The '90-'92 era saw Prince release 3 lengthy albums, which are often criticised as containing superfluous or experimental material. "If only he had cut out ..., it would have been great".

Graffiti Bridge 17 songs
Diamonds & Pearls 13 songs
Symbol 18 songs

In contrast, the '04-'07 era saw Prince release 3 concise albums, which are often criticised as being good but not great and generally tending to lack fun, diversity and experimentation.

Musicology 12 songs
3121 12 songs
Planet Earth 10 songs

Which type/length of album would you like to see next?

I loved Graffiti Bridge when it came out. Loved it. One of my favorite Prince albums because of the summer memories it evokes.

To answer your point -
GB, D&P, and Symbol are fantastic Prince albums because you could still hear him evolving and growing as an artist. Changing. The songs were bolder and more exciting.

With Musicology, 3121, and Planet Earth there is no musical growth whatsoever. He's simply repeating himself. Rehashing the same stuff. It's ear-candy - nice tunes - but nothing new to thrill.

When I first heard "Tick Tick Bang" and "New Power Generation" I was EXCITED!! The sound was FRESH!! FRESH PRINCE! WEIRD. NEW. Funky!!

When I first Heard / Saw "SEXY MF" I thought the man went NUTS. Nothing he'd ever done before sounded like that. I grew to love it.

None of his new material of recent years has given me that feeling. Pure and simple. Because he stopped trying. He's resting on laurels and just jamming.

The weird thing is he was tied into a major record contract back then and he was upset that the record company wouldn't let him flood the market with too much music. He still was able to release more songs per album back then but now that he has less obligations he doesn't put as many songs on the albums let alone not even an album every year. WTF

PEJ said:

not so sure about that

Look at the output from TRC to present:

TRC, ONA, ONA live, NEWS, C-Note, Choco Invasion, Slaughterhouse, Musicology, 3121, PE and a load of other stuff released thru NPGMC and 3121.com, all this in 6 yrs, aint bad I think

in retrospect I actually like 3121 more than I do Diamonds and Pearls and Symbol. At first I was very negative about his 04-07 triplet but FINALLY I'm starting to rally appreciate 312. The ballads are still it's weak point but the same goes for Diamonds and Pearls and to a lesser extent for Symbol... other improvement of 3121 over both is the lack of the game boys....

Of course Graffiti Bridge is the best of these six but talking about rehash.... Isn't this also the beginning of rehash??? (At the very least it's emptying the vault...)

Whitnail said:

those were all wonderful albums but the 04-07 era is what I thought we were lookin at here

recent music still has element of fun. makes me still wanna dance!
just less smut & more class/maturity.
as long as he's playing his guitar he will always b a cut above.
he's got a ton of mileage & will put out something very special in the future. whateva he has in stow it will be
u can never have enough material on an album. any material is good!

I guess Prince just writes the songs, and lenthens them or shortens them...
I guess it's only important to express the style of music you are delivering, into the package that you want to create. As a listener, I don't have the capability for those creative decisions.