Over the years Prince has had several band members do their own solo projects at some points in their career. My question is, how come almost none of those projects sound or come anywhere near the type of sound/feel of the joints they were known 4 when working with Prince?

I get that Prince wrote and produced the music when they were with him, but I dont really understand how u can spend alot of time around a talent like Prince and turn around and release a dud on your own. (IMHO)

The only artists that released some funky Prince type joints is one of the solo projects released by Marva King and Andre Cymone's 1st 3 albums. The rest of the releases did not really move me it all.......unless I missed something.

Are there any releases that gave u a Prince vibe by any Ex-band members?

Correction: I must say, I loved Eric Leeds 1st album and some of the song from his other projects.

[Edited 4/18/21 10:36am]

You missed alot.

Jessie Johnson's Verbal Penetration was extremely close to late era Prince. Same with the song, Toast To The Party Girl from The Original 7even

fDeluxe was arguably more funky than Prince when they were active. The Truth was also a good Prince style band that only released one live album.

But these people usually didn't record in studio with him. They just did soundchecks/concerts the way Prince wanted it done. When they got their freedom, they did what they wanted to do. That or they wanted to differentiate themselves.

what about Ida Nielsen? i like her solo albums

Strive said:

You missed alot.

Jessie Johnson's Verbal Penetration was extremely close to late era Prince. Same with the song, Toast To The Party Girl from The Original 7even

fDeluxe was arguably more funky than Prince when they were active. The Truth was also a good Prince style band that only released one live album.

But these people usually didn't record in studio with him. They just did soundchecks/concerts the way Prince wanted it done. When they got their freedom, they did what they wanted to do. That or they wanted to differentiate themselves.

None of those folks were in Prince's band.

Graycap23 said:

Over the years Prince has had several band members do their own solo projects at some points in their career. My question is, how come almost none of those projects sound or come anywhere near the type of sound/feel of the joints they were known 4 when working with Prince?

I get that Prince wrote and produced the music when they were with him, but I dont really understand how u can spend alot of time around a talent like Prince and turn around and release a dud on your own. (IMHO)

The only artists that released some funky Prince type joints is one of the solo projects released by Marva King and Andre Cymone's 1st 3 albums. The rest of the releases did not really move me it all.......unless I missed something.

Are there any releases that gave u a Prince vibe by any Ex-band members?

I get what you're saying. The only thing i would disagree with you on is the dud comment. I think the Wendy & Lisa albums have been strong. They're second only to Andre's first two(imo). And actually I'm glad that W&L chose the route that they did. Some of their solo songs have some beautiful melodies on them, and if they would have tried to do Prince 2.0, would have probably came off as inauthentic.

RJOrion said:

Wendy & Lisa's music was trash...some of BrownMark's music is good, he just cant sing...but yeah, Andre' Cymone is the only one with good solo lp's, and his production work with Jody Watley was REALLY good ("Still A Thrill" especially)...

Wendy & Lisa'a music was and is a delight. Isn't it great how one single man can attract people with such diverse tastes! Andre Cymone's music is terrific too. (I do wish his work with Adam Ant would get a proper re-release/release online).

SimonCharles said:

RJOrion said:

Wendy & Lisa's music was trash...some of BrownMark's music is good, he just cant sing...but yeah, Andre' Cymone is the only one with good solo lp's, and his production work with Jody Watley was REALLY good ("Still A Thrill" especially)...

Wendy & Lisa'a music was and is a delight. Isn't it great how one single man can attract people with such diverse tastes! Andre Cymone's music is terrific too. (I do wish his work with Adam Ant would get a proper re-release/release online).

Shut the Front door! Just as I type that about Manners and Physique...and head over to Spotify to confirm that it still doesn't exist on there...THERE IT IS! Ah...oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! - Wendy & Lisa's music is still a delight.

[Edited 4/18/21 4:02am]

I was kinda disappointed that Dez never really released any solo music after working with P. He could have put together a really cool rock group (when guitar rock was popular in the 80's). Plus he was already heavily recognized from the "1999" album videos. I have his solo album that he released in the late 90's, but I wasn't crazy about it.

Interesting thread!

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I will say I thoroughly enjoyed discovering Wendy & Lisa's albums - Honeymoon Express, FATB, & Eroica are fantastic albums and they do a great job at seperating themselves from Prince while also reminding us why they were so integral in his process during their time together, not to mention they are talented artists and poets in their own right.

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Oddly enough when I found Bobby Z's album on Youtube a couple years back, I really dug some of those songs: Alaysha, Grey Heart, The Meaning & Give Into You are pretty catchy.

