Rediscovering some of the stuff from the last ten years. I'm struck how little P's sound has evolved since 1998 or so.

Not saying there aint lots of good stuff but still.
[Edited 4/6/09 17:58pm]

No princes sound does evolve, and it does frequently from album to album.
MPLSound and lotusflow3r are absolutely different, and both these new albums and completely different from Planet Earth. So I don't see your reasoning? Make sure you not listening to the same cd over and over LOL ...

I 100% agree with this - yesterday I made a playlist of all of P's 21st-century output, and hearing songs from Chocolate Invasion next to MPLSound was jarring - there's very little change in songwriting, drum patterns, synth lines. I was also surprised how same-y everything was.

Listen to Cinnamon Girl, The 1 U Wanna C, then Morning After all in a row - practically the same song.

"United States of Division" and "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" have the exact same drum programming.

Most of the Choclate Invasion/Slaughterhouse songs could easily have appeared on MPLSound, and those are 8 years apart! For comparison, that would be like "My Name is Prince" appearing on Purple Rain. Ha.

Listen to Purple Rain, then Parade... that's only 2 years and those albums couldn't sound more different (but still Prince-y!)... but in the last 9, hell 15 years, the sound has evolved very very little, with a few sparks here and there.

One exception is The Rainbow Children - that CD still sounds fantastic. Something about the bass and drums, they just "fill" up each song perfectly.

BUT - every now and then the gems come through, they're just farther between. Luckily P puts out so much that there's plenty to choose from.

In my opinion U can tell that Prince as a man is broadening horizons musically and lyrically.

Billymeade,

You are SPOT on in your analysis. I wish you hadn't pointed this out to me but those songs indeed sound like more than distant cousins. They should like twin brothers.

billymeade said:

I finally think that those people that say Prince releases too much too frequently maybe were right after all.

Most of his contemporaries don't change their sound much yet it takes about 3 - 4 years between releases so I guess fans can appreciate each more and it sounds fresher. I can imagine if the best bits of the last 10 years were released in 3 or 4 albums properly promoted would have made whatever success Musicology/3121/Lotusflower might have look like nothing.
[Edited 4/6/09 19:04pm]

Prince is turning 51 this year and yet is more creative than most of the young artists! I think is quite normal that back in 80's was more creative; nowadays is really really difficult to try something really new!

Tame said:

You're incapable of rationale thought when it comes to Prince, huh? Do you really believe that his sound has evolved or his subject matter expanded in he past 10 years? Honestly? I don't see how you possibly make a reasoned argument in favour of that stance.

I still enjoy his work, but to suggest that Prince continues break new ground at this point in his career is ludicrious.

Mmmmm. Maybe.

I've said for a while there's two strands to Prince's post-Millenial output. The slick glossy R&B/Funk - the 'plastic sound' people refer to (NPS, Rave, NPGMC, Musicology, 3121, MPLSound) and the more organic sounding stuff (TRC, NEWS, most of PE, Lotusflow3r). I see the genesis of the latter in 'The War', also 1998 (like NPS).

I mean there's a lot of material here, if you think about what he's put out post-WB, there is actually a fair bit of progression. Think about ONA, NEWS, TRC, there's nothing much like these before.