Everyone knows that the 80's was a BIG era for Prince's music. A lot of his best work is here there and people are still talking about the likes of 1999, Purple Rain, even Dirty Mind and Sign o' the Times.
And I'm talking the people who aren't actually fans

But there's no clear favorite in the 90's. Not a single album everyone talks about that is brilliant and deserves masterpiece status.

Of these albums, what would you consider the masterpiece of the 90's?
-Diamonds & Pearls (1991)
- (1992)
-Come (1994)
-The Gold Experience (1995)
-The Truth (1998)

Nobody's going to accept Emancipation and Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, obviously, but if there's anything else you'd like to put into the running, go ahead.

Hell, I'll offer up "The Undertaker" as a possibility too because people rave about that one.

Gold and Symbol.

Gold is tough to top.

Symbol is a close second.

Diamonds & Pearls and The Gold Experience

I vote for first and foremost. There are so many good tracks there, and so many potential hit singles (if it had been marketed properly) that it's just not funny.

I think TGE would be next and then Come although, personally, I listen to Come more often.

I think these 3 albums are as good as his best output from the 80's.

Diamonds & Pearls

I never grew tired of

Emancipation!!!!! I love that album.

Emancipation.....masterpeice

Gold and Exodus, by far, are the best musically, musicianship, arrangements, etc.

Gold

All that have been listed, but favorite is Emancipation.."the album I was born to write" he stated to Oprah.

Nyse to see the Emancipation fans...as it is the best


but see there is no mention of "Come"

Emancipation was my 1st disappointment, it is nowhere near those classics, imo.

It took me years and years to just like it, still it's not my fave of the 90s.

Gold
Come
Symbol album

I really feel these albums, really great music.

thedance said:

That is a good list. Emancipation is a better 1 or 2 disk set. When it's shrewdly whittled down to 80 minutes of the best songs, Emancipation is a great album. Now what those 80 minutes of songs will be is another whole threat (running somewhere right now). Also, some of those tag endings on songs could be cut too.

to me COME is a masterpiece

Nice set of opinions so far. Keep them coming

For me, I'm very tempted to put as a 90's masterpiece above all the others. Very... because there's so much variety, something for everybody and I'll be in the mood for some of those types of songs and the next day, the others. The only weak points to me where the raps from Tony and just the somewhat hip-hop tracks like "Arrogance" and "The Flow"... but oddly enough, I'm starting to dig them now

Gold Experience would be a second for me because not every song is strong, but there are a lot of strong ones. And the NPG operator gets on my nerves, so on that alone, it can't be completely perfect.

I'll give Emancipation a while before I even begin to consider it even if I have to whittle some tracks from the total package...

Easily The Gold Experience.

Diamonds And Pearls has too much filler to be called a masterpiece, but some of the individual songs on it are essential.

90's masterpiece?

94's the Black Album....

'' and 'exodus' are two of my favorites in any era.

'come'/'gold' would have been great in '94, but imo he changed the songs too much for the eventual releases. '94-'95 live however is where it's at.

Diamonds and Pearls for me. Got to see him live in Dublin in June 1991 so the CD and GIG completmented each other.

D+P also gave him four major hits: Gett Off, Cream, Diamonds and Pearls and Money Don't Matter.

Love the Gold experience as well, although I'm not a fan of TMBGITW. Dolphin and 319 were my fav;s on the CD. If Days of Wild had been included it would have been awesome.

1. The Gold Experience (but replace 319 with Acknowledge Me and include Day of Wild)

2. Diamonds And Pearls (but remove Jughead and Push)

3. Graffiti Bridge (but remove all non Prince lead vocal songs)

4. (but remove Arrogance and The Flow)

the whole gold/come project is hard to top. and if you'd be willing
to put it all together like on the fanmade comp "welcome 2 the dawn"
you've got a collection of songs that can stand up proudly against
most of his 80s material.

as a single disc unit of original material, my fav album of the '90s
has to be "the truth".

it would be either come or gold but i can't view that material from
any other angle but fused together and shifting between albums over
and over again until they finally appeared in the form we have them.

on the other end of the spectrum i think "diamonds and pearls and "
are the weakest material from theh 90's. there are a handfull of top
tunes on there (gett off/cream/$ don't matter/7/and god created woman)
but as albums i NEVER listen to them anymore at all. they're the two
that aged the worst out of his entire catalogue.

emancipation has it's moments and is a killer 1 disc album but it's
also the album that disappointed me most upon it's release since he
kept saying through 1994-1996 that he'd kept the best material for
this release and put aside 52 songs etc etc. so i kept thinking "oh
my god, better than the stuff on gold and come?"



then it was released and 1st there were "only" 36 songs, although
that was still a huge amount (though not the trumpeted 52) and all
of the songs had the same horrible production. it proved to be an
acquired and quite nice taste after a while but the transition from
all things "gold" to emancipation was too big and imo a big step
back for prince and his sound. still, after all these years i do
enjoy it. a whole lot more than i 'enjoy' diamonds n pearls or

lastly i can't really view grafitty bridge as a real album either
since it has so many songs by other people on it and the prince
songs are from 2 very different eras. first you've got the really
strong material (question of u/joy in repetition/still would stand)
that are from 1987/88 and then there are the newer tracks like the
New Power Generation (weak) and Thieves in the Temple (brilliant).
but it almost feels like a collection of outtakes that don't really
fit together that well.

still, as for individual songs "the question of u" & "joy in repetition"
are two of his very best songs e.v.e.r. on any album in any era.

Emancipation-free to vote for what I wanna.

I enjoy all his 90s recordings, only starts going wrong in the 2000s IMO.

The gold experience

I don't see why you wouldn't include Emancipation on the list. It's the album that made me realise Prince is a genius.

I would probably go with The Gold Experience, although I suspect it would have been even better if the final configuration had been a bit different.

This will be controversial, but Graffiti Bridge is the Prince album that most impresses me in the '90s. There's a huge variety, and the album's atmosphere is definitely unique.

Somehow it's funky, whimsical, upbeat, mysterious, and even a little magical all at once.

Aside from Graffiti Bridge, The Gold Experience is the obvious choice, because it's so damn good.

1 come
2 gold
3
4 diamonds and pearls