Not a masterpiece by any means but I can dig it for what it is!

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I'll have to disagree on Andre Cymone's work, the only album that I could really enjoy was AC and that's largely for The Dance Electric and some other tracks.

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I think it would be really off putting for ex-band members to go solo and just copy the sound of Prince, it would come off really inauthentic and uninteresting.

Correction: I must say, I loved Eric Leeds 1st album and some of the song from his other projects.

Graycap23 said:

Strive said:

You missed alot.

Jessie Johnson's Verbal Penetration was extremely close to late era Prince. Same with the song, Toast To The Party Girl from The Original 7even

fDeluxe was arguably more funky than Prince when they were active. The Truth was also a good Prince style band that only released one live album.

But these people usually didn't record in studio with him. They just did soundchecks/concerts the way Prince wanted it done. When they got their freedom, they did what they wanted to do. That or they wanted to differentiate themselves.

None of those folks were in Prince's band.

Lol. Exactly.

Amazes me how people will take the time to type out paragraphs that have nothing to do with the original topic.

RJOrion said:

cblu said:

Graycap23 said:

None of those folks were in Prince's band.

Lol. Exactly.

Amazes me how people will take the time to type out paragraphs that have nothing to do with the original topic.

I don't know - it was all "one band" really. It was all Prince, they were all associates singing his songs, playing his notes. I understand why these folks have been included here.

SimonCharles said:

cblu said:

Lol. Exactly.

Amazes me how people will take the time to type out paragraphs that have nothing to do with the original topic.

I don't know - it was all "one band" really. It was all Prince, they were all associates singing his songs, playing his notes. I understand why these folks have been included here.

But none of them were in a band performing WITH Prince, which is why The Time still sounds funky live. Like you said, still just playing his notes. The other people lost whatever "Prince sound" they had with Prince because he was the crucial common element.

I'm not quite sure where Sheila E fits because her 80's material was before she joined the band.

Most of the songs I enjoyed from her were Prince productions/written.

[Edited 4/18/21 13:43pm]

Eroica (Wendy & Lisa) is a strong album.

fdeluxe is unlistenable for me.

I like Candy Dulfer's albums, especially Sax-A-Go-Go.

RJOrion said:

Wendy & Lisa's music was trash...some of BrownMark's music is good, he just cant sing...but yeah, Andre' Cymone is the only one with good solo lp's, and his production work with Jody Watley was REALLY good ("Still A Thrill" especially)...

I'm sort the opposite of that. W&L's first 2 or 3 records were really good. It took a while but I came to appreciate Fruit on the Bottom. It was more open, organic, whimsical in some ways. Wendy & Lisa is excellent front to back. Eroica was more textured, and the most experimental of those three. Girls Bros felt dark to me, but given events in their lives, I don't fault them for it. White Flags felt like what we all thought they'd sound like.

Mark can sing if he fakes it a bit. There are certain registers in his voice that he can pull it off. Other times, it sounds not quite right. His first record is really good, though.

I just mentioned in another thread how I think Andre is talented, but his albums were generic and boring attempts at R&B. "Dance Electric" is the only interesting song on A.C. He seemed to do better working with others (like Jody).

The whole "I worked with Prince, now here's my own music" is a catch-22 for every single person. Do they go off, write 9 songs, and sound like Prince (eg: "Rich man"), or do they take a hard left and do their own thing? Rosie sounded like good R&B music, not necessarily like Prince. Yet Andre was straight up trying to beat Prince at his own game.

Then you have talents like W&L who had a very different background in music and their exposure to artists, and created things very different. Prince never had a 5/4 song, but W&L did on their first record. They showed they can write some weird funky stuff, as well as straight ahead pop songs that are still rooted firmly in their aural aesthetics as artists.

fDeluxe had one of the best follow up records. Those joints are solid, front to back. I still listen to Gaslight all the time. I always described it as The Family, as grown folks. Susannah worked with her sister et al on the W&L stuff. And Paul is from a musical family so he's always doing something, whether it's on the radio or not. I recently found a song from him the other day that was so 90s but still a fun romp. But he was already on the radio because he worked and played on Paula Abdul's Forever Your Girl album (as did Paul's friend Oliver Lieber, who produced the majority of the record and wrote or co-wrote most of the songs).

I think Morris sorta fell into the same pocket Andre did, although Morris's music was arguably a bit more interesting, and he had hits on his own (opposed to Andre's only real interest was a Prince-written tune). "The Oak Tree," "Fishnet," etc. were Morris songs, not left over Prince material. Morris is a drummer - he better damn well be funky somewhere!

