Put aside the title track and some of the exotic instrumentation, is the Around The World In A Day album basically a Purple Rain 2? For instance, third track on both are ballads, Take Me With U and Raspberry Beret have same vibe (hence why they were played together live for so many years), Baby I'm A Star and America share the exact same beat, Purple Rain and The Ladder have the same vibe, Darling Nikki and Temptation are both the naughty songs. I remember Jimmy Jam saying something like this back when ATWIAD came out. It got labeled as Prince's Sgt. Peppers mainly due to the album art and probably the song Paisley Park which is a direct nod to Lennon/McCartney. Other than that Prince I think used the same formula. What do ya'll have to say?

Paisley Park was supposed to be Beatle-ish??? If so, Prince really fucked that one up

Yeah, the two albums actually aren't all that dissimilar in instrumentation and style if you strip away a few jingly-janglies. ATWIAD still has a MPLS sound underneath it.

Volitan said:

If you don't hear Prince borrowing the imagery from "Elenor Rigby" and the vibe of "Revolution" for the song "Paisley Park", I wonder what you feel was it's inspiration musically. I don't knock him from using the Beatles for the flagship song of his Paisley Park theme but I don't think it should be ignored either.

bigben07 said:

It just didn't strike me as derivative of anything. Not every song has to be "inspired" by something

I never thought it was supposed to be PR 2, just the critics put that crap out there. There are still people today looking for Prince to make another Purple Rain, I'm amazed.
[Edited 7/24/08 18:01pm]

Dayclear said:

Good Morning Dayclear! Do we want to go back to typing school maybe? What the heck is PR @? I'm just bustin your stones since you called me out earlier this week. Can we get off the high horse now?

Volitan said:

Prince has stated that ATWIAD is not Beatle infuenced at all. so he didn't mess anything up.

kenlacam said:

And as we all know, everything Prince says is true right?

ATWIAD was sooooo not PR2. But that is what everyone expected from Prince. Controversy, 1999, and PR were very much a evolution of sound, finding its perfection in PR. You could easily place some songs from PR on the 1999 album. We won't talk about 1999 here, the scope is too large, there is a style on that album, but almost every song is completely unique and distinct. There is more cohesion on PR.

ATWIAD does not fit in those three albums. He was out to reinvent himself. Something that Prince does often. We, the fams, were not used to this yet, and so ATWIAD was a shock to us. The album sold like crazy when it hit the streets, because people were looking for PR2. Some loved it, some hated it. I did not love it, but i was caught somewhere between fascination and bewilderment.

Then came Parade, total reinvent.

Then another crowning acheivement... SOTT.

Then wtf, also known as lovesexy. Had to be on drugs.

and well yall know the rest, but ATWIAD was many things, but not PR2.

Prince interview, 1985

Prince: I think the smartest thing I ever did was record Around the World in a Day right after I finished Purple Rain. I didn't wait to see what would happen with Purple Rain. That's why the two albums sound completely different. People think, "Oh, the new album isn't half as powerful as Purple Rain or 1999." You know how easy it would have been to open Around the World in a Day with the guitar solo that's on the end of "Let's Go Crazy"? You know how easy it would have been to just put it in a different key? That would have shut everybody up who said an album wasn't half as powerful. I don't want to make an album like the earlier ones.

Neal Karlen: Does it bother you when people say you're going back in time with 'Around the World in a Day'?

Prince: No. What they say is that the Beatles are the influence. The influence wasn't the Beatles.

.

I have always had a strange perspective of the time that passed between the movies, "Purple Rain," and "Graffiti Bridge." I believe that although I as a fan am a biased listener....and I really like the movie "Graffiti Bridge," for it's (little money) approach to continue on in the musical war vein...

I guess when I look back...Prince probably assumes that he was rushing his talent...and maybe the music from "Graffiti Bridge," doesn't produce a movie script that "Around the world in a day," could...as a sequel to the "Purple Rain," concept...

What is done is done...and so your question is an interesting polite debate...

langebleu said:

Wow, again, do we all take what P has said as the truth? He also said he would never tour again back in 85. He said there would be no promo videos from ATWIAD. He never really gave Hendrix much credit as an influence either, Purple Rain - Purple Haze? Come on! I at first listen thought ATWIAD was a total departure for P and the Revolution too but if you really go song by song and ignore the title track, Paisley PArk, and the Sgt. Peppers knock off cover art, I think some may see it as an extention of Purple Rain too.

