agotajonesmartha said:

bullshit! And how would you do that? Have a head to head music quiz or a play off? Finally - don't forget we are talking about pop music here. I'm sure a music professor or a conducter may know more than Prince but is he still qualified to judge? I don't think so - it's all still a matter of personal taste. If you are trying to get to grips with the idea of what is classed as 'good' or 'bad' in the art world - try reading a few words from a scholar called Kant - it might braoden your outlook a little. and I don't mean to sound harsh - its a very interesting read.

well DavidEye just lost any credibility he might have had.

Temptation is one of his worst songs ???
It's probably his best, well in the top 20 at least ...


and Strays of The World is a masterpiece
Musically and lyrically it is very interesting.

Bad song...hell he did a bad album.NEWPOWERSOUL!

I always listen to his albums from start to finish, never as singles. I appreciate everything he does.

Interesting on how you youngins THINK you know music.



Some of the songs you listed as being BAD are actually classic.

I would define a bad song by Prince as one that you usually skip over when your listening to a Prince CD in your car.

Tick Tick Bang as weird as it may be it is actually brilliant. Using the drum beats from a Jimi Hendrix tune. Yea it's weird, but cool. For someone to even take a chance like that, makes it cool.

Arms Of Orion is definately contemporary and comerical. Corny even, but still not worthy of being on a bad list.

What about Theres Others Here With Us? Interesting song, but definately something that belongs on a scary compilation Halloween spook CD.

It's hard for me to think of one song Prince has done that is bad. Not because he can't make a bad song, but because all of his great music over shadow any of his bad notes.

I just want to add that I love the entire AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY cd... I don't think there's any song on there that is less than fantastic, including "Temptation" (which did take me awhile to get into but once I understood where he was going with it... damn! )

If I were to pick the worst song from the Revolution era, my vote might be... "Do U Lie"... just cuz I'm not a big fan of Parisian balladry and it's just a tad too corny. "Love or Money" would have worked better on PARADE, IMHO.

Big ups to yuscreamn (me too). And agtajonesmartha i agree. And Cocosweet is right on target.
It's best not to listen to prince with pinhole ears you will miss some of the beauty. Prince is all about expansion and if u don't know this u don't really understand him at all. The reason prince does rap or something like courtin time is that as an artist he is always trying to reach higher wider and deeper. So u might not like when he steps out of your comfort zone but i love it. Means he's most vital more or less. He's realitively fearless as a musician and that is rare indeed. So pick up some song of his that u don't like and think about. The why's and how of it's existence. Brilliant minds don't produce junk. Einstein may have a theory that was wrong but trust it was brilliant in its wrongness.

agotajonesmartha said:

A very poor argument.

You are suggesting that a piece of art can only be judged by someone who knows more about that artistic medium than the artist themselves. To take this argument to its logical conclusion, if we could draw up a league table which ranks people according to their musical knowledge, only those people above you could judge the work produced by yourself, and you could not judge the work of people who ranked above you. Ultimately, therefore, the person who has the most musical knowledge can judge everyone else's work, and their own work is beyond judgment.

The truth is, you can use the terms 'good' and 'bad' perfectly legitimately to express personal opinion.

Therefore, I can say (my personal opinion) that 'Empty Room' is a good song because I love the way the song builds in intensity as it tells a story - this is a subjective view based on my emotional reaction to the song. Alternatively, I can say that the song is good musically because it uses an unusual chord arrangement, simple structure, different dynamics etc. to express a sense of loneliness. That is my 'musical' opinion. Of course, if you pointed out that the chord arrangement was far from unusual, the structure of the song was far from simple, and there was a lack of dynamics in the recording, then ny judgment would look as if it carried less weight given your counter-argument because it undermines some of my argument. It doesn't take Prince or 'someone with greater musical knowledge than Prince' to judge whether it's 'good' or 'bad' musically, because a musical judgment is still as subjective: it simply couches the opinion in musical terms. The idea that the terms 'good' and 'bad' at least in this context are 'universal' is bizarre.

tricky99 said:

The terms 'brilliant' and 'junk' have not been defined here. This sort of argument simply allows for a self-fulfilling prophecy to be perpetuated. e.g. Prince wrote and recorded 'Little Red Corvette' - therefore he is a musical genius. Prince wrote and recorded 'Shoo-Be-Doo' which sounds like junk to me - but, I forgot - he's a musical genius, so it can't be junk. No, it's the product of a musical genius, therefore it's above junk.

C'mon. Prince has written some great songs (in our humble opinions). He also has a great body of work because he writes prolifically.

But, he also writes and records some junk on occasions, even though we don't always agree on which songs they are because it's down to musical opinion. Perhaps even Prince thinks like this about some of the songs he ultimately decides not to release or even record?

Moonbeam said:

I was pretty much agreeing with you when I was reading your list ( I do like his screaming in Temptation) until I saw Saviour on your list. Are you crazy! That's one of my favorite songs.

Not many..

but heres 6 boners I never want 2 hear again..


Children of the Sun
Cybersingle
Lovesong
Girl 6
Graffiti Bridge
Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic

I wouldn't say its a bad song but I don't care for it.
Solo

I can't listen to the song "Dolphin".

I just don't understand everyones attraction to that song. I just don't get it.

Every time I listen to the Come album I still have to make a dive for the skip button the cd player as Solo starts.
As Vic Reeves once said "very poor"