The part about Paul goes for members of The Time. Monte Moir co-wrote "The Pleasure Principle" for Janet, and a lot of The Time worked on Alexander O'Neal's albums.

I think one of the best offshoots was Monte Moir's This Side of Paradise. He has a high tenor voice, the album is piano centered, and you can hear the influence of people like James Taylor, AJ Croce, Michael McDonald and others in his music. God, that record is so pure and good.

Sheila E. can't write a song on her own that anyone is interested in to save her life. Although I'll give her that Sheila E. had some of her best tracks, some of which were co-written by Prince, some of which were not. (What some folks may not know or remember is that the guys from Tony! Toni! Toné! played on that album. They're from Oakland, and they were produced early on by Foster & McElroy (EnVogue). Makes sense they all knew each other.

Overall, it's always a toss up with people who leave the camp. Maybe they think they have that Prince clout and fans will buy whatever they put out. Maybe they just want to not be like Prince. Maybe they try to be Prince or Prince-adjacent (looking at you, Sheila) and can't hold up long term with that cuz people know a phony when they see one.

So I guess it depends how you define "success." If these people are working in the industry and doing what they're meant to do, that's success for them. And that's just fine.

-

Wendy should do a solo record.

-

Graycap23 said:

Over the years Prince has had several band members do their own solo projects at some points in their career. My question is, how come almost none of those projects sound or come anywhere near the type of sound/feel of the joints they were known 4 when working with Prince?

I get that Prince wrote and produced the music when they were with him, but I dont really understand how u can spend alot of time around a talent like Prince and turn around and release a dud on your own. (IMHO)

The only artists that released some funky Prince type joints is one of the solo projects released by Marva King and Andre Cymone's 1st 3 albums. The rest of the releases did not really move me it all.......unless I missed something.

Are there any releases that gave u a Prince vibe by any Ex-band members?

Correction: I must say, I loved Eric Leeds 1st album and some of the song from his other projects.

[Edited 4/18/21 10:36am]

What makes an album a dud? Why would anyone want to try and compete with Prince at his own game and why on earth would you want them to try? Thread premise is ridiculous.

jaawwnn said:

Graycap23 said:

Over the years Prince has had several band members do their own solo projects at some points in their career. My question is, how come almost none of those projects sound or come anywhere near the type of sound/feel of the joints they were known 4 when working with Prince?

I get that Prince wrote and produced the music when they were with him, but I dont really understand how u can spend alot of time around a talent like Prince and turn around and release a dud on your own. (IMHO)

The only artists that released some funky Prince type joints is one of the solo projects released by Marva King and Andre Cymone's 1st 3 albums. The rest of the releases did not really move me it all.......unless I missed something.

Are there any releases that gave u a Prince vibe by any Ex-band members?

Correction: I must say, I loved Eric Leeds 1st album and some of the song from his other projects.

[Edited 4/18/21 10:36am]

What makes an album a dud? Why would anyone want to try and compete with Prince at his own game and why on earth would you want them to try? Thread premise is ridiculous.

A dud? An album I don't like, feel, appreciate or ever want 2 hear again.

Was I clear enough?

Graycap23 said:

jaawwnn said:

What makes an album a dud? Why would anyone want to try and compete with Prince at his own game and why on earth would you want them to try? Thread premise is ridiculous.

A dud? An album I don't like, feel, appreciate or ever want 2 hear again.

Was I clear enough?

My bad, I take it back, you did say "IMHO."

But, once again, I'm glad many of the solo albums weren't just 3rd rate imitations of their former-boss. Seems to me that that's the smart move.

coldcoffeeandcocacola said:

Andre cymone work on Adam ants manners and physique 100/10 from me. Perfection

Oh yes.

They fail big sadly. Prince frankly cursed them.

Graycap23 said:

I'm not quite sure where Sheila E fits because her 80's material was before she joined the band.

Most of the songs I enjoyed from her were Prince productions/written.

[Edited 4/18/21 13:43pm]

Sheila Escovedo never had solo albums before Prince. Sheila E was a Prince protege whose music was done by Prince and fleshed out mostly with this band. the Sheila E(1986) had non Prince input, but you can almost tell the difference between the ones Prince did and the ones Sheila E did.

Sex Cymbal Heaven etc the further she got away from her 'time' with Prince the less it came off as good.

Wendy and Lisa's stuff is top notch. Trash??? A little harsh, no? Some of their melodies are absolutely gorgeous. I get you are not a fan, but gotta respect their talent. I am still discovering more interesting tidits on White Flags.

The one album I am luke warm on is Fruit at the Bottom, as I felt they were trying too hard to sound like Prince. Still good stuff tho. Eroica is their absolute best imo.