herb4 said:

herb4 said:

rusty1 said:

purplerabbithole said: The bottom line is his 80's era is why Prince is a legend. He did nothing great after 1988.

He certainly did. Maybe not full albums but a LOT of individual tracks are on par with anything he did on Purple Rain or SOTT.

Individual tracks undoubtedly, great songs throughout his carreer, one of them being: There Is Lonely.

You stop it.

Its like you don't ever want to disagree with a lazy uninformed narrative (or friend) and are fearful that if you recommend listening to and sorting through all of P's music, it will become tiresome to other people and then these people will just ignore his 'genius period' in the 80's.

Questlove recommended that people listen to all of P's music with the knowledge that the 80's music was his peak. He said P was still good and still important to him musically in the later years. The fact that Questlove gave the same 4/5 star review for "the TRuth" as he did for "Dirty Mind" says that even he saw more than "meh" or occassionally "good" music in his later catalogue.

rusty1 said:

herb4 said:

He certainly did. Maybe not full albums but a LOT of individual tracks are on par with anything he did on Purple Rain or SOTT.

Stop it.. He did nothing GREAT after 1988 , Prince had good songs here & there. But nothing on the 80's creative level.

bonatoc said:

NorthC said:

^ You do know that Hide the Bone isn't a Prince/ Artist original, right? I see your point about P trying to get away from his image, but he wasn't exactly moving forward in those years. He went back to the music of his youth, playing Graham Central Station, Santana and Sly & the Family Stone covers. I didn't have any problem with that, I love that music, but it also meant that P's mid 90s music was nowhere near as original as his 80s music. [Edited 4/3/17 14:19pm] [Edited 4/3/17 14:21pm]

I don't agree. Here's why. Imagine you had no bootlegs.
Not one.
A just a world tour every two years. No aftershows, nada.
No outtakes, nothing that suggest Prince is in reality recording day after day after day.
Do you remember the shock when you learned When Doves Cry took 24 hours straight, right?

Now Prince puts out a record avery 2 year or so.
Pick your favorite, I'm sure you can keep up the pace with some of them.

My point is, we don't get to define what originality is. Prince in the eighties is a mix of The Clash, Blondie, Hendrix for the looks, Santana for the guitar, Jerry Lee Lewis for the piano, some Kraftwerk, some Kate Bush, some Beatles, some Jazz, going this way I could reply Prince has always been a bag of influences. You're not just particular fond of Old School Funk, but come on.

What about "What's my Name?" ? What about "Big White Mansion" ? "Shhh" ?
The problem with the nineties, is that people, because they have access to the journal pages, mistake them for official records.

Prince switched to Radio Prince. Pick up what you like.

How best studied?
Live.

Everything happened live.
The Beautiful Experience, 'nuff said.

"Exodus" is made of big fat live sessions, then processed.
And not that much. It's just an astounding, hyper-pyscho-realistic-abstract space.
"The Exodus Has Begun" makes you feel like there are 64 tracks filled by the ad lib.
There are burst of pure talent every year, Every year yields several pop, rock, and funk masterpieces.

Just make one these boring playlists, take 10 a year, call it an album, and listen to them in sequence repeatedly. Drop the sketches if they're not your thing.

I think that's beauty of it. He's so generous.
What more do you want?
A trial? Thou shoult have produuuce more classics?
Fill more records?

"Puh! I'm gonna stay in my hometown and make a killer band outta Minneapolis folks.
Gonna play for my fans.
Fuck'em millions."

[Edited 4/3/17 16:57pm]

This guy right here knows what's up.

