So Planet Earth is less than one week old (in the UK) and not even released elsewhere and people are already debating its' merits and we are getting the usual polarised views of either "excellent his best since X" or "what a piece of crap why am I still a Prince fan".

Also a lot of people are saying that Prince's most recent releases show that he still has the ability to write one or two excellent songs but not an entire album.

So is the problem consistency?

When was the last completely consistently great album (ie one where you happily listen to every single song on the album without skipping)?

A lot of orgers bang on about how great Prince was in the 80s and how since he released album X in the 90s it has never been quite the same. But is that really true?

Has Prince always been consistent?

I would argue that he hasn't. In fact I would go so far as to say that, for me, there is not an actual album Prince has ever released where I wouldn't skip at least one song! This fact only dawned on me recently. By way of an example:

For You = I skip a few
Prince = I skip Still Waiting
Dirty Mind = I skip Party Up
Controversy = I skip Ronnie Talk To Russia
1999 = I skip All The Critics Love U In New York
Purple Rain = I skip I Would Die 4 U
ATWIAD = I skip Tamborine
Parade = I skip Venus De Milo
SOTT = I skip IT
Lovesexy = I skip I Wish U Heaven
Batman = I skip Arms Of Orion
Graffiti Bridge = I skip quite a few
Diamonds & Pearls = I skip Jughead and Push
= I skip Arrogance and Flow
Come = I skip Solo and Orgasm
TGE = I skip 319 and Now
C&D = I skip Right The Wrong
Emancipation = I skip a couple on each disk
The Truth = I skip 3rd Eye and Dionne
Crystal Ball = I skip a lot
NPS = I skip a few
Old Friends For Sale = I skip My Little Pill
RUTJF = I skip Undisputed, Hot Wit U & Strange But True
TRC = I skip a lot of the first half (not all)
One Nite Alone (piano) = I skip a couple
Xenophobia = I pretty much skip the lot
NEWS = I only listen to one of the tracks (can't remember)
Musicology = I skip Life O The Party
3121 = I skip Incense and Candles
Planet Earth = So far I am already skipping All The Midnights In The World

Sorry for the long post but basically what I am saying is that while I am a massive Prince fan there has always been at least one track that I can do without on EVERY album! So for that reason, for me, Prince has always been a bit inconsistent even on his greatest albums.

What do others think?
[Edited 7/18/07 10:08am]

I agree, but how do you skip a track on the Lovesexy CD? The whole album is on one track

So Planet Earth is less than one week old (in the UK) and not even released elsewhere and people are already debating its' merits and we are getting the usual polarised views of either "excellent his best since X" or "what a piece of crap why am I still a Prince fan".

Also a lot of people are saying that Prince's most recent releases show that he still has the ability to write one or two excellent songs but not an entire album.

So is the problem consistency?

When was the last completely consistently great album (ie one where you happily listen to every single song on the album without skipping)?

A lot of orgers bang on about how great Prince was in the 80s and how since he released album X in the 90s it has never been quite the same. But is that really true?

Has Prince always been consistent?

I would argue that he hasn't. In fact I would go so far as to say that, for me, there is not an actual album Prince has ever released where I wouldn't skip at least one song! This fact only dawned on me recently. By way of an example:

For You = I skip a few
Prince = I skip Still Waiting
Dirty Mind = I skip Party Up
Controversy = I skip Ronnie Talk To Russia
1999 = I skip All The Critics Love U In New York
Purple Rain = I skip I Would Die 4 U
ATWIAD = I skip Tamborine
Parade = I skip Venus De Milo
SOTT = I skip IT
Lovesexy = I skip I Wish U Heaven
Batman = I skip Arms Of Orion
Graffiti Bridge = I skip quite a few
Diamonds & Pearls = I skip Jughead and Push
= I skip Arrogance and Flow
Come = I skip Solo and Orgasm
TGE = I skip 319 and Now
C&D = I skip Right The Wrong
Emancipation = I skip a couple on each disk
The Truth = I skip 3rd Eye and Dionne
Crystal Ball = I skip a lot
NPS = I skip a few
Old Friends For Sale = I skip My Little Pill
RUTJF = I skip Undisputed, Hot Wit U & Strange But True
TRC = I skip a lot of the first half (not all)
One Nite Alone (piano) = I skip a couple
Xenophobia = I pretty much skip the lot
NEWS = I only listen to one of the tracks (can't remember)
Musicology = I skip Life O The Party
3121 = I skip Incense and Candles
Planet Earth = So far I am already skipping All The Midnights In The World

Sorry for the long post but basically what I am saying is that while I am a massive Prince fan there has always been at least one track that I can do without on EVERY album! So for that reason, for me, Prince has always been a bit inconsistent even on his greatest albums.

What do others think?
[Edited 7/18/07 10:08am]

Once again, this is entirely subjective.

People always look at older albums through rose-tinted specs.

its not about the songs you skip...its about he songs you dont skip. while most of his "good" songs lately are "good" or even "great" they just dont rise to same level of "amazing" as those from back in the day.

NouveauDance said:

I agree.
In fact, this whole forum is subjective.
Why are we still on it?

emesem said:

Well as people have said above, this is totally subjective. I bet that if a song like Planet Earth had appeared on an album in the 80s it would be held up today as an example of how great Prince was! Similarly if he released Dorothy Parker on the PE album people would no doubt criticise it!

The fact is that we are all influenced by a multitude of things when we consider the history of Prince's output. These include (but are not limited to):

1. The era in which the music was released

2. Where you were at with your life
[Edited 7/19/07 3:50am]

Jochem said:

The problem only occurs when people try to take a completely subjective thread and draw a factual conclusion. Just form ur opinion and keep it moving..

adorable2 said:

By the way, you are beautiful.

emesem said:

Well as people have said above, this is totally subjective. I bet that if a song like Planet Earth had appeared on an album in the 80s it would be held up today as an example of how great Prince was! Similarly if he released Dorothy Parker on the PE album people would no doubt criticise it!

The fact is that we are all influenced by a multitude of things when we consider the history of Prince's output. These include (but are not limited to):

1. The era in which the music was released

2. Where you were at with your life
[Edited 7/19/07 3:50am]

jaypotton said:

I completely agree with this. For a lot of artists, the early catalog is evered much more than later output. In some cases maybe the music is "better" but that is totally subjective.

Early music is raw, novel, fresh, and if you first heard it when you were young or at some other important stage in your life, you will always think of it more fondly than the later stuff.

I am defintely in the camp who likes Prince's 80s to early 90s output much more than his later stuff (though I love finding gems among the later albums), but that's just my opinion. Prince has released a TON of music. He has litimations, even though they are much broader than anyone else's limitatons. What he can do to "amaze" us is less than it used to be because we've heard it before. Every song he releases now may be good or even great, but almost everyone can be compared to a similar song released earlier. IT happens to all artists.

That said, mad love to jaypotten for telling it like it is.