Next to Jill Jones debut record, and Mavis Staples 'Time Waits for no one', the untitled debut album from The Family is my favourite Paisley Park release outside Princes own releases.

There are a handfull of very strong tracks on the album of the Family, which are mostly written, played and produced by Prince anyway. Next to that, St. Paul does a good job in copying Princes vocals, but lacking the soul and urgency the 'real Prince' can deliver.

Alltough i consider Parade in its original form a very good record, i think Prince could have made a great record also if he had used some tracks from the Family album for itselve. The sound of the Family album is a blueprint for a lot of the tracks on parade, jazz-influenced hard funk and orchestrated ballads, so these songs really would have fit in with the songs on Parade.

Think about the next track selection, for example:

Side A

1. High Fashion
2. Mutiny
3. New Position
4. Under the cherry moon
5. The Screams of Passion
6. Life can be so nice

Side B
7. Desire
8. Mountains
9. Nothing compares to you
10. Kiss
11. Anotherloverholenyohead
12. Sometimes it snows in april

That would make a 9,5 out of 10 album for me

Hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20. Given the amount of material prince had on his hands, it would have asking way 2 much of the market place at the time. As it was, Prince had 2 much material out. Just ask Warner Brothers.

Yes, I agree, Prince never should have created The Family! I would have loved for Prince & Sheila E. to have sang those songs.

Youre right, graycap, he was recording / releasing so many material during that period (1985 - 1987) he couldnt use it all for himselve.

But, still, its a bit frustating for me to see that some of his best material was released as sung by a mediocre singer (sorry Paul, but thats how i feel it) or that some brilliant unreleased tracks from that period were never properly released (the original version of Crystal Ball / Expert Lover, with Wendy and Lisa, All my dreams, There's others here with us, the original version of Old friends for sale, the orchestral version of Sometimes it snows in april, to name a few).

But we will probably have to be patient, i guess....I mean, look at Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis, years after they died their vaults were opened. I am in no way hoping for Prince to die, or something...dont mistake me... but i think that it will probably go... these gems will probably be released when we are old and grumpy ourselves... lol

Riverpoet31 said:

I dig. I agree 2 a great degree.

it'd be nice if he'd open the vault door a bit wider while some of us are still able to dance

Riverpoet31 said:

The orchestral version of Sometimes It Snows In April ? Does it really exist, or is that just a suggestion of yours ?

I like your idea and your list but I think you shouldn´t leave out some tracks from Parade, how about a double album instead ?

But you´re right, songs like Mutiny and Nothing Compares 2 U would´ve sounded much, much better if released by Prince himself.

Riverpoet31 said:

I really don't like Paul's vox on that stuff. 2 the point where I never got that album, as funky as it is. I mean, I have always wished that Prince released his "Mutiny", as well as his "100MPH", and his "Dance Electric", 2 name a few. That was a creatively prolific period 4 Prince... he was pouring the Funk from every spout.
[Edited 12/7/06 11:16am]

Giovanni777 said:

Who KNOWS. One day Prince may surprise us all with a re-release of those tracks with HIM on the vocals. U NEVER know.

Riverpoet31 said:

Were you aware that St Paul and Susannah were slated to portray the main characters in Under the Cherry Moon? St Paul was sent here to Los Angeles to take acting lessons in preparation for the role when he decided to bail on The Family. Susannah was determined to be too inexperienced as Warners wanted an ingenue to play the part of Mary. You can see how they would have looked in the film on The Family album cover.
[Edited 12/7/06 11:33am]

Riverpoet31 said:

nice. not exactly what i would put together but close. plus i'd about half of the jill jones tracks. but i like where you're heads at!

Koolfaze, there is indeed a fully orchestrated version of Sometimes it snows in april. You can hear it in the Under the Cherry Moon movie, right after Christopher Tracey dies.

There is also an orchestrated instrumental to be heard in the movie that later was used for Jill Jones song Mia Bocca.

