OK, several musicians and musical acts move in a certain direction over the span of a few albums, with some hiccups here and there.


For example, the post-industrial band, Ministry, more-or-less gravitated towards heavier and more guitar centric music over a few albums, and pretty much stayed in that gear by the time they made Psalm 69 and Filthpig.

Nine Inch Nails went in the direction of Bowie-inspired electronic art-rock after seeming to be a hard-hitting neo-industrial band.


Do you think Prince has ever had trajectory style-wise?

If you so, do you think he has one now?

Yes definately he has most strongly in the 1980-1989 years

.

slightly in the early -mid 1990s

after that is was choppy, the Rainbow Children album was his most 'cohesive' album since idk, but he never really committed to that 'direction. I'm still watching to see what 'vision' 'direction' comes out of this period, what does 3rd Eye... mean etc

Not really no I don't think so. It seems like he tends to soak in recent trends and styles of the time and attempt to reinterpret them through his own sensibilities.

You look at pretty much any era, project or period of his career and he seems to be taking some kind of influence in from a trend that is around at the time, whether it's hip-hop and rap in the early 90s, or Neo-Soul in the very late 90s, or New Wave in the early 90s.

Yeah he has a direction:

Down, down, dooooooown!

Sorry, couldn't help it.

No, I don't think that he as any particular direction. At least not since the 80s.

The best thing about Prince is that he is totally erratic. He's all over the place. Look at what he has produced over the years: the versaility is truly amazing.

Granted, not everything turns out a masterpiece, but he has always had the courage to try new things without giving a rat's ass what anyone else thinks. Or maybe he is just easily bored.

Prince creates what ever comes to mind when he is in a creative mode.

That process dictates it's own direction................1 song at a time.

NouveauDance said:

Not really no I don't think so. It seems like he tends to soak in recent trends and styles of the time and attempt to reinterpret them through his own sensibilities.

You look at pretty much any era, project or period of his career and he seems to be taking some kind of influence in from a trend that is around at the time, whether it's hip-hop and rap in the early 90s, or Neo-Soul in the very late 90s, or New Wave in the early 90s.

I agree with that.

I agree with what NouveauDance said. His music has always been his own interpretation of the current musical trend(s) around him, and he created his own unique sound , an amalgam of current trends mixed with the influences of his heroes from the past with a very individual Prince twist but these days I think he often plays way too many cover versions from the 70s and the blend of current musical trends sounds a bit more obvious than in the mid 80s.

I´m not sure if Prince hears his own classic songs the way we as fans hear them. I know that most of my musician friends lose the feel for their own creations at some point.

One thing I love is that he uses the rules to break the rules. Thats some geek-hellfire rt there, and he's the ultimate professional ....does he have direction? You can hear how he processes a sound though or an idea....you'll hear a ton of iterations of a sound or song until he hits the sweet spot with it...but he doesnt throw out the pieces tho lololol So it gets messy. Like a musical Jackson Pollack.

Ministry and NIN are stuck in their own genres. I know both bands have stretched out considerably from their "industrial rock" styles over the years, but they are not the type of acts comparable to Prince and Bowie that can put out music in just about any style. That's often the difference between releasing music under your band's name and being a solo artist.

However, Prince definitely has a direction in the sense that he has his own production style. He also seems to want to do fairly positive and happy-sounding music, which is very rare for someone that has experimented with so many styles, had an experimental approach to using electronic instruments and so on. If you want to be "artsy" then most seem to go for fairly dark music styles, as is the case with NIN (e.g. The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, the latest record...). Prince, on the other hand, did Parade and stuff like that instead.

You know tho, from my own personal experience, sometimes you have to just do what you're doing not necessarily knowing, caring or understanding YOURSELF where you're going....you just show up and work and explore the work, which leads to other things artisitically

when I look back I can see the stages that got me to where I am now, and now where the is industry paying attention and peers are floored by the work...but IN THE PROCESS I didnt necessarily have the blueprint, I just followed the insatiable urge without knowing why...

sorry to ramble but sometimes always having a direction can get in the way.