Exodus is insane funk. Strip out the lyrics and the bad rapping and "Jughead" is pretty tight funk as well. It's far from Prince's worst song. Prince had SO MUCH music inside him that it's downright impossible to pigeon hole it, categorize it all and serve up a plate that will appeal to everyone's taste. The dude you're arguing with obviously doesn't dig funk/hip hop/R&B. I'm not much for most of the ballads

The dude just had so much fucking range it's absolutely impossible to parse. He WAS music, day in and day out. Constantly. He wrote "There's Other Here WIth Us", "I Wonder U" and bubble gum stuff like "Manic Monday" and "Raspberry Beret". Dance floor killers like "Gett Off". Quirky "That doesn't sound like anything I've heard before like "Kiss" and "When Doves Cry". Orchestral, layered compositions like "Glam Slam" and "What's My Name".

He could melt your face in one minute, make you bob your head and shake your ass the next, then make the women cream their jeans with the next track. He was a vegas lounge singer, a James Brown band leader, A Sly Stone melting pot, a PFunk All Star, and a punk, with the sensitivity and subtlety of Joni Mitchell. He was an Elvis Presely and a Rolling Stone with the charisma of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and the prolificness of Frank Zappa. On top of it he threw in the fashion, the style, the dance moves and even the films. I honestly can't think of a musician that was so good at so many different things and I'm really, really trying to be objective about it. Bowie's close but he didn't have the chops that Prince did with the intruments.

I think maybe Frank Zappa is the closest comparison, as weird as that might sound.

Experiencing Prince is like to going to a restaurant that serves EVERYTHING. He never really stopped writing great stuff. I'll put "The Word", "Love", "Colonized Mind", "Way Back Home", "Last December", "Come Back", "Revelation" and "Calhoun Square" up against any hits collection you can muster from his popular period.

Sorry for rambling.

Germanegro said:

How to best study Prince's post-80s musical creations? With good cocktails, fun companions, maybe some incense and pillows, your favorite mood-lighting, and a nice bite to eat. That'd do nicely.

EXCELLENT IDEA

herb4 said:

bonatoc said:

I don't agree. Here's why. Imagine you had no bootlegs.
Not one.
A just a world tour every two years. No aftershows, nada.
No outtakes, nothing that suggest Prince is in reality recording day after day after day.
Do you remember the shock when you learned When Doves Cry took 24 hours straight, right?

Now Prince puts out a record avery 2 year or so.
Pick your favorite, I'm sure you can keep up the pace with some of them.

My point is, we don't get to define what originality is. Prince in the eighties is a mix of The Clash, Blondie, Hendrix for the looks, Santana for the guitar, Jerry Lee Lewis for the piano, some Kraftwerk, some Kate Bush, some Beatles, some Jazz, going this way I could reply Prince has always been a bag of influences. You're not just particular fond of Old School Funk, but come on.

What about "What's my Name?" ? What about "Big White Mansion" ? "Shhh" ?
The problem with the nineties, is that people, because they have access to the journal pages, mistake them for official records.

Prince switched to Radio Prince. Pick up what you like.

How best studied?
Live.

Everything happened live.
The Beautiful Experience, 'nuff said.

"Exodus" is made of big fat live sessions, then processed.
And not that much. It's just an astounding, hyper-pyscho-realistic-abstract space.
"The Exodus Has Begun" makes you feel like there are 64 tracks filled by the ad lib.
There are burst of pure talent every year, Every year yields several pop, rock, and funk masterpieces.

Just make one these boring playlists, take 10 a year, call it an album, and listen to them in sequence repeatedly. Drop the sketches if they're not your thing.

I think that's beauty of it. He's so generous.
What more do you want?
A trial? Thou shoult have produuuce more classics?
Fill more records?

"Puh! I'm gonna stay in my hometown and make a killer band outta Minneapolis folks.
Gonna play for my fans.
Fuck'em millions."

[Edited 4/3/17 16:57pm]

This guy right here knows what's up.

