Don't get me wrong, I choose "DMSR" over "Do U lie?" anyday. That being said labeling anything that's outside of your box as "artsy/fartsy" really just shows a slight ignorance and/or limited vocabulary. If a fan of classical music listened to Parade they'd not call it "artsy fartsy" they'd call it pop music-which is what it is.

Ironic that you are irritated when people are ignorant about funk and become a music snob when people don't know less mainstream funk groups. However, when you hear strings, or orchestra, or a beat that doesn't have a kick drum locked with a deep bass groove--it's "artsy fartsy". Vainandy, I love ya, but you are one hell of a music snob.

Different people have different experiences. Different people are exposed to and discover music differently and at different times.. Not everyone's formative years happened in the early 80's. The fact is Prince is popular and MANY people have discovered funk through Prince and cannot be expected to know and love EVERY funk group.
[Edited 2/27/07 14:28pm]

Imho if anyone don't like funk then why they are a Prince's fan? I know that he crossgenre his music but funk does make up a lot of his body of work. Unless they like Prince from 1984-86 which happened to be his most experimental, funkless period then that is understandable.

Sigh...

I have seen vainandy make the 'artsyfartsy' comment over and over in here, its like some 'dogma' for him almost.

For him Prince 'spoiled' it when Prince tried to expand his musical horizons after the succes Purple Rain.

For many others (including myselve) Prince did really pay of in the period 1985 - 1988.

Tastes differ, but for me personally its the difference being very good (Prince creating his own mix of funk, rock and dance from Dirty Mind unto Purple Rain) and being genious, exceptional (Prince letting his creativity run free, being playfull, defining 'popular music' from Around the world in a day unto Lovesexy).

'Artyfarty' for me is being artifically pretentious, trying to create 'art' just for the sake of it, its about musicians overachieving themselves.

This doesn't count for Prince in the period 1985 - 1988. In that period Prince has put 'popular music' on a higher level just like musicians as Miles Davis and The Beatles (between 'Rubber soul' and the 'White album') have done before.

If he released a hard core funk album it would either put him back on top and make funk poular again. Or it'd bomb and some of you will bitch that it's to retro or to modern or the stars were out of alignment when he recorded it!
George Michael wants to release one last dance Album. He just doesn't have it in him. He's not that person anymore. I'd say Prince is the same. Black Sweat is probably the epitome of modern Funk. I don't like it, but hey, Funks evolved.
Get on the Boat is Old school Funk and no one likes it coz it's 2 campy!
I suppose you gotta let the man do what he's gotta do and pick out the gems from the shit on each forthcomming album. I don't think he's got a filla free album left in him. I hope I am so wrong and U can all tear me a new ass when it happens!

Riverpoet31 said:

I agree. Along time ago I told vainandy that the difference between Rick James (whom Vainandy seems to think is in the same league with the purple one) and Prince is that Prince took his thing to a whole other level. He left Rick in the dust. Some people see this as Prince "losing it"-vainandy sees it as Prince "abandoning his roots" and not being funk (ie black) enough. I see it as Prince leaving everyone else WAAAAAY behind, transcending genres, and defying categorization. Just like Miles, just like The Beatles,etc.

Amaxx said:

What is "filler"? According to some, only Purple Rain doesn't have "filler".

skywalker said:

All of Chaos & Disorder?

peterfalconer said:

in2 the light, dinner with delores and the title tracks are jams imo

now that I think about it there are plenty of urban fans that dig Prince but they hate any kind of rock music, which is the same as the topic, I can't see how a person can be a big Prince fan and not appreciate rock. I think a lot of people don't even know what they are listening to, they just buy what is marketed to them.

Meloh9 said:

What is 'urban', in your opinion?
[Edited 2/27/07 18:57pm]

skywalker said:

Purple Rain is filler free! But then so is For You. Prince, 1999, ATWIAD &Sign 'o' the times have less filler than the rest. 3121 is 50% filler!!! If you put the 2 good halves of Musicology and 3121 together it would have been another Prince Classic. Prince evolved but still very Prince!

Well, it seems as if "filler" is simply a matter of taste. One's person's "Tamborine" is another person's "Strollin'".

