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Really? Apologies for challenging what amounts to personal taste, but since you're challenging people's picks, I've just got to ask...You're listing songs that sound like Sigue Sigue Sputnik B-sides, and just standard chart topping Gospel-pop.
How was Kiss groundbreaking or ahead of Papa's got a brand new bag? | |
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That song was definitely ahead for its time. | |
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Lots of his b-sides actually were ahead of its time. "Pop Life" - the full-length unedited version - was ahead to me too.The better question is: What P songs arent ahead of their time?
He himself was a little ahead of his time(or right on time), I mean he started the MPLS wave in the 80's, and each album between 1982-88 has a song/s that is without a doubt before its time. Something In The Water comes to mind 1st and is probably 4-most "How Can I Stand To..Stay Where I Am? Poor Butterfly Who..Dont Understand." P | |
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Because he stripped it down to the bass drum and snare pumped to the max, and uses the Papa guitar chord riff almost as you would a pop culture sample. He also used synths on the rhythm that were very new wave. It was like he took a new wave synth song like Don't You Want Me Baby, and cheese grated it down to throwback funk tune, with a sample of the riff thrown in. Even the backup vocals bust in and out in a sample style. I remember first hearing it on the radio and it was shocking and startling how stripped down and futuristic it sounded, and how in your face the falsetto was. It's reference to the funk guitar riff seems almost like a historical nod. The whole song almost sounds like the bionic noise (you know form Six Million Dollar Man?) if you sped it up.
Even now, it still sounds futuristic to me, that studio version. I think that's why it still gets played.
Don't get me wrong, James Brown was a musical monster of beat and rhythm power. Prince did a skeletal robot/disco nod to it. My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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I don't agree that any of Princes (or any other great artists) music is ahead of its time.
I believe their music was 'On Time'. Others just play catch up. You'll never know a girl called Nikki and you'll never find Erotic City |
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Yep!
I never cared for Little Red Corvette, Pop Life and Computer Blue until I heard their extended versions. Now they're among my favorite. | |
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Futuristic?
Okay, I'm just not hearing whatever you're hearing, at all. I remember the song sounded dated and corny when it came out, but everyone was relieved it was at least poppy, and catchy. It became the Prince song you play at weddings because it was so safe.
[Edited 7/3/11 17:29pm] | |
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When Doves Cry Batdance Kiss
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Check out some of the other big singles that year and how they are much more conservatively arranged and constructed:
1...THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR, Dionne and Friends (Arista) (#1, Jan)
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HAHA Yes, at 19, I finally saw the Revolution, a legendary band. And I talked to Wendy!!!  In addition to seeing Prince, I have now lived life. Thank you Purple People!! | |
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George Clinton produced more futuristic stuff than "Kiss". | |
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You really don't understand that being ahead of ones time doesn't exist in a singles chart vacuum?
I'll play along though.... there are at least 5 songs on your list that blow "Kiss" out of the water in terms of innovation.
26.. I CAN'T WAIT, Nu Shooz (Atlantic) (#3, June)
I still wouldn't say they're ahead of their time...they were hits, and like Kiss, they were obviously very much of their time. If Tom Jones is singing your song, you're not cutting edge. Musically, nothing new happened during Kiss. Of all of Prince's songs, Kiss would hardly be called the most influential based on musicality.
Prince has a long list of groundbreaking songs, but none of them were on your list from what I can gather. | |
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To my ears none of those songs are innovative in the same sculptural way the Prince song was. Sledgehammer? Human? Those are all conventional arrangements: A normal balance in tone and volume of percussion to rhythm to bassline to vocals to backing vocals. And all of them, but one, uses these elements in a very respectful conventional way. I heard those nonstop on my friends' car stereos. I'm looking at this from a creative standpoint of the shape and attitude the layers and proportions of the elements make. The only one that is futuristic is the silly "Rock Me Amadeus", but even that has a conventional balance and arrangement of sounds in a tonal and temporal sense. But I'd say "Rock Me Amadeus" is futuristic. It's collage-like, culturally referential, and silly... just like "Batdance". "Batdance" took it to another level. That one really stood out compared to everything else on the radio around it in 1989.
Do you understand what I mean by how Prince seems to be using/mixing the funk chord and the background vocals like a sample in "Kiss"? It's like he's showing you the novelty of those elements, like a display in a museum. He's not using them in an honest harmonious way only to support the structure of the song. He is really good at that techno/electro voiced funk, but he is working in a conceptual way with the tone and starkness of his mix too. The SOTT album took this to a level that went through the entire album, destructive to the melodies: which was why it was not so popular with the average top 40 teenagers at the time.
