If the house was burning down and U could only save 5 Prince Albums, which 5 would you choose?

My choices:
1 Sign O' the Times
2 Purple Rain
3 The Hits / The B-Sides
4 Crystal Ball
5 Lovesexy

And of all the Prince Albums which do U consider not the worst, that accolade surely goes to NEWS, but the most overrated?

My vote goes to 1999.

Essential albums:

1.Purple Rain
2.Gold Experience
3.SOTT
4.1999
5.Symbol/Dirty Mind/Parade

Overrated:
1.Lovesexy
2.Rainbow Children
3.News
4.The Vault
5.New Power Soul

1. 1999
2. LoveSexy
3. Controversy
4. Purple Rain
5. Dirty Mind
.....

what can I do without...most of the mid 90's stuff...

I was out of the vibe then....

Essential:

1) Sign 'O' The Times
2) Emancipation
3) Purple Rain
4) Lovesexy
5) The Rainbow Children


Overrated:

Symbol

Must have;
1.The Gold Experience
2.Emancipation
3.Musicology
4.Parade
5.Chaos & Disorder

Overrated:

Purple Rain

Would bring

1) SOTT
2) Purple Rain
3) Lovesexy
4) Batman
5) Musicolgy

Leave behind

The Gold Experience

Essential:

Purple Rain-- duhh!
1999-- this was the first complete, signature Prince album
Dirty Mind-- Prince as we know him is born.
Sign O' The Times-- PR is the masterpiece, but this is the lesson.
Chaos & Disorder-- strangely enough I think this best captures 90's Prince. It's all over the place but the band is tight. It's got some of the attitude of Come, the musicianship of TGE, and the hip-hop influence of D&P and Symbol.

Parade and TRC are honorable mentions.

Overrated:

ATWIAD. If it weren't sandwiched between PR and Parade it would rank somewhere with the Truth-- which is a very good album by the way.

Oh, I didn't read the question completely. If I could only save 5 albums I would cheat and take the hits/B-sides instead of Dirty Mind. If I didn't have to skip Lovemachine everytime I'd consider Grafitti Bridge. As far as essential albums I'd stick with my list.
[Edited 3/28/05 13:34pm]

My essential

1999
SOTT
ATWIAD
Lovesexy
Controversy

Overrated

Parade

Personal Top 5:
1. Controversy
2. 1999
3. Camille
4. Black Album
5. For You


Top 5 Over-Rated by Some:
1. S.N.O.O.Z.E.
2. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic
3. The Truth
4. ONA Live
5. Musicology

Essential 5:

Purple Rain
Sign O' the Times
The Gold Experience
1999
Dirty Mind

Overrated:

Diamonds and Pearls. Not nearly as good as

1999
Crystal Ball
Purple Rain
Controversy
Symbol

Overrated:
Dirty Mind
[Edited 3/28/05 15:07pm]

My "Essential" Prince albums in order:

1999
Sign O' The Times
Around The World In A Day
Parade
LoveSexy

I don't think there is an overrated cd, but they're some really crappy albums!

Essential:

1. Sign O The Times
2. Purple Rain
3. The Gold Experience
4. Dirty Mind
5. 1999

Overrated:

ATWIAD

Essential:
1. Sign o The Times
2. Purple Rain
3. Parade
4. TGE
5. Lovesexy

Over-rated
1. SYMBOL

Top 5 to take with me as of now, because the list changes a little from time to time:
1999
Purple Rain
Controversy
Dirty Mind
SOTT



Definately leave behind:
The Rainbow Children

Pagey said:

Nice choices Pagey and thanks fer answering my NPG post.

omnithanos said:

Five Most Essential:

1) Sign O' The Times
2) Parade
3) The Gold Experience
4) Purple Rain
5) Diamonds and Pearls


Most Overrated:

1) Around the World in a Day
[Edited 3/29/05 3:42am]

Five Essential:

1 Symbol
2 Diamonds and Pearls
3 Crystal Ball (including the Truth)
4 The Rainbow Children
5 Graffiti Bridge

Most Overated:
1 Dirty Mind

Top Five:

1). Sign O The Times
2). The Gold Experience
3). 1999
4). The Black Album
5). Come


Overrated:

Dirty Mind
Musicology



Underrated:

Xpectation
The Rainbow Children
The Truth
The Gold Experience
[Edited 3/29/05 8:39am]

Essential:

1. 1999
2. Crystal Ball
3. The Gold Experience
4. Graffiti Bridge
5. Contreversy or Prince?
6. Sign of the Times (sorry, I had to pick 6)


Overrated: Dirty Mind and The Rainbow Children

Top 5:

Parade
Purple Rain
The Gold Experience
Dirty Mind
The Black Album

Picking an overrated album is difficult, but the one album that everyone raves about that I just don't listen to that often would be 'Sign O The Times'. Don't get me wong, it's a great album with incredible, classic Prince tracks like "Adore" and "Housequake", but people describe it as the be-all and end-all of Prince records while I think there's lots of filler on it.