Exodus is insane funk. Strip out the lyrics and the bad rapping and "Jughead" is pretty tight funk as well. It's far from Prince's worst song. Prince had SO MUCH music inside him that it's downright impossible to pigeon hole it, categorize it all and serve up a plate that will appeal to everyone's taste. The dude you're arguing with obviously doesn't dig funk/hip hop/R&B. I'm not much for most of the ballads

The dude just had so much fucking range it's absolutely impossible to parse. He WAS music, day in and day out. Constantly. He wrote "There's Other Here WIth Us", "I Wonder U" and bubble gum stuff like "Manic Monday" and "Raspberry Beret". Dance floor killers like "Gett Off". Quirky "That doesn't sound like anything I've heard before like "Kiss" and "When Doves Cry". Orchestral, layered compositions like "Glam Slam" and "What's My Name".

He could melt your face in one minute, make you bob your head and shake your ass the next, then make the women cream their jeans with the next track. He was a vegas lounge singer, a James Brown band leader, A Sly Stone melting pot, a PFunk All Star, and a punk, with the sensitivity and subtlety of Joni Mitchell. He was an Elvis Presely and a Rolling Stone with the charisma of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and the prolificness of Frank Zappa. On top of it he threw in the fashion, the style, the dance moves and even the films. I honestly can't think of a musician that was so good at so many different things and I'm really, really trying to be objective about it. Bowie's close but he didn't have the chops that Prince did with the intruments.

I think maybe Frank Zappa is the closest comparison, as weird as that might sound.

Experiencing Prince is like to going to a restaurant that serves EVERYTHING. He never really stopped writing great stuff. I'll put "The Word", "Love", "Colonized Mind", "Way Back Home", "Last December", "Come Back", "Revelation" and "Calhoun Square" up against any hits collection you can muster from his popular period.

Sorry for rambling.

THANK YOU and not a ramble at all. When someone started a thread about songs that others love that you hate, people's responses clearly exemplified everyone's different taste. I love the funk/R&B/ballads, trying to make my daughter a fan and she loves the rock and absolutely can't get with the funk. I am not an expert by a long shot, but just because it wasn't on someone's number 1 list does that mean it wasn't a sucess. I, along with other's loved Adore so much, you couldn't tell us it wasn't a number 1 single.

COme and Chaos and Disorder are 50/50. 3121 and Musicology are solid well crafted albums. Planet Earth was kind of lame except for the title track and Somewhere Here on Earth, NPS had a few good songs, Emancipation is about half great, The Rainbow Children is musically great and lyrically lame (with some exceptions),, The Truth is a wonderful album, One Nite Alone is very good. The GOld Experience has some weak spots but is overall great. the Symbol had some really great songs and some pretty bad songs. Art Official Age is pretty solid throughout. HIt and Run phase 1 is hit and miss. HIt and Run phase 2 is mostly great (some find it bland, I find it subtle and warm). Crystal Ball (which is part 80's) was great. Graffiti Bridge is half/half (but boy is the good half great). Batman is underrated and lots of fun with only a few bad songs. Lovesexy is very strong overall (the only song I dislike is the actual "Lovesexy" song), Plectrumelectrum is half good half mediocre, Mlps Sound is kind of lame, 2010 is underrated with some great pop songs (I love Future Soul Song, sticky like glue and Laveaux) but has some weak spots, Lotusflower is hit and miss and has some strong spots.

Here's my point. You are taking him for granted. this is a man who released an album a year. It takes Adele three years to write a friggin' album and its average. Imagine if you took every "good" song out of all of those prince albums and left out the rest, he would still have at least (in my opinion) 20-30 truely great songs and quite a few good songs. Who else has that kind of track record? prince in the 80's was more consistent but he was running on some kind of mega-adreline because who else can do that? Even if only half of his songs post 80's were good-great (the distinction between good and great is highly subjective..a bad song is easier to agree on) then he would still have a hell of a track record. Unfortunately, not many people have heard this music. I certainly hadn't before he died. When I looked into his music (truely dug into it) I was kind of shocked...and much of it was not chronological or from a particular period. Its was a hodgepodge of fan favorites on youtube.