Bottom line: Prince could go back to making albums with 8 songs on it, and release the rest as b-sides, but he doesn't. Nowadays he puts all of the songs on the albums and some call it "filler". I call it convenient for me the music listener.
[Edited 2/27/07 21:35pm]

skywalker said:

Absolutely a matter of taste! Some people in the biz say 10 tracks is the perfect album, anything more is ( here comes that word again) Filler!

How's filler convenient though??

I agree that "filler" is a matter of taste.

How cool is it that each of us finds rather eclectic songs from Prince's vast catalog to appreciate?

As for Prince fans who don't like funk, they may exist. They me get off on pop, rock, rock-a-billy, blues, gospel, metal, etc. That's cool.

In my opinion, I suggest they give the funk another try or two. This genre and many of its legends are such an influence on Prince's sound. Listen to some of the artists mentioned in these threads and hear their influence on Prince's sound. Then listen to how Prince took that sound, modified it, modernized it, and re-packaged it for a new crowd. Using layered keyboards for horns has got to be one of Prince's greatest contributions to the funk scene. I wouldn't give him credit for "inventing" that sound, but he certainly modernized it in the early '80s. It's one reason cuts like "Let's Work" and "DMSR" are as funky as they are. Listen to the "strings" on Let's Work, too. Of course, they're keyboards, but that's a wrinkle that Babyface seems to have latched onto and made a career out of.

I'm done rambling.

Long live the funk. Make it uncut.

vainandy said:

skywalker said:

True. I just want people to stop acting like they are sooooo hip to the funk, when all they know is Prince.

Amaxx said:

It's convenient in a couple ways, depends how u look at it. One way is that he's trying to please most if not all of his fans. For instance, on Sign 'O' The Times a lot of people find It to be filler; I don't. Perhaps I think another song is filler but you don't. It in a way gives us all an identity when listening to his music. For example, instead of giving us an 8 song album which we most if not all would like he'll throw in 4 or 5 others for me to say "i like that one too," and perhaps you don't and you like the other or w/e. It just gives an album a broader look so we're all not one-dimensional when talking and listening to it. So maybe we shouldn't label it as filler because there's not one album that 100% of any artists' fanbase can decide one specific song is filler. (and orgasm and other segues like that don't count )

Well, of course real classical music fans wouldn't call any of the "Parade" album artsy/fartsy or classical. Their reaction would be the same as mine when I hear these shit hop artists describe something as funky that never gets past midtempo. They don't know shit about real funk so it might sound funky to their ears (which know no better). Apparently they are using the term "funky" as a compliment since they have to constantly sample funk in their so-called music (slowing it down and ruining it in the process). A classical music fan's reaction to people calling "Parade" classical would be the exact same thing....."We don't know real classical music".

However, in many a funk music fan's case that would call parts of "Parade" artsy/fartsy or classical, they are not throwing those terms around as a compliment, they are throwing them around as an insult. True, they don't know "real" classical music and they have no desire to know it. Bits and pieces of the "Parade" album were a major joke on R&B radio and clubs when it was released.
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[Edited 2/28/07 7:05am]

FuNkeNsteiN said:

Hell, I know people who act hip to the funk because they know Dave Matthews Band. That is sad.

Bottom line: You are in a funk only zone and you get snobby when anyone gets away from what you like or when they appreciate funk music on a different level than you. Correct?

skywalker said:


Yes I am.



I have no problem with younger people first getting into funk. I love lots of music from the 1960s and early 1970s that I would have been very young at the time also. Everyone is born at different times and has different starting places.

My problem is with people around my age who were around in the early 1980s yet they never discovered Prince until 1982 when he had a pop hit with "Little Red Corvette". Then, all of a sudden they get totally into Prince and are supposed to be funk experts but only know funk that they have heard Prince talk about.

I personally remember a lot of people in my area that first got into Prince during the "Little Red Corvette" and "Purple Rain" era who seem to forget the comments they made to me in the years before such as....."Why do you listen to that jungle music" or "you need to start acting your race".

