No, the whole album was not influenced by James Brown, just tracks like "Housequake" and "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" The rest of the majority of the albums sounds very 1960s influenced and a little 1970s...probably some of his childhood heros influenced it or someone Lisa and Wendy introduced him to. The only thing that sounds like "Prince" and only "Prince" is "It".



This one actually is the best of the late 1980s albums. "I Know" sounds a little James Brownish but Prince had gotten a little bit better on this one but still...retro.




I love the synths and drum machines, that's what gave Prince his own sound that no one else could match. Why the hell do you think I'm bitching about the later stuff..."Prince" was gone. I was saying that I wondered if Prince would rather have been using horns instead of the synths back then because when he left them, he hardly ever used them again.
[Edited 12/17/04 7:19am]

James Brown was only one example of Prince's immitations. Prince basically immitated the music of the 1960s and 1970s as a whole.



You're right. The declining number of fans shows what level he went to...downwards.

1. Prince (most of the time)is more concerned with advancing his art/sound than appealing to the masses.He has proven this again and again.So if you wanted him to appeal to the masses and make Dirty Mind part 2, 1999 part 2, or Purple Rain part 2 then I guess that is just too bad. Prince had the same number of fans after Purple Rain (if not more) than he did before. Sure, the masses left after Purple Rain. However, the sales for the albums after Purple Rain were higher than the sales for anything before it. Prince was done with the straight up MPLS sound by 1985, the rest of the world was (at the latest) in 1991 when Diamonds and Pearls hit. In the rest of the world his popularity skyrocketed after 1985 (see Europe).

2. As I said before, your point of view is warped. Don't believe me? Look at this entire page of people who absolutely disagree with your viewpoints.

2. If you cannot hear the Elvis/rockabilly influence in songs like Delirious, Jack U Off, and Horny Toad (yet you think Lovesexy is a James Brown 60's & 70's rip off) then I overestimated your intelligence about music history and a have nothin more to say to you.

You forgot "Controversy". And as I have said before, the majority of his original fan base, the R&B fans that made him a star in the first place,...they split. As well as countless new pop fans. As far as Europe goes, that's probably why he constantly was over there touring in the late 1980s and not here at home. When you are dealing with overseas, you are dealing with people with a whole broader amount of taste than people here at home. If he had toured here in America in the late 1980s and performed only his new material, the tour would have bombed...(see "Sign O The Times" movie having extremely low attendance in theaters).

And this also a Prince fan website. If you go to any artist's web site and make a negative comment, people's feathers are going to get ruffled. If you ask the average person off the street, who is not as heavy into Prince as we are, they are going to agree with me. Just like Prince has a mind of his own...so do I. And if anyone that does not share the same opinion as you is warped, then there are a lot of warped people in this world.




The last thing I hear in those songs is Elvis. To say that Prince was totally without influence on those earlier albums, would be rediculous. No one is 100% totally original and Prince is no exception. If I hear anything, in those songs, I hear influences of new wave that was popular at the time. I can name others myself, "Automatic" sounds like Gary Numan's "Cars" and "Erotic City" sounds like Laid Back's "White Horse". A hint of his current competition at the time was in there but their influences did not dominate the entire album like his childhood influences did later. When you are doing a style that they did 10 and 20 years ago, you are doing "retro". I welcome retro today, now that music as a whole has gone to hell, but I sure as hell did not welcome retro back then when music as a whole was still good.
[Edited 12/18/04 7:46am]
[Edited 12/18/04 7:49am]

If you wanna believe that Prince 1978-1984 was not retro that's fine, but you cannot tell me that "When U Were Mine" doesn't sound like it could've been a song by The Beatles, or that "delirious" sounds like Elvis/ rockabilly.

3. I am not disputing that Prince changed his sound in 1985.He also changed his sound in 1980 from slick disco/pop/funk to his signature MPLS sound. What I am claiming is that he was no more retro than he had been before. AWTWIAD gets pigeon holed by the mainstream press as being a 60's psychedelic record, but in actuality it didn't really sound JUST like those albums. It was new. It was Prince's take on a genre which is what he had been doing and still does now. Prince had and still has a sound all his own. Nobody makes records as diverse as "Musicology" not even D'angelo, Lenny, or Andre 3000. It's still Prince music.

skywalker said:

2. You used to claim that from 1978-1984 Prince's sound was totally his own with no traces of his influences and not "retro". Now, you are hedging saying that
he always displayed his influences.

What I am saying is this- Sign O' the Times was no more retro than Purple Rain. He just used a more organic sound and not the stark MPLS synth sound.

If you wanna believe that Prince 1978-1984 was not retro that's fine, but you cannot tell me that "When U Were Mine" doesn't sound like it could've been a song by The Beatles, or that "delirious" doesn't sound like Elvis/ rockabilly.

3. I am not disputing that Prince changed his sound in 1985.He also changed his sound in 1980 from slick disco/pop/funk to his signature MPLS sound. What I am claiming is that he was no more retro than he had been before. AWTWIAD gets pigeon holed by the mainstream press as being a 60's psychedelic record, but in actuality it didn't really sound JUST like those albums. It was new. It was Prince's take on a genre which is what he had been doing and still does now. Prince had and still has a sound all his own. Nobody makes records as diverse as "Musicology" not even D'angelo, Lenny, or Andre 3000. It's still Prince music.