This is my opinion, but its valid and its researched and its not influenced by a friend's opinion that Prince was irrelevent or a disappointment since he had stopped being the brilliant dirty mind he had been in the 80's.

rusty1 said:

Come Chaos&disorder NPS Musicology 3121 Planet earth 2010 6 flat albums I can't find any his first 10 yrs In his career. Prince had songs that were good But overall the albums were ok. Emancipation & TRC i liked. The Truth & One night Alone piano Albums were fine. But in between those releases Was a lot of throw away music

Live Prince is where its at in many ways. Perhaps, that should be studied first before attacking the messy but often brilliant hodgepodge of his later studio recordings. Just the way he would reinvent and reinterpret his own songs live. People make whole careers on interpretation of others' music. He did it to his own music. His later versions of Something in the Water, I could never take the place of ur man etc. kind of blew my mind. Even his Montreux version of originally overproduced 90's song "The Max" shocked me in the best sense. His set lists tended to be strong. He seemed to be a better editor of his own work in live performances.

herb4 said:

bonatoc said:

I don't agree. Here's why. Imagine you had no bootlegs.
Not one.
A just a world tour every two years. No aftershows, nada.
No outtakes, nothing that suggest Prince is in reality recording day after day after day.
Do you remember the shock when you learned When Doves Cry took 24 hours straight, right?

Now Prince puts out a record avery 2 year or so.
Pick your favorite, I'm sure you can keep up the pace with some of them.

My point is, we don't get to define what originality is. Prince in the eighties is a mix of The Clash, Blondie, Hendrix for the looks, Santana for the guitar, Jerry Lee Lewis for the piano, some Kraftwerk, some Kate Bush, some Beatles, some Jazz, going this way I could reply Prince has always been a bag of influences. You're not just particular fond of Old School Funk, but come on.

What about "What's my Name?" ? What about "Big White Mansion" ? "Shhh" ?
The problem with the nineties, is that people, because they have access to the journal pages, mistake them for official records.

Prince switched to Radio Prince. Pick up what you like.

How best studied?
Live.

Everything happened live.
The Beautiful Experience, 'nuff said.

"Exodus" is made of big fat live sessions, then processed.
And not that much. It's just an astounding, hyper-pyscho-realistic-abstract space.
"The Exodus Has Begun" makes you feel like there are 64 tracks filled by the ad lib.
There are burst of pure talent every year, Every year yields several pop, rock, and funk masterpieces.

Just make one these boring playlists, take 10 a year, call it an album, and listen to them in sequence repeatedly. Drop the sketches if they're not your thing.

I think that's beauty of it. He's so generous.
What more do you want?
A trial? Thou shoult have produuuce more classics?
Fill more records?

"Puh! I'm gonna stay in my hometown and make a killer band outta Minneapolis folks.
Gonna play for my fans.
Fuck'em millions."

[Edited 4/3/17 16:57pm]

This guy right here knows what's up.

Exodus is insane funk. Strip out the lyrics and the bad rapping and "Jughead" is pretty tight funk as well. It's far from Prince's worst song. Prince had SO MUCH music inside him that it's downright impossible to pigeon hole it, categorize it all and serve up a plate that will appeal to everyone's taste. The dude you're arguing with obviously doesn't dig funk/hip hop/R&B. I'm not much for most of the ballads

The dude just had so much fucking range it's absolutely impossible to parse. He WAS music, day in and day out. Constantly. He wrote "There's Other Here WIth Us", "I Wonder U" and bubble gum stuff like "Manic Monday" and "Raspberry Beret". Dance floor killers like "Gett Off". Quirky "That doesn't sound like anything I've heard before like "Kiss" and "When Doves Cry". Orchestral, layered compositions like "Glam Slam" and "What's My Name".

He could melt your face in one minute, make you bob your head and shake your ass the next, then make the women cream their jeans with the next track. He was a vegas lounge singer, a James Brown band leader, A Sly Stone melting pot, a PFunk All Star, and a punk, with the sensitivity and subtlety of Joni Mitchell. He was an Elvis Presely and a Rolling Stone with the charisma of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and the prolificness of Frank Zappa. On top of it he threw in the fashion, the style, the dance moves and even the films. I honestly can't think of a musician that was so good at so many different things and I'm really, really trying to be objective about it. Bowie's close but he didn't have the chops that Prince did with the intruments.

