kittylarue2 said:

me too. I don't think anyone can put a label on Prince or his fans for that matter. Like you I've loved Prince from the very beginning and I haven't ever stopped loving him.

skywalker said:

Sure, one's first Prince record has a special place in their heart.

A lot of our tastes and preferences are shaped by the charm of first time encounters. I still order the exact same food from the exact same chicken 'n' waffle place, a place that reminds me of good times. And I wonder: Is the tastiness of the chicken an empirical fact? Or do I just like it for the memories it evokes? Who can say? All I know is that I enjoy eating that chicken.

However. I can make an objective study of the tastiness of said chicken. It is more expensive than KFC or Pioneer or Church's or Popeyes. And I still choose to dine there. Plenty of other restaurants reminds me of good times, but I don't make a habit of going to those establishments. So there must be something intrinsic in their chicken that is somehow more appealing to me, apart from my emotional associations.

So what I'm saying is, early 80s Prince was that chicken. Later 80s Prince is Kenny Rogers Chicken. 90s Prince was El Polo Loco chicken. 2000s Prince is shaping up to be Boston Marketish, McNuggets type chicken.

This is serious scholarship, folks. Take notes.

I'm one of those fans that was in one camp during the day,
but at night I'd sneak off over the other to try and score some tail.

Same here.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Oh man, how much I would love to have a Purple Rain volume 2-5. That album still blows me away. I know, a menue of caviar, lobster, tender steaks and foie grass with fine wines and spirits every day gets boring after some time, but hey, it is talking its time to become boring...

But I do like all of the albums you mentioned, very much so. Only to say that a PR 2-5 would be a bad thing I don't agree with

OdysseyMiles said:

You can't go back in present day and age and listen to those albums and know what it was like just because the albums were diverse. You had to actually live through those times to understand how things were.

No, those albums didn't just cater to the R&B crowd. "I'm Yours" was a rock track and it was from the very first album. However, it was the R&B stations only that took him in and gave him radio airplay during the early years with the exception of "I Wanna Be Your Lover" which pop stations picked up during the disco era. With the exception of the disco era, the pop world didn't have a clue as to who Prince was. It wouldn't matter if he was making heavy metal, if he got no airplay on these stations, they never heard of him.

As far as people dropping him for one album, a lot of R&B fans didn't drop him immediately beginning with "Around The World In A Day". A lot of pop fans dropped him but most of the R&B fans stuck around because they thought he would snap out of his "far out" phase and come back strong on the next album. When he didn't, that's when they dropped him.

Yep, after For You & Prince, then Dirty Mind & Controversy, then 1999... a lot of us weren't too surprised when Prince changed directions from album to album. It was always kind of a nice surprise, not knowing what would be coming next... wanting to hear something new: "Now, what's he gonna do?" I loved the whole trip, and only started to yawn a time or two when Prince started sounding like everybody else. But even then, that only lasted for an album or two, and then he was back to doing his own thing again.

I am in the camp, where various albums come and go from favour and I choose to like the stuff that interests me. I buy all the major albums, but the logistics of buying every note he ever squawked are beyond my capabilities. Living on the other side of the world and haveing limited money and energy would preclude this.

why were people so surprised about ATWIAD when 'dirty mind' sounded SO much different than 'prince'? and i think '1999' sounded different than 'controversy' - more polished, more full - and 'purple rain' sounded different than anything he'd done before it. i listened to all princes albums from 'for you' through '1999' for the first time on the same day. i remember being amazed at how different each album sounded, and how each album had its own personality and 'colors'. i was surprised by ATWIAD, not because it was so different, but because of the differences he chose.

Anx said:

I think that's Vainandy's gripe, only he seems to still be pissed about it.

OdysseyMiles said:

well, i hope you don't think i meant it as a gripe as well...

The only two camps in the Prince fandom are those that think his gone mad, early 90’s, deep bass, funk insanity years were his best and most badass, and those that don’t….

That’s what I think and im sticking to it…

Anx said:

Nah, I know what you meant, bro. The differences P chose were unexpected.

dewalliz said:

I didn't get to edit my original post before you got here You're too fabulous for me to care what you think about the albums

padawan said:

Roscoes

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Aw thank you Supa and you are one of my fav orgers
even though I am not a heavy poster I do be reading your posts and you are right on the money on many of them. Despite we might not be on the same level about ATWIAD and Parade, at least we both still like other Prince songs and that we are on the same level when I read your nice and well-thoughtful posts in the p&r forum.

vainandy said:

Which really makes no sense given that Parade has more R&B than anything else from the Revolution period, by far. In fact, Purple Rain has the least...

How about those who hated TRC and those who loved it??

rainbowchild said:

Now there's another test case But the haters can be divided into those who didn't dig the message and those who didn't dig the music. TRC Smokes most O(-> stuff combined, musically that is.
[Edited 4/12/06 16:29pm]

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I remember being in Germany when ATWIAD came out...and literally politiking to the "purple rain gang" that it was a true gem because it was so unlike anything he'd released to that point....I still love ATWAID like I did then...and I take everything he's done after Sign in stride....cuz what makes Prince my fave artiste is the unpredictability....the music....no doubt!!

Why do ppl keep forgetting about the 1st 2 albums? For You & Prince are far better albums than Dirty Mind and anything between Parade and Diamonds & Pearls.
But that's my opinion. I base it on the number of kick ass trax per album. I rate Purple Rain as No.1 & For You as No.2.

It makes plenty of sense. You must think all R&B sounds alike. I realize it all sounds alike today but back then it didn't. Sure there was R&B on "Parade" but it wasn't the type of R&B that people wanted.

