Wifey and I were listening to the new Prince music on the car the other day and she said of Valentina, "This sounds really rough to me - and the bass is boring."

...I explained that Prince was using Pro Tools on MLPS Sound and he did the entire thing basically alone. "So you get Prince playing bass on a keyboard (I assume) rather than a Josh or Sonny T or Prince playing a bass guitar. And you get a drum machine rather than the inflections and accents of a real drummer"

In a trade-off as such, we agreed, the music suffers.

So... which do YOU prefer? Prince doing it all? OR Prince as part of a band?

Eh, it depends on how Prince records the stuff by himself. I mean listen to I'm Yours...

Gohi said:

Agreed! Good point. If he plays live drums, and live bass I usually like it!

bobsteezy said:

I like it when he's alone, and gets all freaky! The suttle things he puts in with this perfect timing of his always blows my mind!


[!ediT]
[Edited 4/23/09 4:53am]

Band, by far. His music is so much more open and thicker than the flat stuff he does alone, especially in recent years. A striking difference in things like D&P or opposed to Emancipation. While Emancipation is a good set overall, it doesn't have that feel that something done w/ a live band has. Even the difference in SOTT and Lovesexy have a different feel, despite the same band being used on tour. SOTT was pretty much solo Prince for the most part, whereas Lovesexy was the band playing songs str8 through. is epic because of things like "3 Chains O' Gold" being a band take in 1 or 2 takes, yet you have something flat and boring like "Thunder" which is all Prince, on D&P.

Even hearing "Ol Skool Company" on record is okay, but live....FANTASTIC. Why can't he have THAT sound on an album? has he ever? I don't know.

I remember Madonna saying "I liked the remixes of my songs, and figured why not make an album like THAT." She made confessions on a dance floor.

The great thing about Purple Rain isn't because it's the great pop/rock album, but because of the sound. The echo, the reverb, all of that stuff that played into a rougher sound.

So by far.....Prince playing with a band is highly superior to his one man show. Not in song writing, but in the sound of the songs.

I Love Prince with a band...but there is something sentimental about seeing a man and his guitar...

Prince and the Band!