I think maybe Frank Zappa is the closest comparison, as weird as that might sound.

Experiencing Prince is like to going to a restaurant that serves EVERYTHING. He never really stopped writing great stuff. I'll put "The Word", "Love", "Colonized Mind", "Way Back Home", "Last December", "Come Back", "Revelation" and "Calhoun Square" up against any hits collection you can muster from his popular period.

Sorry for rambling.

purplerabbithole said:

Live Prince is where its at in many ways. Perhaps, that should be studied first before attacking the messy but often brilliant hodgepodge of his later studio recordings. Just the way he would reinvent and reinterpret his own songs live. People make whole careers on interpretation of others' music. He did it to his own music. His later versions of Something in the Water, I could never take the place of ur man etc. kind of blew my mind. Even his Montreux version of originally overproduced 90's song "The Max" shocked me in the best sense. His set lists tended to be strong. He seemed to be a better editor of his own work in live performances.

herb4 said:

This guy right here knows what's up.

Exodus is insane funk. Strip out the lyrics and the bad rapping and "Jughead" is pretty tight funk as well. It's far from Prince's worst song. Prince had SO MUCH music inside him that it's downright impossible to pigeon hole it, categorize it all and serve up a plate that will appeal to everyone's taste. The dude you're arguing with obviously doesn't dig funk/hip hop/R&B. I'm not much for most of the ballads

The dude just had so much fucking range it's absolutely impossible to parse. He WAS music, day in and day out. Constantly. He wrote "There's Other Here WIth Us", "I Wonder U" and bubble gum stuff like "Manic Monday" and "Raspberry Beret". Dance floor killers like "Gett Off". Quirky "That doesn't sound like anything I've heard before like "Kiss" and "When Doves Cry". Orchestral, layered compositions like "Glam Slam" and "What's My Name".

He could melt your face in one minute, make you bob your head and shake your ass the next, then make the women cream their jeans with the next track. He was a vegas lounge singer, a James Brown band leader, A Sly Stone melting pot, a PFunk All Star, and a punk, with the sensitivity and subtlety of Joni Mitchell. He was an Elvis Presely and a Rolling Stone with the charisma of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and the prolificness of Frank Zappa. On top of it he threw in the fashion, the style, the dance moves and even the films. I honestly can't think of a musician that was so good at so many different things and I'm really, really trying to be objective about it. Bowie's close but he didn't have the chops that Prince did with the intruments.

I think maybe Frank Zappa is the closest comparison, as weird as that might sound.

Experiencing Prince is like to going to a restaurant that serves EVERYTHING. He never really stopped writing great stuff. I'll put "The Word", "Love", "Colonized Mind", "Way Back Home", "Last December", "Come Back", "Revelation" and "Calhoun Square" up against any hits collection you can muster from his popular period.

Sorry for rambling.

Consider how good is Jimmy Kimmel's RnR Love Affair compared to the released version. Not that the released version bad, but the live arrangements and performance makes it the defintive one, that should be on the record IMHO.

snl's Fury is another example. The vocal and guitar performance, it's beyond astounding, and it's real time. Happening. SNL Fury's really something.
Like he's more driven to record when he's out of his zone of comfort.
Finally, after so many years of reclusion.
I think it is one of the reasons why he was feeling at peace during the last years.

[Edited 4/5/17 7:57am]

herb4 said:

bonatoc said:

I don't agree. Here's why. Imagine you had no bootlegs.
Not one.
A just a world tour every two years. No aftershows, nada.
No outtakes, nothing that suggest Prince is in reality recording day after day after day.
Do you remember the shock when you learned When Doves Cry took 24 hours straight, right?

Now Prince puts out a record avery 2 year or so.
Pick your favorite, I'm sure you can keep up the pace with some of them.

