I was just reacting on the thread about the SNL-performance of Fury and came to the conclusion that while Prince seems to have the problem to really 'convince' on record for quite some time, that as he a live-artist he is still capable of creating 'magic'.

Thinking about it i have the sense that Prince 'the one man band' is not really capable anymore to create inspired, groundbreaking music on CD.
I mean: it worked on Dirty Mind, because it was new probably, releasing a number of lo-fi sounding demotracks as an album. It also worked on Sign of the Times: i think a lot of the greatness of that record comes from the 'balance' between the material recorded earlier with the Revolution and Wendy and Lisa, and Princes own, more minimalistic 'solo-tracks'.
But allready on the album Come you could hear that Prince was not longer developing himselve as a 'solo-artist': that album brought nothing new, Prince sounded like he was repeating himselve, using old idea's again, sounding tired and on auto-pilot.
That problem is most obvious on his internetreleases (The chocolate invasion, The Slaughterhouse) where Prince sounds as some cheap copy-cat, like a boring parody of himself.

On the other hand: the introduction of the (original) NPG, seemed to revive his inspiration. The three records with that band (Diamonds and Pearls, Symbol, The Gold Experience) i see as his best album from the nineties.
Levi Seacer jr. once said in an interview that most basic tracks on Symbol were recorded by Prince AND the NPG in just a few weeks. And i think the album benefits from that, you can almost HEAR that Prince get inspired by this kind of approach.
The sames goes for albums like The Vault and Chaos and Disorder (which sound like two collections of what are in essence live-recordings): both albums might not be his best in terms of the quality of composing / songwriting, but the musicality and livelieness in the deliverance surely offer compensation.

Coming back to the 21th century: I dont consider Musicology and 3121 as 'bad' albums, but what they share is a lack of real spark and inspiration, they sound like Prince is 'underachieving', moving on auto-pilot.
I think a lot of this has to do that he recorded most of the songs on these albums by himself, and as i said, i think at this moment Prince isnt really able to challenge himself any more. He seems to need the input of other musicians / bandmembers to get him to a higher level.
I mean, look at his biggest selling album: Purple Rain. The succes (artistically and commercial) of that album IMO has a lot to do with using live-recordings as basic tracks for many of the songs. I dont think Prince could have topped the vocal delivery on the title-track, when he had recorded the whole song in the studio, the same goes up for the level of energy and urgency on songs like I would die for U and Lets go crazy.

To summarize: Prince is on a 'dead end' when it comes to releasing material written, composed, arranged and produced by Prince. He should record his basic tracks for a live audience, or at least record those tracks 'live' in the studio (like he did with the original NPG) to get some of his 'spark' back.

you got it wrong.
prince don't work good in electronim music anymore,
but he sounds much better in organic music

yeah, as far as I'm concerned, Rave, Musicology, 3121, and the NPGMC stuff are demos that never got re-recorded the way they were meant to be.

planet earth is credited to Prince and The NPG:

thebanishedone said:

That`s my impression to... He was a way better arranger/producer when he was working analogue and live in studio!!! Everthing he does these days are often overproduced/arranged or badly produced... That`s just my opinion...

oh hell to the yeah!!!

YEAH BUT HIS PRODUCTION WORK ON RAINBOW KIDS ALBUM IS AMAZING