and 1990, just to realize then that the music world has changed. It wasn't too late for him in 1991 to turn things around, but it surely was too late to be seen as an innovator within the 1988-1991 period of drastic changes in popular music - although strictly speaking, he just did in 1991 what he's always done: soaking up musical influences to create something new on his own. It's not that different from 1980 somehow, but back then, he was at the forefront of a movement, and not nearly part of its aftermath. Anyway, in 1991, the feeling I and many others got was that Prince has renewed his act for the better and that he has brought fresh and attractive stuff to the table.

Regarding his bad timing with the 'slave'/name change era, I definitely agree. From Nirvana's huge success onwards, there has been a massively regained interest in handmade, 'organic' sounding music (just look at the success of other grunge acts plus G'n'R, Metallica, U2 etc.). The music on TGE somehow fit this trend perfectly, and Prince could have been a leading figure in the mid 1990s. But the WB feud kept things from really taking off in the eyes of the general public, and Prince was seen as some weird 1980s has-been. A wasted chance indeed...

You and I are in similar musical boats. You said you were 15 when D&P came out, I was 16. So while I recognize the pop music of that era isn't respected now I do have a great affinity for it (I admit with no shame I owned Color Me Badd's C.M.B., ha ha). And I don't fault Prince at all for not forseeing the changing landscape. How many artists redefine music more than once? U2 were able to successfully set themselves up for the 90s with Achtung Baby, but U2 weren't as heavily identified with an 80s sound as Prince was. And the directions urban music took in the 90s weren't really directions Prince could believably go. His brand of R&B didn't click with many Jodeci and H-Town fans, you know? Those acts presented a tougher 'ghetto' image Prince couldn't appropriate for himself. He had been wearing mascara and heels for a decade, and that made him too 'weird' for most R&B fans in the 90s.

I agree with you about dance music, and that's probably why Madonna was better able to navigate those years. "Vogue" was a landmark single for her. And the emerging sounds of Chicago house music, techno, and European NRG had a heavy influence on everything that came after. Prince dabbled in those elements ("Loose," "The Human Body") but never truly adapted to those sounds (which worked out in his favor in the long-run).

I get that D&P made him look like a trend-follower instead of a trend-setter for the first time in his career, and that's why people look at it with disdain now. The funny thing is that he thought adding Tony M. made him sound hip, and honestly it was Michael Bland that changed his sound and made him more contemporary for what was to come. But there were still some great Prince-ly moments on that album; it's just a reflection of where his head was then. I guess ultimately he does what he wants to do, and sometimes that syncs up with the public and sometimes it doesn't.

[Edited 4/30/11 12:29pm]

[Edited 4/30/11 12:41pm]

I absolutely agree! Btw, Prince even managed to make the 'Ghetto' look gay - see the Game Boyz, their dance routines and the Gangster Glam video. And although I'm straight, I have to say that that's a very good thing to acheive.

Okay... now what irritates some people in "Daddy Pop"? I'm really curious.

ufoclub said:

Okay... now what irritates some people in "Daddy Pop"? I'm really curious.

it's a bit corny/bland; for me, it would be the worst track off D&P if not for Push and Jughead.

I've said it a lot of times: D&P has terrific pop songs, but the dance tracks were a joke...I think that the dance cuts of LoveSymbol were like 100000 times better/more exciting...

[Edited 5/1/11 4:48am]