My point is, we don't get to define what originality is. Prince in the eighties is a mix of The Clash, Blondie, Hendrix for the looks, Santana for the guitar, Jerry Lee Lewis for the piano, some Kraftwerk, some Kate Bush, some Beatles, some Jazz, going this way I could reply Prince has always been a bag of influences. You're not just particular fond of Old School Funk, but come on.

What about "What's my Name?" ? What about "Big White Mansion" ? "Shhh" ?
The problem with the nineties, is that people, because they have access to the journal pages, mistake them for official records.

Prince switched to Radio Prince. Pick up what you like.

How best studied?
Live.

Everything happened live.
The Beautiful Experience, 'nuff said.

"Exodus" is made of big fat live sessions, then processed.
And not that much. It's just an astounding, hyper-pyscho-realistic-abstract space.
"The Exodus Has Begun" makes you feel like there are 64 tracks filled by the ad lib.
There are burst of pure talent every year, Every year yields several pop, rock, and funk masterpieces.

Just make one these boring playlists, take 10 a year, call it an album, and listen to them in sequence repeatedly. Drop the sketches if they're not your thing.

I think that's beauty of it. He's so generous.
What more do you want?
A trial? Thou shoult have produuuce more classics?
Fill more records?

"Puh! I'm gonna stay in my hometown and make a killer band outta Minneapolis folks.
Gonna play for my fans.
Fuck'em millions."

[Edited 4/3/17 16:57pm]

This guy right here knows what's up.

Exodus is insane funk. Strip out the lyrics and the bad rapping and "Jughead" is pretty tight funk as well. It's far from Prince's worst song. Prince had SO MUCH music inside him that it's downright impossible to pigeon hole it, categorize it all and serve up a plate that will appeal to everyone's taste. The dude you're arguing with obviously doesn't dig funk/hip hop/R&B. I'm not much for most of the ballads

The dude just had so much fucking range it's absolutely impossible to parse. He WAS music, day in and day out. Constantly. He wrote "There's Other Here WIth Us", "I Wonder U" and bubble gum stuff like "Manic Monday" and "Raspberry Beret". Dance floor killers like "Gett Off". Quirky "That doesn't sound like anything I've heard before like "Kiss" and "When Doves Cry". Orchestral, layered compositions like "Glam Slam" and "What's My Name".

He could melt your face in one minute, make you bob your head and shake your ass the next, then make the women cream their jeans with the next track. He was a vegas lounge singer, a James Brown band leader, A Sly Stone melting pot, a PFunk All Star, and a punk, with the sensitivity and subtlety of Joni Mitchell. He was an Elvis Presely and a Rolling Stone with the charisma of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and the prolificness of Frank Zappa. On top of it he threw in the fashion, the style, the dance moves and even the films. I honestly can't think of a musician that was so good at so many different things and I'm really, really trying to be objective about it. Bowie's close but he didn't have the chops that Prince did with the intruments.

I think maybe Frank Zappa is the closest comparison, as weird as that might sound.

Experiencing Prince is like to going to a restaurant that serves EVERYTHING. He never really stopped writing great stuff. I'll put "The Word", "Love", "Colonized Mind", "Way Back Home", "Last December", "Come Back", "Revelation" and "Calhoun Square" up against any hits collection you can muster from his popular period.

Sorry for rambling.

Love your post. If it's rambling, I want more!

By the way, what do you think of the production on Lotusflow3r vs., say, the situation you describe (in an earlier post) with "Fury"?

rusty1 said:

herb4 said:

He certainly did. Maybe not full albums but a LOT of individual tracks are on par with anything he did on Purple Rain or SOTT.

Stop it.. He did nothing GREAT after 1988 , Prince had good songs here & there. But nothing on the 80's creative level.

