As I listen to prince’s music since 1996 there are some striking things that have made him seem to be playing it safe or bored?

When you listened to prince in the 80’s you were guaranteed to hear 1 arrangement or sound that u NEVER HEARD BEFORE! think back to doves cry or even 1999…….
You didn’t have people saying oh that sounds like boogie wonderland or sly stone etc……IT DIDN’T SOUND LIKE ANYBODY BUT PRINCE!
In my opinion it seems to me prince has not kept up with all the great technology available by way of synthesizers and sound creation.

When I go into Guitar Center and hear all these great new sounds I can only wish that prince would sit down and learn to use these sounds….Imagine the technology in the hands of a master musician?

Why do you think he doesn’t embrace and learn new technology like he did early in his career?

Is he bored?

Not hungry?

Satisfied with his own greatness?

Just too spoiled to work hard anymore?

Guess u have not listened to PE yet.
PE is exactly the album that makes you say at first listen: "Oh, this is Prince sound!".

Aloisio said:

i have...nothing new there

But in a few days u will have it!

It does seem, as a producer and innovator of sound, he has lost his way. The songwriting and live performance is still there!

mirrorbestfriend said:

Listening to "Planet Earth", I think there's PLENTY of new sounds on that piece of work! If you don't hear them, you're not really paying attention...

I've heard is stated here before...very accurately so...that if "Planet Earth" was released in the 80's (a period most harken back to as a comparison point), it'd be most likely considered groundbreaking and fresh...a masterpeice ala "SOTT"!! But, since he's already set the bar so high, even those albums that deserve such aclaim don't get it. Does that seem right?

Music is interpretive, and shouldn't be judged as anything tangible. What you dislike, I may LOVE! If anything though, he's far from bored...

Just my 2 cents.

The funniest comment I've seen in this vein was over on HQ. Someone there said All the Midnights In the World sounds like Here Comes Santa Claus.

The reason, is that Prince has been recording for around 30 years. During that time he has acheived heights in both recording and songwriting that many will never reach, including 4 albums (give or take), that many consider masterpieces.

Look at nearly any artist/band with those credentials and you will see the same truth: There is ALWAYS a drop-off in quality. With very few exceptions, (I can only think of U2 off the top of my head), that have been able to "innovate" or do a profound "variation on their theme" in the later years of a long career. Artists may have one release here or there that raises their game again (Johnny Cash being one), but they almost never sustain the level of a certain fertile period of their career. Age, influences, life experience all have an affect, and usually time softens the creative edge. Look at the Stones, or Aerosmith, or Stevie Wonder...

The same holds true for other creative fields... Michelangelo's craft became less spectacular, (yet still good), after the Sistine Chapel. I wonder if his fans were sitting around going, "Dude, what happened to Mike? He's let himself go...He really needs to do another ceiling?"

I think it's the nature of creative artists: You peak at a certain point, and on both sides of that peak, you seem to be a lesser imitation of it. Prince's work wll always be judged against those kind of highs, and while it may seem like it to most, getting that kind of creativity again may be impossible for the guy who is Prince today, at his age, in this time of his life.

mirrorbestfriend said:

Funny thing is , a lot of people think the opposite...they complain about "plastic" sounding synthesizer sounds, not enough "organic"sounds and would like him to record like in the 80s, where some of his greatest songs were recorded in some shabby warehouse with bad acoustics ( like Let´s Go Crazy....sounds great, IMO) . A lot of people miss that raw, unpolished sound of Let´s Go Crazy or Computer Blue or the result of accidents, like that "Camille" voice or stuff like drumbeats played through guitar effect pedals and recorded backwards etc.

In a nutshell, I get the impression that many think he´s using too much modern technology these days, to the point of his albums sounding a bit sterile. You on the other hand seem to wish for more technology, right ?
I liked the rawness of 3121 ( the title song ) and the SNL version of Fury. I also like the clean sounding stuff though.

jpav said:

Some very good points in your post....also keep in mind that U2 is a band, whereas Prince is a solo artist...I think it takes much longer for the well to dry when you have three or four creative heads in a group instead of one single artist.
[Edited 7/12/07 9:30am]

He is burned out and lost his mojo .....

Why are people attacking Prince when the CD is not even out yet? Aren't there any REAL fans left around here?

There are more peopleon the org slamming Prince than there has ever been before and coming from the outside looking in I'm telling you it's fucked up!Lookk at these people's history and past threads where did they even come from?!
[Edited 7/12/07 9:45am]

mirrorbestfriend said:

In some ways I do agree with you that the surprise factor isn't there as much anymore. IMHO he hit a really low point with the awful and too self concious Emancipation and spiralled from there on. I have frequently said that in the mid 90s he wanted to sound very contemporary so he adopted that boring R&B drawl and the ghetto speak which lets be honest was about 15 years too young for him and frankly made him look like someone's dad dancing at a party!

That said in the last 6 or 7 years he has slowly been pulling himself up again,you;re right he hasn't made something that makes you stop and think WTF! because he went places we never thought he would in the mid 80s and early 90s. The new technology wouldn't make a difference I'm afraid. Prince is an emotional songwriter - and I think that now he is doing a bit more emotive writing. One Night Alone would have been hailed an underground classic if recorded and then 'leaked' 20 years ago. Rainbow Children had some fantastic stuff on it. I've been buying Prince stuff since 1981 and hunted rare stuff in the markets of London in the mid 80s and to be honest I am actually feeling more positive with Planet Earth than for some years. The 1 u Wanna C, Planet Earth, Guitar, Here on Earth would, IMO , have made it onto at least 3 of the albums he put out between 85 and 91.

