I've been reading a lot of posts comparing this Prince era to that Prince era, and the lines are getting a little blurry for me. It seems like a lot of people consider each album to be an era. I thought an era would last a little longer than that, considering he sometimes releases albums very close together. I break up the Prince eras by the way he looks and sounds. How does a new era begin for you?

UCantHavaDaMango said:

I'm guess each new album or new sound or new "ideas" together make up an era.

Oh this is easy.

It means Earned Run Average. It is a number derived from dividing the number of innings a baseball pitcher pitches by the number of earned runs allowed (runs that are scored due to the incompetence of his teammates do not count against him)

i.e. Pitches a complete game 9 innings and gives up 3 runs. His ERA is 3.00.


Musical era to me would be The Dirty Mind look, album and message as compared to the same observations in regards to SOTT.

setyrmindphree said:

I saw the title of this thread and clicked on it just to post exactly the same thing as you...

I wonder what Prince's ERA would be in different eras. I'm guessing that in the late '70s he was mainly a long relief guy with the occasional hint of greatness and an ERA somewhere around 3.08. During the '80s, his ERA would be better than anyone else playing, somewhere around 1.08, going up to around 2.5 during the early '90s, down to around 1.82 in '94-'95, then skyrocketing to around 5.62 in '96-'00 after many poor starts. From '01-'03 he had a more respectable 3.86 ERA, and since then his ERA is around 4.50, but the team still keeps him as a starter because once in a while he nails it and is unhittable, but mostly he just keeps the ballpark filled to capacity even on a bad night.

Man, I have way too much time on my hands...

booyah said:

Ummm... yeah... that wasn't quite what I was asking!

Alright, here's how I have the Prince-eras set up on my iPod:

The Early Years: For You (1978) to 1999 (1982)
Revolution: Purple Rain (1984) to Parade (1986)
Camille and Spooky: SOTT (1987) to Batman (1989) + Black Album (1994)
NPG: Graffiti Bridge (1990) to (1992) + The Vault (1999)
The Dawn: Come (1994) to Chaos And Disorder (1996) + various Crystal Ball and NPGMC tracks
Free At Last: Emancipation (1996) to The Truth (1998) + various Crystal Ball and NPGMC tracks
Beautiful Strange: NPS (1998) to RUTJF (1999) + various NPGMC tracks
New Directions: TRC (2001) to NEWS (2003)
School's In: Musicology (2004) to 3121 (2006) + various NPGMC tracks

In each playlist I've put tracks in the context in which they were recorded - so Crystal Ball, The Vault, and NPGMC tracks are split over various eras as appropriate, and the Black Album is with the Camille and Spooky era, instead of the Dawn era.

In case anyone is interested, each playlist is around 50-55 songs and around 4-4.5 hours long(except School's In, which is at 30 songs and 2:12 long - I wonder if what comes next will fit into this era, or start a new one).

If anyone wants the full lists of which tracks go where, I'm happy to post them.

booyah said:

That's a great way of breaking down P's E.R.A. (Easily Remembered Audio).

I like it. I usually break down his eras by the feeling of each album or time that the albums were created. That's why I can appreciate your breakdown.

Just such a different vibe when comparing PR to SOTT to Symbol, etc. Mainly conjurs up different feelings of eras. That may make no sense.

Anyway, back to baseball. Your recollection of his E.R.A. stats were pretty accurate. You forgot to mention he spent most 96-2000 in double A rehabing his career .

booyah said:

That's a great way of breaking down P's E.R.A. (Easily Remembered Audio).

I like it. I usually break down his eras by the feeling of each album or time that the albums were created. That's why I can appreciate your breakdown.

Just such a different vibe when comparing PR to SOTT to Symbol, etc. Mainly conjurs up different feelings of eras. That may make no sense.

Anyway, back to baseball. Your recollection of his E.R.A. stats were pretty accurate. You forgot to mention he spent most 96-2000 in double A rehabing his career .

booyah said:

I really like that! Your list is more along the lines of what imagined Prince eras to be. Thank you

Rise and Fall or Start and End

The Bulls: '91 -'93 and '96-'98
Cowboys: '92-'95
Prince: His whole career could be an era or differnt looks and sounds

'78 - '93 WB
OR
'78-'81 Beginng
'82-'85 Purple
'87-'89 Lovesexy (band)
'91-'93 NPG
'94-'95 Fight with WB
'96-'00 Emancipation or FREE to do whateva
'01-'03 ???
'04-'05 Musicology or Big COMEBACK
'06- 3121

JMO Peace

prime said:

Hate how you wanna leave out Parade.

It all comes down to how you define an era... For me, an era has be have some sort of main album/recording, some sort of tour and some sort of "look"... So I look at it like this:

1977-80 PRINCE ERA
1980-81 DIRTY MIND ERA
1981-82 CONTROVERSY ERA
1982-83 1999 ERA
1983-85 PURPLE RAIN ERA
1985-86 PARADE ERA
1987 SIGN O THE TIMES ERA
1988-89 LOVESEXY ERA
1989-91 BATMAN/GRAFFITI BRIDGE/NUDE TOUR ERA (definately a transitional period)
1991-92 DIAMONDS & PEARLS ERA
1992-93 ERA
1994-96 GOLD ERA
1996-98 EMANCIPATION ERA
1998-99 NEW POWER SOUL ERA
1999-01 RAVE/PRE-RAINBOW CHILDREN ERA
2002 ONE NITE ALONE ERA
2003-04 MUSICOLOGY ERA
2005-06 3121 ERA

UndercovaBrotha said:

Trust me...I noticed it after I hit the "send" button. I love Parade and UTCM

toejam said:

New Power Soul I didn't think of that...Good one! The album, The triple pack etc.