bellanoche said:

after one of the w&l shows this hip hop producer was all up on wendy and lisa's rythm section...he was jumping up and down telling wendy how tight they were and how he wanted to work with them on an album he was working on...i was standing behind him rolling my eyes cause he was buggin.

then there is badu & ?uestlove who worship at the feet of the girls funkiness...
[pic was here]

but hey, to each his/her own.
[Edited 8/31/06 15:26pm]

tonyat said:

string arrangment on Purple Rain...

that funky odd signature harmony on half of the songs on each album...

co-writing Mountains, 17 Days.

ghost produced the entire Parade album will prince was shooting the film.

However, the question posed (and implied sentiment) in the title of this thread is an egregious overstatement.

thesexofit said:

next!!!

sosgemini said:

They're session musicians, who happened to work with P during his most popular era, of course people are gonna be all up on them.

But seriously, out side of Sheryl Crow's "My Favorite Mistake" what huge hits post-Prince have they had a hand in creating? I really do wanna know. Not who have they worked with, but what huge hits have they put together for other artists.

Ifsixwuz9 said:

so, its all about having hits then, ehhh??

[snipped pic}

shall we all get together and burn our copies of this baby? because sales is the berometer of quality?

or better yet...shall we all go out right now and by this top ten baby?

snipped pic of paris hilton

sosgemini said:

Please answer my question, seriously.

oh oh oh...btw: Waterfalls was a top twenty five hit.

sosgemini said:

]


dont forget their biggest claim to fame is that mc skat kat sampled them.

thesexofit said:

really? which song...

so did Arrested Development for "Children Play with Earth"..thats their drum beat and Eric Leeds sax playing from "Skeleton Key".

I planned to stay away from this thread and topic because as usual I find these opinions of Prince's time with W&L to be asinine, however I just contain myself so here goes. First, W&L were good with Prince and I enjoyed some of their collaborations together, but as I stated in a previous thread, Prince's music lost it's edge when he started letting them have too much input. ATWIAD is a prime example of it. Prince's b-side tracks during that era mop the floor with anything released on that album. Why? Because they contain more of his signature sound and aren't watered down. I know he wanted to go left field and send a message to the pop world that he wasn't going to be pigeonhold, however the songs he left off the album would have easily done that and upped the ante. Parade suffers from this as well, outside of the tracks he did the majority of the instrumental work on. Prince has an undeniable sense of funkiness, a sense of groove that was lost post Purple Rain because he was focusing too much on the Beatle-esque retreads instead of focusing on his own path and muse. I do enjoy Parde and I like parts of ATWIAD but those albums have no where near the edge, funk or even accesibility of his previous work or SOTT.

Second, music changed post W&L's time with Prince. Rap/Hip Hop, Grunge and New Jack Swing were all dominating the airwaves at the time so Prince had to adapt. Stevie ruled the 1970s but in the 80s his albums are spotty at best. Not because he had lost his genius or needed to get back with the musicians he worked with during his golden era. It's simply because times change and people's tastes change. You either adapt or are left by the waste side playing for a cult following. Cult followings will get you dropped from a major label in a heartbeat so one must play the game and incorporate new ideas. Prince simplified his sound to match the times, incorporated hip hop/rap etc., Stevie started using beat machines and cut down on the overtly socio political lyrics that were so essential during the 1970s in favor of me generation songs that focused moreso on individual experiences during the 1980s.

Lastly, I remember reading in a thread that Wendy(and I'm paraphrasing here) didn't think Prince should go in the soul/funk direction. She thought he could be something other than another old funk band. Yeah and that something would be biting the Beatles. That is so insulting on so many levels and if that statement is true its a joke. I wish Prince could have been allowed to become any old funk band. Last time I checked James, P-Funk and Sly and the Fam were pretty damn good and influenced MANY more people than we realize. That type of logic is why we have threads like this. People mistake cluttered or more complicated sounds like those found on ATWIAD to be more complex when they really took away from Prince's muse. When you compare the overly complex work on those albums with the forward thinking, groundbreaking genius of albums like SOTT its a joke. Prince is at his best when he is stripped down and able to insert little nuances that express how great one is to do so much with so little.

It's just insulting as a Prince fan to try to give all the credit to two of the many musicians he worked with during his long and storied career. Why don't we give love to Andre, Fink, and Dez like this? What about the members of the Time that challenged and influenced him? Or why not focus on Prince's essential influences, Joni, Sly, Stevie, Jimi, Carlos, Miles, EWF, P-Funk, etc. If anyone thinks that W&L influenced Prince more than those aforementioned acts then they either only have listened to Prince and never checked out his influences or are smoking crack. As I stated earlier, this is not a swipe at W&L, its moreso a swipe at how some hardcore fans always have to squeeze a lemon.

I have a better topic, W&L helped to derail Prince's career by muting his genius. He had a window of opportunity to hit us with track after track of groundbreaking forward thinking material. Instead he either released those songs as b-sides or gave them away.
Discuss

No-one can have a string of quiality albums after about 10 years when ur releasing new stuff every year or so.. Its impossible. Name someone who has?


