I think his sound, after SOTT/The Black Album (his last albums to be recorded (mostly) outside of Paisley Park) changed quite a bit, and not necessarily for the better. Perhaps it was the insular nature of his new recording situation. Perhaps it was the equipment being used. Perhaps it was relying on in-house engineers, etc., more than ever before that did it, but I think the existence of Paisley Park stifled his creativity and the need to come up with very fresh sounds. There's very little rawness or inventiveness to the material created after PP was built, compared to what came before.


Don't get me wrong, I think he's put out a great deal of good material since then, but to me it's been inconsistent.

I don't know if I agree with u on this because he recorded lots of good stuff at Paisley Park (released and unreleased) after 1988. From what I understand, Prince lived at PP and would record anytime. A lot of the engineer's job was just to setup the board and Prince did the rest himself.

I think what happened was that Prince finally grew up and started to find himself with God.

daPrettyman said:

I agree he recorded some great material. It's more the sound of the material. It's almost as if he became too much of a perfectionist, just because he had 24 hour access to a studio next door to his bedroom. I feel like he became with making everything sound too crisp and clean, and putting everything in its perfect place and over-producing his music.

Prince's music was ten times better before Paisley Park even existed.

The ballad of Dororthy parker was the 1st track he recorded there. I'd say he did ok.

Interesting theory. I think Lovesexy and Batman were as inventive and interesting as anything that came before, but his music did become a lot more slick around '90/'91.

I think his sound became too 'clean' after all the glitches at PP were sorted out. And I think that had a massive influence on Prince's sound. The Ballad... DP was recorded with a half finished soundboard... hence the peculiar and unique sound. That said, I think Prince can dirty it up when he likes - just listen to some of the production on albums like The Truth, Chaos and Disorder and NPS... maybe, when it comes to those 'centrepiece' albums he gets caught up touching up the final production he knocks the life out of it... when it's a throwaway album, the dirt remains and the sound sounds better. I've started rambling... I'll shut-up now.

BoySimon said:

Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. That overly clean sound. As I said before, I love a lot of his 1988-on albums and songs, but I wonder if the insular nature of his new recording set up and the ability to labor over those recordings for hours on end with no regard to time and money constraints stifled his creativity. He had the opportunity to make things sound perfect, with everything in its place. But the beauty of his 1980-1987 recordings is somewhat tied to their messiness and off-the cuff feel. Like he was tossing off masterpieces to an awestruck audience. The 1988 and on recordings... well, it's like you can hear all the work that went into it, and that kind of detracts from the mysterious awesomeness.