Of course he did GREAT stuff after 1988. Plenty of it. Either you lack knowledge of the music or you're trying to fit the music into a rise&fall narrative that simply isn't that clean cut.

leecaldon said:

love that!!!

sro100 said:

With a big fat joint.

get real ....I guess TRC and Lotusflower and symbol album r throwaways ..right??

luvsexy4all said:

Wane20 said:

rusty1 said:

I don't understand why people like AOA so much. It's not even one of his better albums [Edited 4/8/17 11:08am]

I'd put it right up there, his best for 15+ years.

And the album that got me and my friends really into Prince back in the day? Emancipation.

It's great that this thread features such a diverse range of opinions!

It's a shame that this thread features such a high degree of arrogance.

Art speaks to some people and not others, as a result people will like things that you don't and that's okay - that doesn't mean it should be dismissed with such stridency.

leecaldon said:

rusty1 said:

I don't understand why people like AOA so much. It's not even one of his better albums [Edited 4/8/17 11:08am]

I'd put it right up there, his best for 15+ years.

And the album that got me and my friends really into Prince back in the day? Emancipation.

The joy of Prince was that his audiences weren't just full of those of us who were there in his peak. Some were there from the start - others, like you, didn't find him until Emancipation - many didn't find him until after his death and are now starting to see what we saw decades ago. The point is, there are other circumstances that lead us to our favourite albums/songs that are not necessarily connected with the strength of the album/song, but with the personal experiences that we were undertaking at the time and the relationships that were formed/lost, and the response that the songs gave us emotionally towards those experiences. One of my least favourite albums is Emancipation, but I am well aware that it is not because of the album per se, but to do with my getting bored of sticking up for Prince through all the name change stuff and starting to feel like he cared more for money than for his fans etc... Also because I forged a very strong relationship which distracted me for a time from my obsession with all things Prince. I was also getting stick because I hadn't 'grown' out of my 'teenage' crush and people thought I was too old to be worshipping at the alter of an 80's pop star. So, all things considered, the albums I don't like as much tend to be the ones that I didn't give as much time, either for personal reasons, or because I didn't connect with them and put other stuff higher on my playlist. As others have said, music is subjective so we'll never all agree about what is his best and worst work.

Prince never had the same creative run as he did from Dirty Mind through to Lovesexy, but there is a mass of post-80s work that deserve appreaciation.

For example:

The Rainbow Children (Phenomenal musically and very interesting lyrically, (I am much more interested in the lyrics of this album, than the tired Prince-on-stand-by lyrics of much of his love and 'party' songs). This album is like someone cracked Prince's head open and all his being is gushing out. The album structure is perfect. Like Sign o' the Times, the album is an experience, and I feel I've been through an incredible journey after listening to it, and like Sign o' the Times (or Purple Rain, Parade, 1999), this is a serious contender for his best album.)

The Undertaker (I listen to this just as much as any of his 80s output. Moody, stripped down, gritty and very cohesive. The lyrics are great are too, Prince is at his absolute best on songs like 'The Ride' and the title track.)

The War (A song or an album in its own right, I don't know? But it is an absolutely exceptional piece of music. The track is hypnotic, Prince drags you through the music which unfolds like a sermon. It's dark and experimental, and demonstrates a bravery 80s Prince might not have had. I mean, would 80s Prince put out something so totally uncommercial? And lastly, it climaxs in a flurry of incredible guitar-soloing.)

And then there's The Truth, One Night Alone, Come, Lotusflower, NEWS, which are all great albums. Speaking of individual songs, there's a wealth of stunning material, even on his shoddier albums, (for example, Beautiful Strange, When the Lights Go Down, Future Soul Song, Time, Money Don't Matter Tonight, Dinner With Delores, The Word, What's My Name... and so on and so on).

And breifly, Prince's best live material of the 90s and 00s, eclipses his best 80s material by a long margin.

thisisreece said:

Prince never had the same creative run as he did from Dirty Mind through to Lovesexy, but there is a mass of post-80s work that deserve appreaciation.