No, not even close. Nor was it intended it to be. I think P wanted to go as far away from PR as possible with ATWIAD.

blackguitaristz said:

seen that 15 year old pic of you behind Apple-on-ya with the Dez Dickerson look going on. Those were the days, huh.

hollywooddove said:

Yeah man...U ought to go back and check out some more recent pics that Jennifer posted of me towards the end of the thread. Me playing on stage and when I was on Jay Leno.

ATWIAD is not exactly Purple Rain 2.

I mean, i am quite sure, Prince wasn't sitting down and purposely thinking: Hey i should place that song there on the songlist, or I should make that song sound like Purple Rain.

On the contrary.

Prince has often stated in interviews from that period that he wasn't trying to make a Purple Rain, part 2. And that he saw ATWIAD as a big FU towards the people who were expecting a new album in the same vein as Purple Rain.

Ironically,

Purple Rain really isn't the big watershed from Purple Rain, as the people (and even the music critics) made it out to be. Its not even such a radical change, as Prince said it was.

I very much agree with poster Nouveau Dance here: when you take away the more 'colourfull' elements from most of songs (the use of exotic instruments, synth orchestrations, the use of sound-effects and echo) you hear the music on this album is pure Minneapolis sound in its essence.
Prince might sound more experimental or poppy on certain songs, but for example the title track is the Minneapolis sound, in a 'world music coat' and Raspberry Beret is a classic pop-song like When You Were Mine, but this time in a more colourfull, daring arrangement.

Personally i feel it did took another album for Prince to say 'goodbye' to The Minneapolis sound. Or at least, to really evolve from it.
On Parade he no longer uses those typically Linn-beats with the side-clap (at least on most of the songs, you can still here it on Anotherloverholenyohead). e is trying new rhytmical ideas there: real drums sounding like electronic ones, a drummachine beat stripped down to its essence (Kiss, Life Can be So Nice).
He is also using much more (semi-) acoustic instrumentation on Parade: Full orchestration, steel drums, mandolines, an acoustic jazz-ensemble and folky instrumentation.
I think the 'space' he obviously did gave to both Wendy & Lisa and Clare Fisher to arrange and orchestrate the 'sketches' he did compose, are for a great deal responsible for the change of sound on Parade.

A comment to this remark: where are you ears?

The use of guitar-feedback (think of Computer Blue) and the drumpad beat, might be very Prince-ish.

But the melody of this song (the most obvious Fab Four-pastiche Prince ever did) and the theme of the lyrics (which remind of Strawberry Fields) are very clearly Beatles-influenced.

bigben07 said:

he started working on this album before purple rain was even released, so by design remnantes of what he'd learned (tricks, techniques) by the end of PR would have appeared in the next sequence of compositions. it's only natural for this to hapen to one-man-band type

i've always felt this way as well, very similar indeed

My opinion is that the album sounds 180 opposite of PR. this album had a psychodelic vibe from track one to the last track. The song ATWIAD sounds like nothing from pR,,, as well as paisley park,condition of the heart, tamberine, and temtation. ATWIAD stands on its own merits. I've always felt that this was a very underrated album. just imagine if she's always in my hair and girl would've been on this album!!!

rusty1 said:

Most things that Prince has done since PR has been under rated because people compare it to the phenom that PR was. It is sort of like comparing episodes 5,6,1,2,and 3 to the original episode 4 of star wars. Sometimes a phenom comes along and defines a generation of art for reasons we don't know, other than people just love it. What if flock of seagulls had acquired the status instead of Prince. What would music sound like today?

nostalgia threads...ho hum...listen to...my drum...

If you listen to the unreleased version of the song ATWIAD from The Work, it has a lot more MPLS sound to it. However, it also sounds "trippier" than what was released.

Anyway, after all this time, listening to the ATWIAD album does not sound all that different from PR. Raspberry Beret was a sister-song to Take Me With U.

I think a lot of the perceived "change" was with clothing/hair and album art.

You think so about the other version of Around the World? I like the original version much better. I used to think Around the World was like PR, but over time, I have come to see it as it's own creation. I think it took making Purple Rain to get to Around the World, so yes, it may a continuation of some ideas spawned on Purple Rain.

Se7en said:

ATWIAD sounded overall was a much different album. granted you can hear the beats of star in america, the viloin arrangement that starts the ladder is reminisent of the end of PR. the songs ATWUAD, paisley park and so on has a much different vibe all around.

I wasn't a fan back when it was released, so never really had the shock of ATWIAD following on from PR. What I do know though, is that it's my favourite Prince album. There's some fantastic stuff on there, I love it.