Also, music changed, and so did he obviously.

bellanoche said:

i agree...and have stated such within this thread.

thesexofit said:

Isn't that an excuse though?

HoneymoonXpress said:

i just think ur creative mind must eventually dry up of ideas. Dylan is the same. Apparantly wonder's stuff was amazing for about 10 years, then just average to most peoples eyes.

I planned to stay away from this thread and topic because as usual I find these opinions of Prince's time with W&L to be asinine, however I just contain myself so here goes. First, W&L were good with Prince and I enjoyed some of their collaborations together, but as I stated in a previous thread, Prince's music lost it's edge when he started letting them have too much input. ATWIAD is a prime example of it. Prince's b-side tracks during that era mop the floor with anything released on that album. Why? Because they contain more of his signature sound and aren't watered down. I know he wanted to go left field and send a message to the pop world that he wasn't going to be pigeonhold, however the songs he left off the album would have easily done that and upped the ante. Parade suffers from this as well, outside of the tracks he did the majority of the instrumental work on. Prince has an undeniable sense of funkiness, a sense of groove that was lost post Purple Rain because he was focusing too much on the Beatle-esque retreads instead of focusing on his own path and muse. I do enjoy Parde and I like parts of ATWIAD but those albums have no where near the edge, funk or even accesibility of his previous work or SOTT.People mistake cluttered or more complicated sounds like those found on ATWIAD to be more complex when they really took away from Prince's muse. When you compare the overly complex work on those albums with the forward thinking, groundbreaking genius of albums like SOTT its a joke. Prince is at his best when he is stripped down and able to insert little nuances that express how great one is to do so much with so little.

I mean, on the one hand, you say, he's a genius...

but then on the other hand, you say that his music after W&L lacked color and inspiration.

So if that's the case...then why the hell are we calling him a genius?

Discuss.

I planned to stay away from this thread and topic because as usual I find these opinions of Prince's time with W&L to be asinine, however I just contain myself so here goes. First, W&L were good with Prince and I enjoyed some of their collaborations together, but as I stated in a previous thread, Prince's music lost it's edge when he started letting them have too much input. ATWIAD is a prime example of it. Prince's b-side tracks during that era mop the floor with anything released on that album. Why? Because they contain more of his signature sound and aren't watered down. I know he wanted to go left field and send a message to the pop world that he wasn't going to be pigeonhold, however the songs he left off the album would have easily done that and upped the ante. Parade suffers from this as well, outside of the tracks he did the majority of the instrumental work on. Prince has an undeniable sense of funkiness, a sense of groove that was lost post Purple Rain because he was focusing too much on the Beatle-esque retreads instead of focusing on his own path and muse. I do enjoy Parde and I like parts of ATWIAD but those albums have no where near the edge, funk or even accesibility of his previous work or SOTT.

I mean, on the one hand, you say, he's a genius...

but then on the other hand, you say that his music after W&L lacked color and inspiration.

So if that's the case...then why the hell are we calling him a genius?

Discuss.

HoneymoonXpress said:

To whom is this thread addressed?

dseann said:

to those who hold the opinion that Prince's music lacked something after he let WEndy and Lisa go. Thanks for asking me that, because those are the folks I was specificially addressing this question to.

Ifsixwuz9 said:

its not a serious question...look, you dont like the girls music...say it...but to try and equal quality with sales is a joke. and you know it.

for me, Wendy's co-writing and bass playing on Meshell's God Shiva deserved to be a hit...but it wasnt...Neil Finn's "Secret God" co-written by Wendy & Lisa deserved to be a hit...

or better yet, their contributions to Seal's hugely successful first two albums are greatly appreciated at my home. Lisa's piano playing on "Dont Cry" ads to the songs beauty..

or how about Wendy's production on the indi album hit album by "The Like"...

or the fact that Rob Thomas replaced John Mayer's guitar playing on two songs on his current hit album (and all the hit songs) to Wendy's declaring that wendy was, "the blood of the album"...

but that means nothing because in the end all thats important is that i love the girls music...from Wendy and Lisa on down to girlbros...

if you dont like em? super...go listen to Rave.


[Edited 8/31/06 17:13pm]

sosgemini said:

You made a bunch of assumptions about me and what I like and answered everything but the question I asked. So I'm taking it that the answer is none.

And it was a serious question. The premise for most arguments about why every Prince fan should fall down and worship at the feet of W&L is that they (more than anyone else he's ever worked with or listened to musically) made his career successful.

And the reason for my question was that if they are such a driving force and hot shit then why hasn't their magic touch rubbed off on other folks in a similar way, not least of all on their own solo careers?

HoneymoonXpress said:

That in bold should be the title of this thread or who you are addressing to.

Is it me or do the people on here who said that W & L /Prince music is BETTER than Prince music w/o them?

Do they ALSO think that PR/ATWIAD/Parade would have been subpar if they had been PRINCE "solo" lps?

dseann said:

to those who hold the opinion that Prince's music lacked something after he let WEndy and Lisa go. Thanks for asking me that, because those are the folks I was specificially addressing this question to.

origmnd said:

well, I don't think the albums would have been as robust, sprawling or diverse.

but, yes, they would have been funky.