Sorry for the ramble, your post is an intersting one and I reckon that maybe, with the return of Wendy and lisa he may just have one more classic left to come in the next couple of years.

KoolEaze said:

Check out Van Morrison's career. The guy is as strong now, on the stage AND in the studio as he has ever been.

Prince has the ability just not the discipline or patience.

clarityman said:

Like it or not Rainbow Children was exactly that WTF! album. Musically it is unbeatable. It was anything but lazy.

He can do it, he just doesn't.

roanmairin said:

Very good point. And he's been in the business for 5 decades.

wlcm2thdwn said:

Do you need to mindlessly like everything to be a "real fan"?

Nothing wrong with saying "Hey, this is shit. He can do better."

He does every night on stage.

wlcm2thdwn said:

Yup, oh so true and especially one in particular that is very obnoxious. They pop up out of the blue and within a month or two make a zillion posts that are repetitive and trollish.

wlcm2thdwn said:

Maybe you´re misinterpreting some of the posts here on the org. Most of those people, includng myself, still dig Prince and his music and his shows a lot, including his recent output. I think it´s just that many fans know of his potential and are sometimes amazed about some of his decisions, that´s all. Sometimes I think that Prince is one of the few musicians on the planet who makes people feel this way .

mirrorbestfriend said:

...there's that guy playing that same Pantera song he's been playing for nearly 20 years

NDRU said:

mirrorbestfriend said:

You know, I often wonder the same thing when I enter stores like that or when I'm reading through Medford's Musician's Friend or various music magazines (MusicTech, FutureMusic, etc). I mean, I could do A LOT with that stuff, but I can't afford it all. Prince can, and he's a master musician! Just think of what HE could do!! But he doesn't.

And I'm not sure why.

For someone who says he loves music, you think he'd be like a kid in a candy shop with all the techno-gazmos that are available these days.
[Edited 7/12/07 10:53am]

Snap said:

but all the choices in sounds can be a distraction from actually creating music. Setting up LFO's & tweaking delay settings and mixing patches can fill a whole day with no actual music to show for it.

I think Prince likes to play music, I don't think he's into the technical side. His guitar gear isn't that great either. He's been using the same crappy Boss pedals forever.

Some people here are naming Van Morrison as an example as artist still going strong after several decades.

I myself are a big fan of "Van the Man", but i just partly agree with that statement.

Van is, like Prince, also not creating really groundbreaking music anymore. The years of him delivering original, improvised 'jazz-folk' (Astral Weeks, No Guru) or hypnotisizing soul/R&B jams (Into the Music) are far behind us.
Like so many other artists with a long career (Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed) Van is in a period in his career that he is indeed delivering good albums and still going strong live, but the real 'brilliance' of the past he doesnt reach anymore.
Next to that: Van has also has had a quite week period in his career, in the first halve of the eighties he fell into the trap of using synths in his music, writing so-so material, and flirting with the scientology church.

When i translate this to Prince i think 'we' sort of have to accept that artists cannot stay at their peak for decades. I mean all 'great' artists have had their wonderyears: The Beatles, between Rubber Soul and Abbey Road, Prince between Dirty Mind and Sign / Lovesexy, and you can also see it with younger bands: REM, and also U2, are not at their peak anymore.
But it doesnt mean we have to give up on him when it comes to him delivering good or great albums. I mean, he can go two ways: or he only keeps relevant as a live artist, delivering an ocassionaly lousy album from time to time (James Brown, and partially The Stones).
Or he goes trough some kind of 'renaissance' as he is middle-aged (thats quick of course...lol). I mean: Lou Reed had such a phase in his career (being quite insignificant in the eighties), but coming back strong with the albums New York and Songs for Drella, Van Morrison has had that kind of period (late eighties), Dylan has had his lesser period, and maybe the same is happening with Paul Mc Cartney these years.

To be short: the potential is there with Prince, the question: will he able to bring it too real fruition again on his recorded music in the future?

Yeah I think an artist's body of work is kind of like a tattoo. First they create the lines, which is where the tattoo grows quickly. At some point they start filling the lines in with color.

Adding sometimes that just comes to mind... lol

The following artists went to a period of not really sounding as 'themselves' and releasing weaker material while they were trying to confirm themselves to a certain form of organised religion.
- Bob Dylan: Christianity
- Van Morrison: Scientology
- Prince: JW

Maybe its the fault of dogmatic religion. And we will get Prince back when he leaves the Jehovah's

Snap said:

I'm puzzled also..its a waste

NDRU said:

NDRU said:

That is a fantastically observent analogy.

And I think some might be better served to understand this about themselves and to therefore dig into those great new people who are just laying down the foundation.

I happen to like all incarnations, and the smell of ink! Strange? Perhaps. But I've never been one to care about acceptance.

I saw this same exact thing happen to followers of Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Akira Kurosawa, et al.

These movies are awful. Where there hell is the Kurosawa master of the 50s? Where the hell is the Kubrick master of the 60s?

Hell, I just sat back and enjoyed the great masters of cinema. I wasn't waiting for another "Annie Hall" to change my life, I was waiting for the tattoo to be completed.

And, damn, you should have seen some of the colors. No one else would have thought to finish it that way!

(I need a full-time editor, edit. Shit!)
[Edited 7/12/07 14:24pm]