For example:

The Rainbow Children (Phenomenal musically and very interesting lyrically, (I am much more interested in the lyrics of this album, than the tired Prince-on-stand-by lyrics of much of his love and 'party' songs). This album is like someone cracked Prince's head open and all his being is gushing out. The album structure is perfect. Like Sign o' the Times, the album is an experience, and I feel I've been through an incredible journey after listening to it, and like Sign o' the Times (or Purple Rain, Parade, 1999), this is a serious contender for his best album.)

The Undertaker (I listen to this just as much as any of his 80s output. Moody, stripped down, gritty and very cohesive. The lyrics are great are too, Prince is at his absolute best on songs like 'The Ride' and the title track.)

The War (A song or an album in its own right, I don't know? But it is an absolutely exceptional piece of music. The track is hypnotic, Prince drags you through the music which unfolds like a sermon. It's dark and experimental, and demonstrates a bravery 80s Prince might not have had. I mean, would 80s Prince put out something so totally uncommercial? And lastly, it climaxs in a flurry of incredible guitar-soloing.)

And then there's The Truth, One Night Alone, Come, Lotusflower, NEWS, which are all great albums. Speaking of individual songs, there's a wealth of stunning material, even on his shoddier albums, (for example, Beautiful Strange, When the Lights Go Down, Future Soul Song, Time, Money Don't Matter Tonight, Dinner With Delores, The Word, What's My Name... and so on and so on).

And breifly, Prince's best live material of the 90s and 00s, eclipses his best 80s material by a long margin.

I'd include the 10s in there as well.

[Edited 4/11/17 8:45am]

Whoa... Hold on there. "eclipses"?

I see your point, but I wouldn't go as far.

In the eighties, you also have the showman. It's disturbing to think the splits may have something to do with his demise, sure. Or he can be interpreted, a posteriori, like the grandest sacrifice an entertainer ever made (even if he's not alone in that case).

Whichever, you cannot refute the extraordinary performer of the first decade.

If long instrumental jams are your thing, as your reply suggests, there are a bunch of 80's aftershows to prove that he was already up there.

bonatoc said:

Whoa... Hold on there. "eclipses"?

I see your point, but I wouldn't go as far.

In the eighties, you also have the showman. It's disturbing to think the splits may have something to do with his demise, sure. Or he can be interpreted, a posteriori, like the grandest sacrifice an entertainer ever made (even if he's not alone in that case).

Whichever, you cannot refute the extraordinary performer of the first decade.

If long instrumental jams are your thing, as your reply suggests, there are a bunch of 80's aftershows to prove that he was already up there.

His ability to work a crowd, to work a stage only grew over time. Yes, there are some great performances and shows from the 80s (SOTT, Lovesexy, Hit n Run) but watching Gold era NPG, ONA, 3rdEyeGirl shows, aftershows at the IndigO2 - I'll take those over the 80s stuff, just.

I'm a little surprised at how much hate Musicology and 3121 are getting. I'd put them ahead of any album released between 1989 and 2002 (except maybe Love Symbol). I played both from front to back recently and was struck by how good they were, the man still had it then.

While he never matched Purple Rain, Prince still had a lot to offer musically, and made some classic tracks in the 1990s' and onward. In the minds of the general public, "Thieves in the Temple," "Cream", "Diamonds and Pearls," "7," and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" all stand beside his biggest 1980s' hits in their respective success, and are all great songs. The song "Musicology" was a late-career fan favorite. He was still branching out, with hip hop, jazz, and even straight up hard rock becoming a part of his sonic palette. Maybe not all of it was successful, but the fact that Prince was so daring in his experimentations is part of what made him such a uniquely dynamic figure.

There are probably just as many great songs from 1989-2015 as there are from 1977-88, we just write them off because the full packages (the albums) weren't as cohesive as when he was young and hungry.

67Cadillac said:

There are probably just as many great songs from 1989-2015 as there are from 1977-88, we just write them off because the full packages (the albums) weren't as cohesive as when he was young and hungry.

This.

There are a ton of really great individual songs but his post 80's albums all seemed to suffer from a lack of consistency.

[Edited 4/12/17 17:21pm]