I was thinking about this today. We all know that after 1981 about a good bulk of Prince's work is rooted in electronica among many other influences. He really did set a standard of how music should be produced with the "1999" album. But that was the way things were going in pop music anyways. The machines were taking over by 1983 and it was affected the way music was being produced. Out with analog, in with digital.

Anyways, what or who do you think inspired Prince to update his sound with synths and drum machines? I would theorize that he was getting into a lot of underground sounds, like Hip-hop and Electro at that time. He was also without a doubt getting into the New Wave sounds like Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Visage, Human League, etc. Those cats from the UK were already making hits based on their synthesized sounds, and I'm sure Prince was picking up on it. Also, Prince might've been digging some early Detroit Techno. I believe at that time those new sounds might've only been regionally popular.

I would also say that Stevie Wonder might be influential too since he was the master of the studio before his disciple. And I think by the turn of the 70's (and maybe before that), Stevie was getting into different sounds from the synthesizer and stuff.

Am I right or wrong?

I am not a musician..so that makes me an outsider technically...however, Prince was probably inspired by the art of synthesyzers becomming more versatile...There was a day...in the not too distant past where....an organ could only do so much...and I suppose the player piano was before that.

Every musician has been influenced by the path of History. And ultimately everything is shared. I can't be thankful of my knowelege without the grace that I was able to consume something that someone else had put there for me to learn from....And that goes for everybody with every different kind of absorption. Prince is a cute sponge...to soak us all with that much rung-out inspiration.

gotta be adam ant and thomas dolby - especially the song 'europe and the pirate twins'

NWF said:

Great post. I agree with the whole of your post, I wanted to pull 'Soft Cell' out of the 'etc' of the list there. I'm sure when Prince came over the UK on the Dirty Mind, he would've soaked up all of that electronic music that was coming out at the time.

I wanted to mention Soft Cell especially as Dave Ball's work reminds me of some of the stuff on 1999 in a vague way, and also Marc Almond's image at the time, often with leather or fetish wear reminds me of Prince's look in the Automatic video. 'Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret' was really influential as an album, even if they are only remembered as a one-hit wonder with 'Tainted Love' (they actually had a string of top 5 hits).

A little later on, I think like you say Detroit Techno influenced him too, in Bob George and Superfunky I hear that, and 'The Line' too (Lovesexy out-take).



[Edited 5/11/08 1:35am]

what are examples of " Detroit techno"?

Brian Eno and David Byrne. There's a lot of sampling a la My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in the Madhouse recordings.

scrambledeggsaresoboring said:

You know, like some of the work of Derrick May and Juan Atkins. I forget their songs though.

Also, I should probably mention David Bowie. He was getting into a lot of electronic sounds during his "Berlin" period, when he was working alongside Brian Eno. The end results were some amazing and timeless futuristic Funk/Rock.

Oh yeah, and Prince was probably digging American New Wave/Synth-Pop as well with groups like Blondie, Talking Heads, Devo, and The B-52's. You can hear some of this sound in his production work with The Time and Vanity 6.

I am not quite sure about those british 'new wave' influences, i agree more with the american ones (exactly NWF: Devo, Talking heads, B-52's).
I have read in several biographies and articles that Dez Dickerson was quite a fan of new-wave and rockbands in the early eighties, he might have made Prince familiar to the music of those bands.

On Dirty Mind i hear quite a lot of new-wave elements (that farfiza organ on When you were mine, the robotic rhythem of Dirty Mind and the dry telecaster sound on several songs) that werent there before in his music.

Those influences kept popping up on the two albums that came after that (Controversy, 1999)
Sister, Ronnie talk to russia and Delirious remind me of the kind of rockabilly punk (Stray Cats and others) that was popular in that period.

Especially 1999 seemed to be influenced by the electronic dance and new-wave music that was released in the early eighties: The eerie, sober beats and riffs of Sexuality and Lets pretend were married remind me of Kraftwork. Automatic reminds me of Gary Numan. Certain synthsounds and solo's remind me of the Talking Heads (listen to 'stop making sense', the Talking Heads live album for comparison).

Finally i hear little touches off the electronic work from Africa Bambaata on 1999 and the popsongs of Elvis Costello and the Attractions (When you were mine).

When it comes to the influence of the B-52's, i think its most noticable on Princes productionwork for Vanity 6 and the Time, some of the more poppier songs by those artists mix their kind of catchy new-wave pop with funky elements.

To ad a few comments:

I forgot to mention the late seventies / early eighties work of George Clinton. He was increasingly using drummachines and synths in his music during that period, most obviously on his classic album 'Computer Games'.

I think especially the Lovesexy album and The Black album show that influence: on Lovesexy those Clintonesque' dry electronic beats, multilayered harmonies and 'gnomy' voices are mixed most of the time with other styles (psychedelic pop, jazz-rock and gospelchants), but on the black album the influence is more 'in your face', especially on the first two songs and Rock hard in a funky place.

When it comes to the influence of the 'real' dance and housemusic i must say i am not really familiar with that type of music. But it indeed could be that the detroit-sound had an influence on 1999, for example.
Later on, Mark Moore from S-express said that Prince was trying to do the same type of thing with the long version of Alphabet Street, as he was trying to do with his music.
On later albums like Batman (The Future, Lemon Crush), Diamonds and Pearls (Thunder), Symbol (I wanna melt with U), Come (Loose) and Emancipation (Sleep Around, The human body) i can hear the influence from dance / techno-music.
But my main complaint with those songs is, that they often sound very dated the moment they are released. The dance-field is a fast changing movement, when it comes to styles that are popular, and somehow the 'dance-songs' that Prince made in the nineties were always 2 - 3 years 'behind' stylewise.

Riverpoet31 said:

i agree especially the last part, maybe because his sales were dropping he felt he had to ape the music scene of the time instead of leading the charge,.....and that was the 90's, cheap corny sounding records that felt dated the moment he released them.

Hello!!! Everyone that has dabbled in Electronica has been indirectly or directly been influenced by KRAFTWERK. The God Fathers of Electronica~

buttcheeks said:

Pretty much. I mean, there were artists getting into electronica before them, but Kraftwerk took the sounds to the forefront of the mainstream.

Well, them and maybe Suicide.

buttcheeks said:Hello!!! Everyone that has dabbled in Electronica has been indirectly or directly been influenced by KRAFTWERK. The God Fathers of Electronica~

Krafatwerk!

Influenced every dance artist from then untill today!

Kraftwerk didnt only influence 'pure' dance artists.

Listen to Idiotheque by Radiohead or Hope by REM for example.

Riverpoet31 said:

Absolutely agree with you on that one Riverpoet...

NWF said:

Most definately.

You can hear this all over stuff like 'Bite The Beat' and other Time/Vanity 6 stuff.

The 'we don't like New Wave' thing was a dig at Andre Cymone, I guess it was just in jest because of Andre's album title, since they were both obviously influenced by New Wave acts and sounds.

Have U guys ever heard of ZWOL? and if so, Is his music techno 2 U?

Bernie Worrell

(that's the guy who was hired by The Talking Heads in an attempt to make them sound funky.... )

BTW, on a new bootleg called WOW there is a short piece of electronic music by electro pioneer Delia Derbyshire that P used on the Lovesexy album. Don't know who came up with the idea to use this obscure music, might have been Ingrid Chavez?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...Derbyshire

jazzz said:

yes interesting info!
sooo many electro wizards in the 80's..but i think anyone with musical inclination & a synth/organ thingy could produce a half decent song.
i prince's efforts..downright sexier thn most.

jazzz said:

Nah, Bernie put the icing on the cake. The Talking Heads were always funky!