1. Lovesexy
2. Parade
3. Sign ‘O’ The Times
4. Purple Rain
5. 1999

Runners up:

Black Album
Around The World In A Day
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic


Most overrated:
The Rainbow Children

DIRTY MIND
THE HITS AND B-SIDES
1999
PARADE
CONTROVERSY

OVERRATED

SOTT

I am a music fan not just some Prince head. The records that I name are timeless, ecletic, masterpeieces that we haven't heard anything like them before or since

Essential:

Sign 'O' the Times - (not my favorite but clearly his most accomplished work)

Parade - (the sheer brillance and looney creativity of this record is absurd..pure genius)

Purple Rain - (but of course are you kidding...can you imagine PR with Erotic City & 17 Days on it?)

Lovesexy - "tonight we make love with only words...girls first...girls first" A tremendous record ...and so freaking personal

1999 - If there was never a 1999 and somebody released this record today with (updated instrumentation of course) it would be a smash hit. This is my favorite Prince record ever!!

Honorable mention - Around the World in A Day - the psycadelic diddy doesn't quite make this top group but the to have the balls to come out with this effort after the pure electricity of PR was classic. I have always wondered why Price did not include "Shes Always In My Hair" on this record. I love it up to temptation..then I get a little freaked out

Over rated:

I can only judge over rated by what I hear his fans say and there are several I'd like to mention:

Chaos & Disorder - When I see people actually say that this record is good or one of their favorites it blows my mind. Prince can be extremely corny even when he was spinning out classics..but this thing is the corniest sounding record ever.

Emancipation - not a bad record like Chaos but just boring. And too much friggin music. Holy River, Jam of the Year, Get Yo Grove on ...comon this thing was too much milk not enough hot sauce

Controvery & Dirty Mind - always felt that these were nothing more than experiments for Prince. Fine tuners so to speak for what was to come..PR, Sign, Parde, ARWD etc... Not awful (although several songs on those records were terrible) but not enough sure fire. As we learn later even Prince experiments sound good at this point in the career it wasn't that way. Just ask Dorthy Parker.

Just Plain bad: This records are here because who in their right mind would say they were great?

Chaos & Disorder
New Power Soul
Graffiti Bridge
Rave..un2 the crap ...whatver the name
Chaos & Disorder
Chaos & Disorder
Chaos & Disorder
Chaos & Disorder
Chaos & Disorder
Chaos & Disorder
Chaos & Disorder


Middle of the road:

Diamonds & Pearls - Prince was such a tease
Controversy - " "
Musicology - " "
Come - " "
Gold Exp - " "

Each one of these had absolute classics on them but he would throw in complete dudes that actually ruin the flow of the record

D&Ps - Cream, Issastiable, Gett Off...duds Thunder, Live for Love, Walk dont Walk

Contv - Controvery, Lets Work!!!, Do me Baby, ...duds Ronnie Talk to Russia, Ani Christian

Musicoloy - Musicology, Call My Name, IWTMIYL...duds A Mill Days (makes me want to throw up) and Reflection, & that silly Pimp & coma song is a pretty weak effort

Gold Exp - classics ...great songs like Billy Jack Bitch, Shhh, Shy, 319 are thrown completly off by March..weeeee March, & I hate U, the unbelievably corniness of the song Gold
[Edited 3/29/05 16:40pm]

Essential:

1999 - a little funk, a little soul, a little freak, a little pop
Dirty Mind - read Dansa's review
SOTT - even with the filler tracks it kicks ass
Purple Rain - need you ask
ATWIAD - mainly for the B-sides and the audacity to put this out after his most successful album

Overrated:

Black Album - very anti-climatic after the big build-up from '88 to official release in '94
Gold - over produced; We March and P Control should have been left off and Interactive and Acknowledge Me (sans the crappy rap) should have been added; cow bells
Parade - it's cute and has Anotherloverholeinyohead but only a die hard fan could get into this album, and some of them didn't even like it.
Lovesexy - It has it's moments but it definitely didn't 'save my life'.


.
[Edited 3/29/05 17:11pm]

...LoveSexy
...Purple Rain
...1999
...Emancipation
...Dirty Mind/For You...(tie)

...overrated...Come (still dig it, though)

Essential:

Chaos And Disorder
Dirty Mind
Sign O' The Times
LoveSexy
Parade

Most overrated:

Purple Rain

Honorable Mention(s): 1999, Around The World In A Day

Essential (In chronological order):
1.Dirty Mind
2.1999
3.SOTT
4.Lovesexy/The Black Album (I have A difficult relationship with Lovesexy)
5.The Rainbow Children

Over rated (no order):
1.Lovesexy (I told you my feelings on this one are complicated)
2.Controversy
3.Emancipation (Except Disc 2)
4.Diamonds & Pearls (a couple gems but mostly ugh!)
5.ONA

Let's do this with Boots next.