Gary Numan, Laid Back, and any other new wave or funk group were people that Prince would have to compete and share the airwaves with. When I refer to Prince's influences, I'm referring to the people that influenced him growing up. Prince had traces of his current competition at the time in his music, sometimes noticeable, but most of the time it wasn't. Back then, Prince had to be competitive. If he had influences of his childhood heros back then, it was so hidden that it was unregognizeable (not the case after 1985). The success of "Purple Rain" spoiled him and Warner Bros. spoiled him even more shortly after by giving him a hand in his own record label. Prince was so big a star then that he could afford to stop being competitive and say the hell with the fans if they don't like it. His music was much harder, much funkier, and much more cutting edge when he had to compete with his current competition at the time. His competition was damn good back at that time and just think of the jams he could have came out with if he had to compete with them.




Sounds like new wave to me.



The change from disco/pop/funk to new wave/pop/funk was Prince progressing, entering the 1980s, and moving on with the times. The change in 1985, was Prince taking a trip back to the 1960s...moving backwards rather than forwards. Of course "Around The World In A Day" was not going to sound just like the 1960s, it was Prince that made it you know, maybe it wasn't "Prince" but it was still Prince, a very extremely talented man. Someone as talented as Prince is not going to make a complete carbon copy. I never said I don't like the album, actually I love it. I was extremely disappointed with it at the time and would have preferred something better and still would, but it is a great album. It was just released at the wrong time. It should have been released about 5 years later.
[Edited 12/18/04 18:01pm]

skywalker said

Hey, I'm not gonna change your mind. The fact is that Prince was no more "retro" post 1984 than he was before. He just didn't use as much MPLS synth sounds. You seem to confuse his lack of synth for sounding "retro". So keep on telling people that "Lovesexy" is a James Brown rip off, that "delirious" sounds nothing like Elvis, and that "when U were mine" doesn't owe anything to The Beatles, but (judging from the above posts) most here would disagree with your point of view. Not because you are saying bad things about Prince (because your really not and it's clear you still dig him) it's because your terminology for his sound and music history is skewed. Example: His clothes from Purple Rain are not retro, but his clothes from Sign O the Times is ?

James Brown was only one example of Prince's immitations. Prince basically immitated the music of the 1960s and 1970s as a whole.



You're right. The declining number of fans shows what level he went to...downwards.

vainandy said:

I have to agree with some of this. I was one of those who left shortly after PR. I did not like the retro sound of ATWIAD. Parade Girls and Boys... didn't like that either. I LIKED Prince sound, I didn't care that people were imitating it by 1985.... nobody did like Prince. I was not big on analyzing music but even I could tell that AWTIAD sounded sort of like the Beetles. If I want the Beetles, I will buy the Beetles. I wanted PRINCE. but years later my taste in music has changed, and I am discovering that Prince sound of the 1990's is something I enjoy today and I am having fun discovering treasures from the 90's.
So Prince was just ahead of his time... some people (like me) were just not up to speed.

prodigalfan said:

skywalker said

Vainandy- Honestly, thanks for another round of debates on this topic. It's always a pleasure.

vainandy said:

That one statement speaks volumes. Prince's fanbase in Europe grew during the '85-89 period, while those within the States ran whenever he challenged them and did not comeback until Batman and Diamonds and Pearls. I have always felt that Europeans give American artists, especially Black American artists room for growth, reinvention, and change. It's hard for a brotha to be eclectic, avant-garde or psychedelic and still maintain some semblence of musical credibility within the States. Miles Davis is a perfect example of this line of thinking. Davis was a GOD in Europe during his lifetime and he's finally getting his due in the States, after his death. Miles challenged his audience and grew from traditional be-bop, to electronic fusion. During that time he went through a myriad of stylistic changes. The people who could not accept his changes labeled his more rock/fusion oriented material as junk/not the real Miles Davis. However, those who didn't mind a musician actually challenging them/growing, appreciated the electric period just like they loved his acoustic period.

The average American audience, both pop and R&B, want you to stay in the little box that they discovered you in. When Prince's sound started to move toward more rock oriented material many R&B fans ran away. Not because his sound was not good, it was moreso about the typical R&B fan's view on Rock and Roll(Ironically an artform that was largely shaped by blacks like Little Richard etc. and how many of the average R&B fans appreciate the genius of Jimi Hendrix?) and also about sharing our stars with the crossover audience. Pop fans jumped onto the ship at Little Red Corvette and jumped off at Around The World In A Day, because the average pop fan likes the same album released 3 years in a row, with a new name and packaging, but with the same sound. Again, it was not about the quality of music, it was moreso about the listener's limited viewpoint. Prince is a musician that had pop hits, he's not a pop musician. Nor is he an R&B musician; Prince does not fit into any category because he is a genre-straddler and has been since day one. He just increased the number of genres and unfortunately most people cannot handle that; their loss. I think that Prince's musical scope is too broad/diverse for the average music fan. How many artists make records with soul ballads, pop, funk, jazz and rock numbers?
[Edited 12/18/04 10:53am]