Not really. I love lots of different kinds of funk music and a lot of the artists have their own unique sound. Midnight Star had a spacey, robotic, futuristic sound. Rick James had a harder sound like Prince, except he had the punk/funk Stone City Band sound that was uniquely Rick James. Shalamar, The Whispers, and Dynasty had that "Solar Records" sound. And Prince had his own sound also.

I love all my favorite artists for different reasons and I love that they have a sound of their own that separates them from everyone else. When they stray away from that sound, they start sounding "generic" and don't really stand out anymore. As for Prince's case, when he changed his style, he still didn't sound like anyone else but he was going backwards to the 1960s and 1970s instead of forwards. If he had changed to another style that was still modern sounding at the time, I wouldn't have said anything. As for strings in the music, that's fine for the Philly International sound. That's what it's known for. As for Prince.....no.

IstenSzek said:

Not really. Funk constitutes about one third of his released output. It's even a smaller percentage for the so called "pure" funk tracks. The vast majority of his songs are the kind of songs you'd find stylistically "supporting" the proper funk tracks on albums by funk bands. Or just plain pop music.

It's perfectly debatable whether a track like "Sign"O"The Times" is funk or not. I'd say namely that it's not, even if it has some obvious funk elements.

I'd argue, and we have, that he was modern. He updated mixed his sounds with the 60's and 70's and made it new. You make it sound like SOTT was purely retro record and it wasn't. Sure, he was using elements from the past, but it was modern. It wasn't like Lenny Kravitz or Jamiroquai.




I find it ironic that you cannot tolerate people who were not open minded about Prince's funk (calling it jungle music) but loved Purple Rain. Yet, you LOVE Prince's funk, but as soon as he jumped out of that box and started utilizing other, and older, styles of music--you were not so openminded.

They weren't talking about Prince's funk because they didn't even know who the hell Prince was. They were making racial slurs about funk in general because they only listened to pop/rock and "white people didn't listen to funk, because it was "black" music".....I won't use the exact word they used but I'm sure you have an idea of what word it is.

I found it quite funny that when Prince blew up in the pop world, some of these same people got totally wrapped into him. And throughout the years, they started claiming to know funk but don't know a damn thing except what they've learned from Prince. Also, if Prince never taught them, they would never know the little bit they do know. I don't like fake and phony people. I also don't like people who go the safe route and never get into something until times change and it becomes "fashionable".

novabrkr said:

I have heard this argument before. There are people on okay player that claim that Prince is not a true funk artist and that he blends funk with elements of rock and that he only sprinkles elements of funk over pop tracks. It's easy to point to SOTT, that is a unique arrangement, it's more bluesy than anything not straight ahead funk. However what about Housequake? There is nothing watered down about that track, it's straight ahead funk all the way, what about Sexy Dancer? 1+1+1 is 3, Sexy MF, Head and so on. None of those songs compromise funk with other musical genres and there are tons of other songs like those. Its hard to gage just how much of his work is funk, but since the man is so prolific, I think its fair to say that it is more than half of his work.

Meloh9 said:

Far less than half. Just take a look at the tracklists on his CDs. It's a surprisingly small number all in all, even if you counted in tracks that border in and out of some kind of common definition of funk - like "Daddy Pop", "Sex In The Summer", "It", "Tamborine", "Dance On" or "Gett Off" etc. Vast majority of his album releases (after "1999") have only from two to three funk tracks on them. And for every "Newpower Soul" and "Black Album" there is a "Kamasutra", "The Truth" or "One Nite Alone" - piano record. You just don't pay attention to it unless somebody first points it out for you.

Of course, the common-counter argument is that funk can mean a lot of different things and doesn't have to sound just like Parliament/Funkadelic, but in Prince's case there's often nothing that would distinct it from the rest of his pop music.

[.org keeps crashing, btw].

novabrkr said:

okay lets take a look at One Night Alone, piano set fair enough, but look what happened when he put it out as a live box set, he had a whole after show disc dedicated to funk. "Sex In The Summer" Emancipation is filled with funk jams and the Bass lines on Emancipation really stand out. I'm up for that challenge and when I have more time I am going to take a look at the tracklist to see how much funk each album contains, I just don't have time to break it down right now.