When I listen to Prince's material I'm always amazed at how many layers and different sounds there are. There can be dogs barking, someone talking backwards, wheels screeching, glass breaking, girls moaning and on and on. I can have listened to a song thousands of times and still hear new things. It's interesting, but sometimes it feels as if he's just had too much fun playing around with the crayons, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I just wish he could keep things more simple. Does anyone else feel like this and what do you think is the reason for P doing so?

VenusBlingBling said:

No I do not think the material is overproduced, in fact he is prolly trying to be more restrained, the mind is a funny thing when u can turn milk into honey,,,,

Overall, I think Prince keeps songs pretty lean when he needs to. He may have a tendency to overproduce some of his weaker songs. For instance, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, The Greatest Romance, Thieves In The Temple, Te Amo Corazón and Diamonds And Pearls are just excessively over-polished turds to me. Funny that they were all singles too. None of the other songs on their respective albums had the same sheen as these tunes.

squirrelgrease said:

THUNDER, ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT!

VenusBlingBling said:

A mixture of Jackson Pollock and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood If Prince was a painter, he would drive people crazy, but in a delightful way.

Yes he does over produce. There's a thread very recently where I mention reading Alan Leeds saying artists like Prince should be limited to 24 tracks and that's it. Prince keeps adding more and more hooks, foley, and God knows what else to song. They're still listenable of course, but there are those times when it should have just scaled it back a bit.

People love the 80's stuff partly because it was such great song writing, but also because he really was limited, in some regards, to just so many tracks. He'd put the band in a room, they'd play the song, Susan Rogers would record it, and that was it, sans a few overdubs. Even when it was him solo, there wasn't a lot of muss and fuss. It was that raw, straight ahead sound that kicked your ass. But now the technology is kicking his sometimes, I think.

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[Edited 1/2/10 1:23am]

I think we can't talk about overproduction in Prince, since that overelaboration, that baroque 'horror vacui' thing is just part of Prince's artistic persona and vision. But he knows when to be simple and sparse too (just listen to Kiss or When Doves Cry!).

I think he does have a tendency to over produce some of his songs. I can't help but think of the Tavis interview where Prince talks about how much his dad demanded from him musically. I think this influenced him to add and layer (sometimes unnecessarily so) his songs just for the sheer musicality of it.

mzkqueen03 said:

LOL @ Trained ear.

Dave1992 said:

You got me there. Thunder was left on the skillet a little too long as well. And it was a single. Hmmm...

He certainly overproduced Endorphinmachine and Zannalee. I prefer the original unreleased versions.

i think he over does his background vocals a lil bit...

all that random

"ooooowhoooa ooowhoooa"

shit, especially in the 90s lol

some thinks the Gold Experience is overproduced,

I love the production, songs like Shhh, I Hate U, Gold are perfect Imo.

But talking about bad production: Emancipation, we all know this is his worst production ever, too sacharine and plastic

imagine how great the Emancipation songs would be with a different more edgy production, with harder drums and more bass (like "1999")

So, his songs aren't all accoustic/one-takes??
Gosh!
But, to answer the question: yes.
But I like that (most of the time)

To me over producing is when you can't hear the person's voice for all the processing, and everything sounds plastic.

Prince may over-layer a weak song (which bugs me as he should work on making the song itself better rather than layer 50 bg vox over it), but the production itself seems fairly clean, with the exception of his recent vocoder use on songs like Incense & Candles

VenusBlingBling said:

no not at all, I feel sometimes its under produced

I don't think so.

He is incredible in the studio with layering sounds and arrangements and sometime some of his greatest cuts are the ones that show his masterful skill at being simplistic and using less in the mix. Examples would be "Where Ever U Go, Whatever U Do", "Come On", "Right Back Here In My Arms", "Te Amo Corizon" to name a few.

Yes. Adding layers and effects is what you do when you're not confident about your core message. When you're sure of your message and secure in its truthfulness, you don't need to rely on fancy effects.

squirrelgrease said:

Ha!

VenusBlingBling said:

P's vision for his music is perfect, he gives me everything I'm looking for in so said style of music. The lyrics I'm like "um ok" ...

Indeed. The sound effects were cheesy in the 1990s. Now, they're cringe-worthy.

Yes, sometimes he does take it a little to far. For those that don't think so aren't listening to much else.

padawan said:

It may just be that he likes the recording process more than the songwriting process.

They do not sound overproduced to me. To me his music for the last decade sounds hastily put together by someone who has lived and breathed in a studio.

They have a slick sound to them because at this point in his career he is a master studio musician that could not create anything less if he wanted to, but the compositions themselves sound quickly thrown together.
[Edited 5/18/09 16:12pm]

squirrelgrease said:

You think TITT (wait, did I just write that? LOL) is overproduced? I think it's pretty sparse as it is . . .

To answer the question of the thread, I think Prince's latest work is actually underproduced when compared to his 80s work. Missing on a lot of the recent songs are the "layer-upon-layer" vocals and instrumentation and that "lush" feel.

NDRU said:

He probably does like playing in the studio more than writing lyrics.

But that's my point: He likes to embellish, more than reveal.

padawan said:

yeah and I'd agree. I wish he'd work on the songwriting process more. But I wouldn't say he is not sure of his message as much as I think he's anxious to record his songs, sometimes before they're really ready.

Hmmmm Id really like another album like the truth...luv it for its simplicity

NDRU said:

Yeah, I can see that. P's such a workaholic making music is like compulsive behavior for him. I really wish he would record with more joy.