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.
[Edited 9/1/06 13:29pm]
[Edited 9/7/06 21:54pm]

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