Most longtime Prince fans love albums like “Dirty Mind”, “1999” and “Around The World in a Day” …..
partly because of the relatively rawness …. (it isn’t exactly punk!)
So, when Prince took a fall to polished music, they didn’t jump with him …..

Sometimes I honestly think some folks say this because it sounds like a cool thing to say. "Yeah, it should've sounded more dirty man, more raw". People throw those terms around when they really don't know what in the world they're talking about.
To answer your question, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a Prince album or any other musical piece sounding polished. A true artist is going to make their statement and do what feels good to them. Prince happens to be one of the diverse ones. I don't care what people say, they'd be complaining if each album sounded alike. Dirty Mind sounds the way it does because P wanted it to sound that way. The gritty, raggedy sound was in harmony with the subject matter. Same with the Gold Experience. Either way, Prince got what he was going for. How? 'Cause we're still sitting here talking about it.

Polished funk ?

Keep it raw. That why old records always sound good!

'Cos we like him dirty.

Personally I like music to sound real, and overproduction stymies this. It doesn't need to sound rough, full of bum notes, but it should sound as though it is played by people rather than computers. To me, "Musicology" sounds fresh for the most part, as though it was recorded "live" and then just subjected to minor polishing, whereas albums like "Emancipation" and "Rave" are completely devoid of all feeling and soul.

Away from Prince, a fine album of a "real" and "raw" album is "Rid of Me" by P J Harvey, which I think was barely produced at all and sounds all the better for it.

Nasalhair said:

I agree.

These albums especially (same goes for stuff like High) - they sound so clinical and sterile.

Nasalhair said:

Nonsense.

Emancipation has The Love We Make, Let's Have A Baby, Saviour and Soul Sanctuary. Those songs are as heartfelt as any he's done.

Cloudbuster said:

I agree with that. Whether you care for the sound or not, check the lyrics.

On the subject of Emancipation:

The album gets very bad press but there surely isn't any lack of soul, heartfelt or musical treasures to experience as one would often be led to believe.

If anything, I view the affair as a masterful, consolidated trip through The Vault at that pivotal time period of his career and personal life. Whilst I don't think it stands up as the album he was 'born to make', it's certainly 'an experience'. Perhaps, it suffers from being an overly ambitious, time consuming effort to get to the precious moments of the Emancipation Vault. There are still, however, plenty of them such as In This Bed, I Scream, The Love We Make, Soul Sanctuary, Dreaming Of U, The Holy River, Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife, One Of Us and White Mansion, not to mention some great funk jams such as Jam Of The Year, Face Down and Joint 2 Joint.

It's almost a shame that so many long term Prince fans prefer to concentrate on what they feel is missing, rather than experience the musical abundance that was shared. I guess it's all about expectations...

newdawn said:

I do think the danger of too much polish on any kind of music is that it's often just chasing trendy production styles, e.g., the Kirky J. stuff. It's the rare Timbaland (or early Prince) who can come up with some truly new groundbreaking sound, but otherwise, it's smart to keep the focus on the songwriting, instrument performance and ryhthmic complexitity rather than that elusive "now" programmed drum beat.
[This message was edited Wed Jul 7 7:57:15 2004 by MendesCity]

With Emancipation; prince followed the trend of new RnB acts with a very polished sound, very flat and boring. It sounded as a weak attempt to please the pop-masses and it sounded as if he took off his pants and bared his butt for a commercial sounding album. I found it the most embarrissing prince-record. If it wasn't by him I wouldn't have given it a second glance. I really threw it in a corner to give it the occasional dissapointing "another listen"