If you compare "Love Song" on Madonna's album to all the other songs, you can see an illustration of how I mean Prince has this futuristic attitude. This song is the least favorite on the cd by mass audiences, an that's because it has that weird innovative (melody and balance destructive) attitude of Prince. With "Kiss" he is using the standard blues progression (just like Bob George) as the foundation, and therefore there is something to reel the audience in. And it just so happens with Kiss, that even though he pushes and chops the arrangement down and up into a skeletal electronic sampled sound, it still hits like sugar to the ears.
He tried something similar and extremely creative with the revamped Tick Tick Bang (with its retro busbey berkely vibe), but think most fans prefer the more conventional musical goal of the original Tick Tick Bang.
Positivity almost sounds like he hates the melody, attacking it to the point of sounding disinterested... with a music/sounds that fights normal musical collusion. And conceptually how cool is the fact that he sings the word Positivity in a the most montone, negative, slightly ominous manner. That is ironic. And irony is stereotypically contemporary in art!
Prince is king of making a very normal demo and then deconstructing and turning the song inside out in the studio to almost try to destroy the natural sweetness of the original musical idea. It's like he is trying to take the song to the edge of being unfamiliar, unmelodious, and alien by taking out this instrument and that, and turning up things normally subdued into a big dry recurring element (like handclaps, finger cymbals, synth touches). With things like Kiss or SOTT the song, it works out to still be addictive for the most part. SOmehow the balance still works. But most of the times it just detroys the mass appeal of his songs. This is why I really do consider himt o be an artist. This is also why people were rather listening to Janet Jackson's album then SOTT in 1987.
If you compare the original Mazarati demo of Kiss to the Prince revamped one, you'll see how he took a typical song and arrangement idea and made it futurustic in sound and in turn conceptually (ironically by spotlighting little retro moments like the funk guitar chord). Part of being futuristic to me can sometimes also be achieved by including or spotlighting historical or retro elements in an almost disrespectful or "fake" way. But it creates something very strong by presenting something old or familiar in a completely new way.
I think "Days of Wild" studio version is very innovative in what it achieves, but it seems like the much more conventional funk sound of the live versions is more popular with Prince fans. There's a difference in the "sculptural" shape the sound makes in both of those versions. There's a difference in the use of tones and attitude.
(I think Public Enemy was very ahead of it's time. Especially with stuff like the song "Fear of a Black Planet". Their crazy complex arrangements on that album and use of retro samples formed something very forward conceptually to my ears and mind.)
there is something I typed above that explains what I consider futuristic:
"fights normal musical collusion". I think Prince sometimes strives to fight conventional musical collusion (the normal goal of lyrics and arrangment of musical elements to form a harmonious structure) in order to find humor in a sound, in order to point out a historical elements like a funk chord or 1940's musical harmony, or Hendrix guitar solo. But he is not using them honestly. He uses and mixes these elements in like samples.
I remember Art of Noise reviewing Prince's "Dance On". They said that it would have been Prince's greatest song if it didn't sound like Prince added the drum track to a completely different song. They seem musically conservative and didn't understand. They also were behind the Tom Jones version of Kiss.
But tell me what Prince song do you think is ahead of it's time? I'm curious to know your idea and why?
[Edited 7/4/11 5:09am] My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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Prince's early sexually explicit material was definitely ahead of it's time. And I think it's in this particular area that Prince broke the most new ground, whether it's Head, Do Me Baby, or a host of others. Before Prince, most sexual material relied heavily on innuendo and double-ententre. Prince smashed this protocol, and hit it hard right on the head.
Not sure how much more of his material is truly ahead of it's time, as opposed to being of it's time. Batdance definitely sounded ahead of it's time when it came out, but if it was, pop music hasn't caught up to it yet, as I've never heard anything on the pop charts since that emulates it.
Not song related, but I also think Prince's approach to touring and live presentation—Hit & Run, unannounced and unpublicized aftershows, allowing audiences into Soundcheck, playing encores after the houselights come up, long and highly-affordable residencies in a single venue, etc.—is way ahead of it's time as well. [Edited 7/4/11 9:09am] "There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind."
