I would argue that these records are the quintessential Prince albums. Many other albums have been essential to his development as an artist (e.g. Parade, Lovesexy, The Gold Experience, The Rainbow Children) but none reach the overall importance of the quintessential four.

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[Edited 3/22/08 4:05am]

ye speaketh the truth, but i equally got into
lovesexy and parade, playing them endless times;
some might also add The Gold Experience to your
list above.

Anji said:

i agree- with the 1st 2 albums anyway

re watched PR today- and rediscovered my love for princes music- i remembered what it was that had brought me to the Purple One in the 1st place
PR is what bought me to P- i cant believe its 25 yrs next year

of course id heard of 1999, LRC and even controversy B4 this, but it was the movie and the album (yes, vinyl) that got me hook, line and sinker.

and whether ppl like it or not- its 1999, and Purple Rain that most ppl think of when u say prince (non fans/fams that is).
well, where i come from anyway


u didnt mention ATWIAD

prb said:

I think 1999 is an important album in terms of development. Purple Rain and Sign O' the Times are far superior.

I definitely agree with u as far as the average Prince listener goes...Or the music collector that keeps only three...ohterwise, having all of Prince's released material adds more cool to your personal selection.

ReverendP said:

Sorry, I can't find a slap... will this do?

Anji said:

I would agree with Purple Rain and Sign O The Times, but not 1999.

Much as I love 1999, it was neither original in sound, nor in the same commercial league as the others.

Granted it one of the better selling albums now, but much of that came from the 1995 re-release on the back of Purple Rain. Therefore it's a matter of deciding whether 1999 took Prince's music to a new level. I don't think it did.

Whilst it had average sales, I think it's Controversy that was the first building block that become Prince's signiture sound for the next 5 years.

Controvery has three key elements that broke the mould for Prince musically. Firstly the production. A much fuller, less tinny sound than anything he had released before. Secondly, the Linn. This album lead the way. Lastly, the introduction of non falsetto vocals. This change gave Prince a much wider range.

All of these were present on 1999, but introduced on Controversy. The step change from Dirty Mind to Controversy was far greater than the one from Controversy to 1999.

I agree in the sense that these albums have the highest % of well known songs on them, anybody who remotely considered themself a fan would own them, and most people who wouldn't consider themself a fan would find them easy to listen to. At the same time if you only had these 3 I think you'd be missing out on the funky/hornz sound which doesn't really feature on these but features massively on a lot of the others.

I guess it depends if you mean these 3 would be the 3 most people would listen to and think 'Prince' (which I think are the 3 you've listed) or whether you want 3 which really cover the widest variety of his styles and sounds in which case you'd need something newer in the list like The Rainbow Children or 3121, and probably something with more rap tracks like The Gold Experience or the symbol album?

I actually agree with SquirrelMeat and Anji. If I can.

SOTT and PR will always be the jumping off point for casual listeners, the general music audience and new fans wanting a quintessential Prince album, rather than a best of. 1999 is probably the next step because of the first two tracks, both well-known big signature singles.

No other album really stands upto these 3 in terms of the complete package of having widely-known, accessible commercial hit singles, being a solid critically acclaimed album past those singles and being accessible to the wider/casual audience.

Newbies - start here.

Ah, now we have ourselves a good thread

SquirrelMeat said:

strange, but I feel its the other way around.

1999 has more of... let's see, I guess I'm looking for "mainstream" feel to it. Dirty Mind & Controversy have a similiar sound and its becuz like most have said, Controversy was supposedly "Dirty Mind Part II"... continues the same musical elements, while adding some, including the reaction of critics towards Prince in the title track.

SoTT is an amazing album I'd listened to in recent memory. Something I had actually saved for a while after I bought it b4 listening and I tell ya, I'm so glad I did (thanx whoever gave me that advice). For the longest time, I couldn't get away from it. Just kept playing it because the quality of music is so sharp that nothing else seems like it can touch it. Though it's pretty premature to call it my favorite album (and that would kinda be cheating too ).

1999 and Purple Rain, however, were the most successful on the larger scale, I think. Obviously because I had heard of them before ever believing myself 2b in2 Prince. I was just a casual observer years going back and those were the only albums that I had heard about.

Coincidentally, I'll bet that when most people think of Prince in the best of times, it would be from those 2 albums and those 3 years (1982-4). The whole look he had and with The Revolution backing him up, they're certainly what comes to mind when I think of Prince. The 1999 video was my first ever Prince video and Little Red Corvette was the first I picked out of a list on one site I found on my first day... simply fell in love with the song because how he presented it in the video.

Purple Rain as an entire project takes it even deeper. The movie lets you see behind the scenes the kind of life he lived at the time (well, for some of it, he didn't still live in his parents basement in real life ). It gave me a look behind the artist he was and regardless of any ideas I had about him, good or bad (I only pose both because I don't remember that far back), from the 1999 video... there was something to admire about him. And I never forgot what I saw.

[will add more later, gotta get to class]

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

A lot of people look at Controversy this way. I think it does it a dis-service classing it as Dirty Mind pt.2. I always look at it as a proto-1999. I think SquirrelMeat was thinking the same.

NouveauDance said:

Prototype 1999, thats its!

I think 1999 is a much stonger album than Controversy, but I think Controversy was the first album to deliver what would be Prince's signiture sound for the next 10 years.

