We all know that Prince music is a mixture of different styles. Most songs and albums offer a mix of rock, funk, soul and pop. But Prince has tried several other styles during his career, sometimes very unexpected ones, or sometimes only on one song. Here are the examples that surprised me the most (not in chronological order).

Blue Light - Reggae

Loose - Techno

The Same December - Southern rock (Allman Brothers etc.)

Wedding Feast - Opera

Right the Wrong - Big Band Jazz (some call this a country-type of song, but its definitely not, it has only some redneck-kind of voice in the beginning)

Courtin time - Big band Jazz

Venus de Milo - Light classical music

Sometimes its snows in april - folk / singer-songwriter (thanks to Joni)

Da bang - alternative rock? avantgarde? I have no idea to call this style

Graffiti Bridge - the closing track of a broadway musical

Willing and Able - south african music (he must have listened to Paul Simons Graceland, or something)

Melt with U - House

Damned if i do - Cuban music (alltough it starts as a pop-rock track)

Dance on - heavy metal (near the end of the song he plays some fast metal-like guitar riff)

Around the world in a day and Positivity - World Music (Both have eastern influences (the first song has different middle-eastern instruments, the second has a beat that always reminds me of chinese music).

Crystal Ball - Nightmare music (my own term )

As far as i can remember Prince never did a straight country-song or a celtic song. It might be fun to hear him try something like that.

You have any other examples?

But like you said Prince music is a mixture of different styles so I think it's very difficult to put his songs in different categories

Sometimes it seems obvious (the psychedelia era) but most of the times, it looks like a mixture, a little bit of this, a little bit of that



His music seems more influenced by many styles, but he never really tries to recreate pure straight type of styles

I mean you always feel the Prince's signature
[Edited 5/13/06 16:44pm]