the 4ever - my computer thread made me think its interesting to see what he choses to (or maybe subconsciously) recycles. I hear Dolphin in many "rock" track he does nowadays. And then there is the standard "James Brown" track, or "Sly" track and of course the sexy, bluesy ballad but he has yet to recycle (in any material way) many of his "classics".

Nothing post 1984 sounds like Little Red Corvette, When Doves Cry or Beautiful Ones (except Electric Intercourse never released).

Lets Go Crazy was recycled for Play in the sunshine and Can't Stop.

He's done variations of Purple Rain - Gold - Last December.

Cream pops up often as Baby Knows, Vavoom, Guitar.

any other matches you can think of?

Boom - Darling Nikky

...same way of speaking/singing, almost in the same tone

Or is it just my imagination ?

That little keyboard crescendo at the end of each verse in the new version of U're Gonna C Me sounds similar to Tangerine and/or The Morning Papers.
[Edited 4/1/09 8:29am]

emesem said:

'Can't Stop...' predates LGC.

It's called sampling NOT recycling! Prince is very inventive and far away from repeating himself if anything he's constantly changing his old songs ending up with hundreds of versions of 1 song.

PurpleRain747 said:

No it's recycling and we don't mean it as a bad thing in any case. It's fun to recognise similar riffs or melodies and think "ooh that sounds like..."

PurpleRain747 said:

Sampling is when an original recording is used in the creation of a new one: See Rick James' 'Super Freak' being sampled in MC Hammer's 'U Can't Touch This'.

Recycyling would be re-using a previously used idea or musical phrasing, but not using the original recording. See the hornline in 'Eye Like Funky Music' which is recycling the synthline from 'Feel U Up'.

NouveauDance said:

Oh yeah! god, 10 years and I've only just made the connection. The fast horn breakdown part, of course it is

Top o' my head:

1999 = Manic Monday = Belle Of St. Mark

Fury = Guitar

Delirious = Horny Toad = Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

Cloreen Bacon Skin = Irresistible Bitch = Tricky

musicolog said:

Darling Nikki is of course more bluesy and Boom more prog/jazz/pop but yeah
I hear it....particularly the "She had so many devices,everything that money could buy..." part.

emesem said:

You're mixing a style with recycling. Michael Jackson has had those "feel good" gospel type anthems over and over, but does that mean he's recycling "Man In the Mirror", especially if the same person wrote that and one of the other anthems?

Prince recycling comes in the form of Apollonia's "Blue Limousine", and Sheila E's, "Toy Box". It comes when he samples his own shit in another song (Partyman, My Name is Prince, etc etc). It's him borrowing from "Baby" in "I Hate U". It's Madonna resinging "Let your body, move to the music" in "Deeper and Deeper" after she already sang it in "Vogue" years before.

Purple Rain is its own thing. "Gold" is another anthem type song, and "Last December" ain't even close to being as good as either of the previously mentioned songs.

"Play in the Sunshine" or "Cant' Stop" being a faster BPM doesn't dictate that "Let's Go Crazy" was recycled. Is "Delirious" a recycle of "Horny Toad", "No Call U", etc? Those are rockabilly type songs, not recycle. It's a genre, a style, not a redo.

All that said, even Prince isn't going to be original every single time. Frankly, I think Musicology, 3121, and Planet Earth could be shuffled down into one good album, instead of 3 "eh, ok" albums.

I think the biggest autracity in recycling w/ Prince is the lame production, the all-too slick mastering, the thin and vapid sound he's instituted in his music, opposed to the thick, hissy, analog-to-digital glory of his past days. It's odd that when Prince became all organic and such in his real life that his music suddenly took on a manufactured with fillers feel.

"77 Beverly Park," sounds like a beautiful, "With You." If U love a sound of a song the first time, U are sure to like something else along the same lines...especially if it's by Prince.

My first impression of the song "Dreamer" was that it was sorta like an updated "Sacrifice Of Victor," but with a rock vibe. Moreso cuz of how he sings the opening verse and what he sings about as well.

Lolita sound like Sexy Dancer

I think Lolita sounds more like soft and wet.

Yep....and a good, healthy dose of The Time thrown in at the end.

If you mean Cool (the long version) then yes, i agree.

Wow, how sad we are to know such details.
[Edited 4/1/09 18:29pm]

Tame said:

Hmmm. Never thought of that before, but I can hear the similarity.

'With You' is one of my fav's.

musicolog said:

Spot on - first time I heard boom I was like - this lyrical melody is.... what..... then it hit me - Darling Nikki - I guess if he isn't going to use the song ever again he can reuse its melody.

Swa