I look at it this way. Take the tracks Controversy and Do Me Baby. You could slot them into 1999 and the whole sound would fit. They could be passed off as 1999 tracks to the average listener.

But if you tried slotting them into Dirty Mind they would stick out like a sore thumb. They don't sound of that era.

Prince moved his sound on 1981 in a big way. I think Gotta Stop (Messin About) marked the end of the era.

That change is evident with The Time too. The Time - The Time is great, but its a badly produced album. A Dirty Mind if you will. What Time is it? shares all the same production values as Controversy.

Come to think of it, there is one obvious change that explains the step change matching these periods. Prince shifted production out of his basement and into Sunset Studios.

SquirrelMeat said:

but the linn drum was only used on jack u off everything else is live drumming

L4OATheOriginal said:

Private Joy was the first track to use the linn.

I'm simply saying that the groundwork is on the Controversy album. I actually think the changes in his production had a greater impact than the linn.

And the use of the deep voice to sing was the first move to his mainstream sound. The falsetto tended to root him in R&B.

ReverendP said:

Parade and Lovesexy are both amongst a very small collection of all-time favourite records. I also really enjoy The Gold Experience but I don't think either of these three albums are quintessential.

prb said:

Again, another fantastic record for his artistic development but not quintessential as far as I can conclude.

SquirrelMeat said:

Wow, I would never have thought 1999 would have been 'in question' before I made this thread but you raise some valid points. Controversy is possibly my favourite Prince record for so many reasons but I wouldn't consider it quintessential (even though the points you make are spot on). I guess it comes down to what constitutes 'quintessential'. And also whether it really matters?

NouveauDance said:

It's a disservice to Controversy to consider it either a Dirty Mind part II or a proto-1999. Controversy is a FANTASTIC Prince record. Full stop.

I agree with Anji, because of the following:

1999
His most influential album 'productionwise' i think. I indeed see Controversy as Dirty Mind part 2. The creative and 'heavy' use of electronics (Linndrum, synths) om 1999 is a clear break from the often more traditional rhythems on the majority of Dirty Mind and Controversy.
While a song like Annie Christian merely hints at the possibilities of using drumcomputers for Princes music, songs like Lets pretend were married, Automatic, Something in the water doesnt compute are true showcases of the creative use of electronics in contemporary music. In that sense 1999 is a huge step forward.
Listen to music from producers / artists like Timbaland, The Neptunes, Beck, Daft Punk, Missy Elliot, Peaches and World Party, and you can sure hear the enormous impact 1999 has had on the 'sound' of contemporary music since 1982.

Purple Rain:
His most commercially appealing album. It doesnt mean he is selling out. But its more likes he takes the strong points of 1999, adding more rock and pop-elements and comprimising it into one single K.O. out of an album without filler-songs and and energetic, original sound.

Sign of the Times:
Arguably his "Magnum Opus". Maybe in terms of songwriting more 'meandering' then Purple Rain, and also lacking the stylistic unity of that album, but the sprawling mixture of different styles, the new found lyrical maturity on certain songs, and the occiasonally use of clever, more nuanced musical textures, gives Sign of the Times more 'depth' and subtlety then Purple Rain, its therefore a richer, more timeless album IMO.
[Edited 3/10/08 7:54am]

Riverpoet31 said:

You hit the nail on the head.

Okay, im gonna try to attempt to finish my original post.

When I think Prince, 1999 & PR come to mind immediately because that's how I was first exposed to him.

But I believe SoTT is his best work. I had dismissed the possibility of converting a non-fan in2 one of us because if you have a certain idea about Prince in your head, nothing is going to make you think otherwise. You either have the capability or you don't.

After listening to SoTT, I believe it is the one album that can convert anyone. It explains all of the sides of Prince in one album. It takes everything Prince has accomplished up to this point and puts it together and here he reaches levels of greatness that haven't been seen since.

If was ur girlfriend is a classic example of one of the songs unique to this album and that's something so exquisite that the likes of it haven't been seen since.

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

I agree SOTT is THE album. For me, its simply for this...

No other album contains so my genres and styles whilst continuing to sound like one concept. Although the album is a pasted together mish mash, the final layout and tracks chosen knit together to make the perfect musical journey.

1982-1988 is my favorite period. 1999, Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Parade, Sign o' The Times, and Lovesexy are must haves for ANY Prince fan

Anji said:

Of course. (It's my #1 favourite in fact).

Just agreeing with Squirrel that it bares a closer resemblence to 1999 than to DM. (For me). Although Dirty Mind actually gave a kind of template for the structure of the album, the tracklist placing.

NouveauDance said:

Cool.
How come?

Anji said:

Obviously the big three, but in reference to the above Dirty Mind is I think, even more important.

Yeah, Dirty Mind is the one I struggle with leaving off the quintessential list but my initial sense went with 1999, Purple Rain and Sign 'O' The Times as representative of the height of his artistic achievements. Dirty Mind was undoubtedly essential to his artistic development but is it on par with the big guns?

Anji said:

i know- u just didnt mention it with dirty mind/ parade etc

i think after the hugely successful and popular with the masses PR, ATWIAD had to rated a mention 4 a.d

i just wanted to show it some love
[Edited 3/10/08 13:48pm]

SquirrelMeat said:

i think that is when he started seeing that vocal coach..but i hear ya

Anji said:

Maybe not artistically, but if we're talking quintessential albums, Dirty Mind is where he really 'became' Prince.