The thing that always amazes me about The Family LP in relation to Parade is that it's clearly a kind of prototype as to where Prince was heading with Parade, the orchestration, the 1930/40s romanticised image, yet the Family stuff was mostly recorded in June of '84, which is when Purple Rain was released.

It just blows my mind that Prince was so ahead of himself (or ahead of what he was releasing/promoting at the time).... Even before the world had heard the Purple Rain album, he was already feeling out what would shape Parade, 2 albums down the line.

NouveauDance said:

Word. Co-sign, Double That, Yes, and Amen.
[Edited 12/8/06 11:41am]

NouveauDance said:

One thing you have to realize is that while the basic tracks for The Family album were recorded in 1984, both the orchestration and the album artwork weren't worked on until the summer of 1985, when Prince was finalizing the story for what would become Under the Cherry Moon.

Jestyr said:

You know, I hadn't thought of that at all, with regards to the album artwork, of course that was done later, I didn't think of that at all.

Looking at it like that, I guess it isn't so evolved as it first appears, since the basics of High Fashion and Mutiny are very close to The Time's stuff.



Still....

Riverpoet31 said:

No "Girls and Boys"???

ufoclub said:

Same here,great selection but Girls&Boys is essential.
Damn,I would pay a lot of money do get a CD with Prince singing Family
(and Jill Jones,Mazarati,...)songs

Youre right Paisley, i forgot to include Girls and Boys. Because these songs were out of the mid - late eighties i was thinking about the vinyl record format, and therefore i was limitating myselve on the numbers of songs that could be included.

People we are also naming Jill Jones tracks on this thread, are having a point. I mean, when you look at the three project: The Family album, Parade, and the debut album of Jill Jones, IMO Prince was trying to create a new 'sound' consisting of hard, electronic beats (or real drums which were electronically changed), funk, some jazzy influences (the horns of Eric Leeds and Matt Blistan) and the orchestrations of Clare Fisher.

Prince was really breaking new ground there, combining hard funk beats with orchestra (and the ocassionally horn input), years after that Hip-hop producers started to mix their beats with orchestral sounds, Bjork released song mixing dance and classical music on albums like Homogenic and Vespertine and Massive Attack had a huge hit with 'unfinished sympathy', combining, indeed, bare electronic beats, with a meandering orchestra.
I am not saying that Prince directly influenced all those artists, but in indirect ways he might have, he surely was the first trying this kind of combination in this way. I mean, on seventies disco and soul records you could hear strings too, but mostly those werent very daring arrangements, mostly those were following the melodies, and they were often put there to smoothen the music and beats.
What Prince did between 1985 - 1987 was far more endearing: making the beats sound very mechanic, 'cold' and putting orchestral arrangements behind those beats that were warm, acoustic, swirling and therefore contrasting in a brilliant way. For example: when you listen to Jill Jones song Mia Bocca, the beat shows what Prince has learned about programming drummachines on 1999, the orchestra is not merely put there to make the song sound more nice and smooth, its an integral part of the arrangement. Clare Fisher seemed influenced by Igor Stravinsky when he wrote this arrangement, and IMO it works brilliantly, this kind of arrangement meandering around the electrofunk beat created by Prince.


Maybe an idea for a 2-cd set? The works of Prince and Clare Fisher: 1985 - 1987
(a bit like the Miles Davis - Gill Evans set)

Tracklisting:

CD 1
1. High Fashion
2. Mutiny
3. Screams of Passion
4. Nothing compares to You
5. Desire
6. Christopher Tracey's Parade
7. I wonder U
8. Under the cherry Moon
9. Life can be so Nice
10. Venus de Milo

CD 2
11. Crystal Ball (Expert lover, original version with Wendy and Lisa)
12. Do U lie?
13. Anotherloverholenyohead
14. Sometimes it snows in april (orchestrated, from Under the cherry Moon)
15. Alexa de Paris (unedited version)
16. Mia Bocca
17. Violet Blue (doubt here if this is a Prince composition, or one from Jill)
18. Baby, youre a trip

Paisley4u said:

bootlegs are available of that stuff...