Okay, so if my favourite Prince song is "Uptown", does that mean the rest of his career has been a failure since?

"Mounatins" is a great song. I just bought "PARADE" on CD the other day (the vinyl has long been packed away) and I'm still blown away by it. When this joint came out in 86, NOTHING on the radio sounded like it. This song (and the entire LP) has Wendy and Lisa's stamp and color all over it. Prince definetly lost a little bit of that melodic color when he lost Wendy and Lisa.

Can we get a stop to the crack-laced threads...

PurpleKnight said:

How can you put The Question Of U, The Love We Make and Joy In Repetition in the same catergory as Sign O The Times and Adore ????

I don't want to bring anyone's head down, I don't want to spoil the party here, but Prince has not written a great song since "Mountains" -- that's a twenty year dry spell!

I just listened to "Mountains" today and it is monumental. It is mighty. Majestic. MAGNIFICENT! What song since "Mountains" can you say that about? Sure Prince has written many, many great song over the past twenty years, but nothing has come close to the masterpiece that is "Mountains."

"Mountains" - Prince's last masterwork. I love that song.

Yeah, "1+1+1=3" is great, "Face Down" is fantastic, "Sign O The Times" is out of this world, and "I Wish U Heaven" is wonderful, but Prince has never been able to come close to "Mountains" in twenty years. (In all honesty, no musical artist has been able to come close to "Mountains".) I've finally given up hope that Prince will top "Mountains." I've waited twenty years, I guess it's time to finally admit Prince will never write a song better than "Mountains." A part of me is sad over that.

It's only mountains and the sea....

Come on, sing along to Prince's best.

pepper7 said:

i would..i dont consider any of them as good a Moutains..but they are all up there as one of my favs.

sosgemini said:

I think Sign Of The Times and Adore are up there with Mountains.

But The Question Of U, The Love We Make and Joy In Repetition aren't nearly as close.

uh, you think that "Face Down" was good?




I am horrified.

Novabreaker said:

Honestly speaking, yes. If someone hits two home runs in their first two at bats and never hits another homerun, then that person more or less peaked in their first game and failed to reach those heights again. If "Uptown" was a homerun for you and everything else Prince did was just bunts, singles, or walks, then one would have to say he failed.

Paul McCartney's better days were with The Beatles, Robert DeNiro's better days were the seventies and early eighties, Irvine Welsh peaked with "Trainspotting" -- all artists tend to peak and then lose something. And, yes, even Prince.

It is a crime for me to say that Prince peaked with the song "Mountains"? Does that make his career since then a failure? Of course not. But did he put it all together and peak with the song "Mountains"? Yes. "Mountains" was a World Series winning grand slam homerun. All that followed (though still great) never was able to touch the spectacular "Mountains."

i absolutely LOVE "Mountains" -- it probably is in my Top 5 (or even Top 3) Prince songs.

I think he's done equally classic music since.

I don't think he's done equally classic "large" songs since.

"Mountains" is a big, audacious stunner of a song: Booming drums; lush instrumentation; sweeping chord changes (an astounding bridge and vamp, to boot); lyrics that cover world and romantic politics and romantic theology, if you will; hidden, cryptic lyrics ("starvation"); and a latin jazz vamp on the extended version.

To say there isn't another "Mountains," is less an indictment than I think you mean for it to be.

I don't think there should be another "Mountains." The first, as good as it was, did quite a bit.

And, gosh, "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" is equally stunning to me. But, dynamically, it's the opposite of "Mountains." It tells a story, features sparse instrumentation in a downright claustrophobic arrangement and is far shorter.

If anything, I mourn the fact that both songs are representative of the sorts of things he no longer does or does as well.

I don't want to bring anyone's head down, I don't want to spoil the party here, but Prince has not written a great song since "Mountains" -- that's a twenty year dry spell!

I just listened to "Mountains" today and it is monumental. It is mighty. Majestic. MAGNIFICENT! What song since "Mountains" can you say that about? Sure Prince has written many, many great song over the past twenty years, but nothing has come close to the masterpiece that is "Mountains."

"Mountains" - Prince's last masterwork. I love that song.

Yeah, "1+1+1=3" is great, "Face Down" is fantastic, "Sign O The Times" is out of this world, and "I Wish U Heaven" is wonderful, but Prince has never been able to come close to "Mountains" in twenty years. (In all honesty, no musical artist has been able to come close to "Mountains".) I've finally given up hope that Prince will top "Mountains." I've waited twenty years, I guess it's time to finally admit Prince will never write a song better than "Mountains." A part of me is sad over that.

It's only mountains and the sea....

Come on, sing along to Prince's best.

ThreadBare said:

beautifully said...now VOGUE!!

Okay, so if my favourite Prince song is "Uptown", does that mean the rest of his career has been a failure since?

skywalker said:

Of course it is my opinion. How could I possibly write and speak for millions of Prince fans?

I feel Prince peaked with "Mountains." You may say he peaked with "Bambi." Others may say he peaked with "Fury." No matter how you slice it, the guy had to peak somewhere in his long recording career. I feel it is with "Mountains."

Let me ask this--Why the need to have your favorite Prince song/era/etc. be acknowledged as "his peak"? Just curious.

skywalker said:

Simple. I would love to hear another tune as monumental as "Mountains." I listened to it for the billionth time a few days ago and I just shook my head in amazement and thought, "Man, he hasn't been able to even come close to this."