Which Prince albums do you think have the best sounds in terms of production, editing, mixing?

Here's my top 3:

1) Diamonds & Pearls
2)
3) Gold Experience

1999

1. Batman
2. Gold Experience



The rest are just ok or over produced

Graffiti Bridge

Planet Earth
Batman


and

Purple Rain. Purple Rain did have great sound and energy. Not many of the other songs/albums sound that good. Other albums had much better songs, concepts, etc. But PR had a great sound. Was that done just for the movie?
Was there a technician/ engineer that helped with that album that was not ever used again?

the gold experience
exodus
sign o the times
the rainbow children

The Rainbow Children
Exodus

ElectricBlue said:

Overproduced? And you rate Gold as one of your two!

I agree with those suggesting The Rainbow Children as it does sound lovely, but I guess there was nothing wow about it.

1999 on the other hand kinda defined his sound as a producer.

Parade would also be in there for me.

Production-wise "Lovesexy"

Hmmm. Yeah, maybe "Lovesexy" for me too. "Gold Experience" is a bit overdone in reverb for a Prince record, and "Rainbow Children" ls limited like crap (I can't listen to parts of that album on my studio monitors, altough it's debatable whether limiting counts as "production", otherwise it's quite good of course). The two Prince & The New Power Generation records from the early-90s sound a bit thin these days, altough their production values really did stand up-to-date surprisingly long, but then - wham - they became the most-dated sounding Prince records of the bunch in a really short while.

I haven't listened to "Exodus" in a while, but from what I can remember it was one of his most balanced works production-wise. But maybe my memory's just playing tricks on me. Should listen to that later today.

parade by far

The Prince album & 1999.

I guess it's The Gold Experience indeed.

novabrkr said:

Glad to hear from someone who knows!

The lovesymbol album is also heavily compressed and extrmely loud for when it was released. D & P sounds far better and i also like the sound of GB.
TGE is ruined by the mastering engineer brian gardner who also did rainbow children.

Come is the best for me. I think the mixes are suberb. A perfect little dark album.
I like Lovesexy although some parts are over-produced(too many thing going on).

I think the time's second album is one of his best productions. Very slick and sounds good.

RedKite said:

You think it sounds good

It was very poorly recorded; there's leakage everywhere. The LP does sound o.k though; the cd sucks. You can't even hear mark's bass on the cd.

It could sound suberb if it was remastered from the original tapes and pressed on 200gram vinyl or even better dvd audio.

The track purple rain has too much reverb on the vocals; it is damna annoying

Lovesexy

Sign O The Times
The Rainbow Children
1999
Parade

vivid said:

1999.It defined Prince as an artist/producer and is the blueprint of 80's Pop/R&B.The production in 1999 inspired Jam and Lewis,L.A.and Babyface,Foster and McElroy,Basement Jaxx,Timbaland and The Neptunes just to name a few.

Planet Earth
Sign of the Times
[Edited 12/29/07 4:40am]

LaLaLaHeeHeeHee said:

SOTT?

That sound awful and flat. No power in the drums and not much audible bass.

fcukthepolice said:

Nah. It would lose its edge. Its the difference between the pre- and post Paisley Park albums.

At the time, I really loved how Lovesexy sounded. The multi-layered polyphonic sounds were a surprising change after SOTT. Doesn't sound so great now.

The Gold Experience is an example of Overproduction. Curse Prince for getting bored and continually adding to tracks (except for GOLD, ironically, where he took the strings off).

I actually think ONA live is well produced for something that only used two tracks.

fcukthepolice said:

The CD version is shit. The vinyl sounds a lot better.

Umm... 'production' has such a broad meaning

When it comes to going for an inventive, creative, but also unified 'sound' i would go for Parade and Lovesexy.

When it comes to the actual 'sound quality' most of his eighties albums sound way to thin and flat. I would go for The Gold Experience and Symbol in this case.

When it comes to his most influential production 1999 is definately 'the one'.
[Edited 12/29/07 9:21am]

Riverpoet31 said:

They are overly compressed and eq'd; especially TGE which is distorted and sounds crap on any decent system. Good in the car yes put poorly mastered.

COME sounds better and so does D & P. Crystal ball is pretty good as well. Musicology is o.k

LOVESEXY!

Best opening of any Prince album. The voices are tight. The drums are clear and tight. The bass is upfront. Hell, I miss that album, I'm gonna play it now!

Just listen to Alphabet Street. DAMN! Incredible production. It's the kick drum. God - Kat's rapping - I miss this album. I used to listen to it all the time when it first came out.

I remember a buddy of mine used to crank it on his stereo system. The song Lovesexy in particular - one of P's greatest recordings ever production-wise. The opening to that song - and things that happen inside the song itself with the weird voices, etc. - is the sort of creative weirdness we don't hear from P anymore.

This album is incredible.

switters said:

Different strokes, I guess. I actually consider Lovesexy to be the first of his albums to suffer from over-production. I still like it, tho'.

switters said:

AGREED!

the lp sounds great; cd sucks sweaty bollocks

BlackCandle said:

ONA sounds EXCELLENT to me but i can tell wear he added over dubs and edited. There is bass iver dubs on JOY

The piano disc sounds beautiful. WHat a great album.
I got it off ***** ***

my ears are too lazy to qualify to answer this but i will say I would really like a re-mastered copy of 1999 through to LoveSexy...the discs play way too low for me to truly blast them.