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I think Dirty Mind, Controversy and 1999 were sort of ahead of their time. Those albums had a new sound; synth and drum computer based pop, rock and roll, funk, soul and new wave. Also, the sexual explcitness was what broke many barriers in popular music. I think Prince was what the music world needed after disco and punk music had worn out. Which is evidenced by the many that tried to copy that style afterwards. These albums basically helped define the sound and theme of the 80's.
[Edited 7/4/11 10:03am] | |
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Yeah. This I can get behind.
Radiohead used a lot of similar tactics a few years back. And it would seem it's "cool" these days to do something like that. | |
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Word. | |
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Something in the Water... Gen-ius. Genius. | |
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Yeah, I agree with you on this. Prince was always on a whole different level, but this was like hi-tech compared to what was already out Yes, at 19, I finally saw the Revolution, a legendary band. And I talked to Wendy!!! In addition to seeing Prince, I have now lived life. Thank you Purple People!! | |
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I guess I always thought the lyrics were really generic too.
I like the extended version because it takes the song to a feeling of being epic and biblical, and throws in a great shouted lyric: "Father, Father, the sun is gone
But I don't enjoy the album version very much. My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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Songs like When Doves Cry, The Beautiful Ones, Computer Blue, Raspberry Beret, Kiss, Sign of the Times, If I was your Girlfriend etc. were perhabs better SONGS than most of those on DM, Controversy and 1999, but they were built on the same idea of stripped down, naked funk, rock and soul with jacked up computer drum beats and synths as the basics and the bass, guitar and vocals to fil it up and make it really sexy. | |
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1) I already shared my opinion.
2) I don't think we're approaching the question from the same concept of terms like "ahead of the time" or reference points... but that's okay. To each their own. Remember you were challenging other people's picks.
3) Public Enemy were ahead of their time.... but less so once you've heard the JB's or the Clash. You're enamored with this idea of pastiche in place of originality.
4) Batdance was a joke. When Prince is overtly borrowing from one of the most ridiculed attempts at futuristic pop music ever...Sigue Sigue Sputnik... it's pure revisionism to credit Prince as the innovator. http://www.youtube.com/wa...k30a0qsVIk Batdance still sounds wack today, just like it sounded wack then. The concept alone was lame.
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Public Enemy put meaning and messages into it's choice of samples and juxtaposition. The song "Fear of a Black Planet" is a good illustration of this. It's a pastiche engineered to carry a bomb of meaning. ______________
If Batdance had been one song on the same groove, more like 200 Balloons, then the Sigue Sigue SPutnik analogy would seem better to me.
But what was innovative/inventive (ahead of it's time) about Batdance was that it took it's role as a pop theme song for a major Hollywood event movie, and used it as a vehicle for a stream of conscious musical doodle that changes 2-3 times, and not only samples the cultural memory of Batman itself with the theme song to the silly tv show (a theme song that was incredibly dynamic and exciting to children that had grown up) but also manages to sample and reframe Prince's own songs like "The Future" and "Electric Chair". It also had a very flippant attitude towards the movie he was hired to promote.
Prince used the video to literally present dual personalities of himself, and then reduce the batman characters down to imaginary background armies of dancers. It's a completely innovative way he handled the job (compare to any other pop artist doing a movie theme song like U2 or Madonna), still very true to his musical personality, and surprisingly it still hit number #1, because I think it's shifting attention span of focus (the Sigue Sigue song stays focused) seemed startling but cool to teenie boppers used to radio songs that stayed focused. That audio change in musical gears also supports the whole idea of multiple personalities that Prince was very theatrically staging visually.
Part of Prince being ahead of his time is where he is using these ideas that were probably done to some degree in the art world and more underground or obscure music. He was/is using it in his mainstream pop efforts in a very personal and instinctive way.
Instinctive is a key word with Prince. I don't think he always intellectually decides on some of these directions. I think there are many happy accidents through random exploration. And he uses limitations constructively and with discipline to make something "pop" (in the design sense).
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Controversy- The fusion of funk and electro (this could have been a daft punk track) The Ballad of Dorothy Parker - The drum programming Annie Christian - Drum programming
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I think songs like Kiss were a more polished approach to the funk Prince had co-created on the past material. | |
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My point exactly | |
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Eye would have 2 say head!!!!!Its just funky as Hell,no 1 made stuff like Head back then or now!!!!! Dave Is Nuttier Than A Can Of Planters Peanuts...(Ottensen) | |
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Luckily he's got fans who can intellectualize his simple pop songs into something they're not. | |
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Music has yet to catch up to Erotic City. | |
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