I'm not pissed about it. I would have preferred some much stronger "colder" music from Prince but I happen to love "Around The World In A Day". I have my strong personal favorites but I do have much more diverse taste than most of my friends. However, I don't let my love for Prince or any of his particular albums blind me from the reality of how things really went down and what people's reactions at the time were. I also realize that this a Prince website so many people are going to block out the public's reaction to particular albums because they love the particular album so much themselves.

I also don't blame people for dropping Prince for it because if they can't stand the music, why should they sit and try to like it just because it was Prince that made it. That would be kissing Prince's ass and I don't believe in kissing anyone's ass.
.
.
[Edited 4/13/06 5:21am]

vainandy said:

You seem to attempt to speak for a lot of "R&B fans" that aren't here to speak for themselves and the more you say, the more obvious it is that you are letting your own likes/dislikes color what you have to say (much like your very next post) about the period.

Despite all your claims that R&B fans were abandoning Prince in droves, the fact of the matter is that Parade is Prince's 3rd highest charting R&B album. Out of his 80's releases only Purple Rain had a better showing. Single wise, they spent more weeks and had an over all better showing than those from ATWIAD and were comparable to the performance of those from 1999 and SOTT.

vainandy said:

I hear ya I don't kiss anyone's ass either. They however, kiss mine:

reneGade20 said:

The thing that is really hilarious about this whole discussion is for me to remember my reaction when I bought ATWIAD. Never once did I question that it was so much different and coincidentally the friends I made a few years later accepted the album in the same way. It wasn't until I was exposed to the larger Prince community on the internet that I even knew that many fans jumped ship at this time. It never occured to me, not even one time, to do anything other than just accept the experience.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

nice piccy. too bad you are gay or else we would be romancing, i really do have a thing for latinos.
[Edited 4/13/06 11:09am]

jtfolden said:

Parade maybe had a high position in the R&B charts, but 20 years later it doesn't get any love on most of online old school R&B and funk stations. Yet the DJs had no problem playing Prince songs that was never released and B sides like International lover, Erotic City, Housequake, Let's Work, 17 Days because they all are more R&B friendly. But what you failed to mention is Parade happened to be the least Prince 80s Albums that stay on the R&B charts for a long time along with Lovesexy. Hell even ATWIAD stayed on R&B charts longer than Parade. Sorry, I just don't buy it that Parade was embraced by typical R&B fans. When Prince released r&b song like Kiss that had helped him on the charts. But when Prince released Mountains and Anotherlovenholeinyouhead, it did peaked high on the R&B charts but it slip very quickly because apparently the R&B public wasn't feeling on those songs and before you know it Parade was off the R&B charts. Anyone who thinks Parade is an R&B album has no idea what true R&B is. Go listen to some online old school R&b stations and then you will see that Parade doesn't get the love like Prince's other 80s albums.

You been bragging about Parade peaked high on the charts but newsflash: Albums that peaked higher on the charts is meaningless if the songs started to moving down the charts only after a few weeks and then eventually off the charts. And that happened to Parade on the R&B charts. Typical R&B lovers maybe bought the album and singles because they wanted another Kiss, but were disappointment with the outcome. Now I stressed the word typical.

dewalliz said:

Online radio is such a fragmented beast that you can find a DJ with any taste you like. In general I hear the same things I've always heard... the hits. A lot of Let's Go Crazy, Little Red Corvette, and Kiss. I don't hear Delirious any more than I hear Mountains these days... and I rarely hear deep album cuts unless it's a station that's in the habit of playing such.

However, the main thrust seems to be the reaction back in the day and even though the charts aren't the end-all-be-all barometer they are decent enough to gauge how something was performing compared to other items in the market during a given period.




So an album that finds it's target audience quickly (and even sells better) is penalized just for the number of weeks it was around? I think a lot of that has to do with marketing, don't you?

Let's see... Dirty Mind stayed on the charts for 32 weeks yet I don't think it even went Gold (selling 500k copies) until after PR was released. Parade sells 1 million+ in 26 weeks and that's deficient? 1999 was on the charts for ages but took almost twice as long to sell what Parade did before the PR hype carried it along, and this is supposed to reflect badly on Parade?




Somebody was obviously feeling them because they peaked fairly high on the R&B singles charts, as you admit. The singles from 1999 peaked at 4, 15, 18 & 55 and all of them were off the charts in 8-19 weeks. The 3 singles from Parade peaked at 1, 15 & 18 and lasted 12-17 weeks. SOTT had singles peaking at 1, 12, 11 & 15 and lasted 12-16 weeks each. Not a big difference here at all. They each had at least 3 top 20 hits and each album initially sold 1+ million copies. That's pretty consistent performance on the R&B charts.

Also, Parade fell off quickly in part due to a high profile marketing plan that ended abruptly as soon as it was clear the movie was tanking (and Prince was winding down the Revolution as a group). Kiss debuted in march of 86 and the final single debuted in July. It had an active marketing window of less than 6 months when it sold it's 1+ million.

Compare this to 1999 where you have 1999 debuting in October 1982 with the final single charting in January of 84!!! So here we have well over a years worth of marketing and yet 1999 didn't sell measurable better. It didn't get certified double platinum until Purple Rain's new rock/pop audience started picking up older albums in October of 84.

SOTT is a similar story. First single in March 87, last single in December 87. So, roughly 9 months plus the SOTT movie and the album still didn't go double platinum in the US.



Is Parade a 'typical R&B album'? No, of course not... I never said it was. Does it contain more R&B than ATWIAD or Purple Rain? Most certainly. If Parade wasn't another sharp turn away from the pop/rock audience of PR then I don't know what was.