The Prince & Donna Summer thread (http://prince.org/msg/7/307635) got me thinking...

There's lots of talk here about Prince & funk, Prince & rock...
But I haven't seen much talk about disco.
Obviously there's Disco Jellyfish.
But what about his early work & the '80s?

(Let me state for the jury: disco is constantly & wrongly maligned.
Lots of Nelson Georges in the world want to blame disco for all that's wrong in the world, and in black music especially...
Disco ain't the greatest gift from God, but it works.)

There are obvious songs: Soft & Wet, I Wanna Be Your Lover.
What about DMSR? Let's Work (originally Let's Rock)?
I Would Die 4 U (now there's a Donna Summer / Giorgio Moroder groove!)
Girls & Boys (a little Funkytown in there?)
Freaks on This Side?

Maybe even the songs that don't "sound" like disco use a lot of disco ideas...
The fun costumes, sexuality and dance moves...

Seems pretty disco to me!
Anything wrong with that?

There is no doubt in my mind that Prince and many others of the Funk Genre dabbled with the DISCO thang at that time. I even heard it in some of Rick James's Music! late 1970's and early 1980's; As I recall.
[Edited 5/16/09 11:55am]

"Dabbled?"
I hear way more than dabbling...
The whole image, electro-beat, & sexuality seems completely disco.
Just seems like something most fans would rather ignore...
No?

Nelson George is a self righteous cocksucker

"Discojellyfish" isn't disco.

The first two albums are sunk nuts-deep in disco

twistee said:

Oh Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it!

Just As Long As We're Together is a disco jam. Along with We Can Work It Out witch is unreleased from '76 or so.

So why do you think he moved away from disco?
(DID he move away from disco?)
Why do you think he's rarely discussed in relation to disco?

I guess part of me finds it a bit sad that he embraced funk more over the years than disco. It's like he's taking himself (too?) seriously...

Chelsea Rodgers, closest thing to disco he's done IMO

datdude said:

HA. "Just As Long As We're Together" is pure disco. A lot of that album is a direct line from disco.

Disco wasn't his thing, so he stayed with his roots...Rock and R&B..

Hey we all went to 'Disco's' in the 80's and they all palyed Prince back then it was Cool!

I loved getting down tp Prince on the dance floor!

"Soft and wet," is really the only song that I can honestly put into the category. Prince was very unique to the 80's and had a sound of his own...

Disco, Rock-n-Roll, etc...and Prince.

Tame said:

Soft and Wet is too syncopated and off-beat to be regarded as Disco. JALAWT is a far better example, being straight 4/4, energetic and melodic.

I love disco and I think everybody dabbled with it in the late 70s and even into the 80s, but I think there were few solely disco tracks with Prince. Even the discoey sound of For You and Prince (Just as long as we are together and Lover have disco parts at the end, but theres too much clever instruments running through the songs to be termed disco). I guess in the late 70s it was impossible to be black and not release at least one bass and drum loaded boogie beat track.
Prince was beyond disco and he actually did not even want to be a solely black artist, let alone a black disco artist. I think thats why he did Dirty Mind, as he wanted away from the disco label. His music has always been full of funky beats and melodic hooks, with a disco dabble, but he was not Donna Summer or the Bee Gees.

I agree that most of his disco-influenced songs are unique and not exactly "pure" disco. He has funky & intricate parts, etc...
But isn't that true for every style he does? He rarely does a purely funk track, or a purely rock track.
So if he uses disco the same way as he uses other styles, why does disco get discussed much more rarely than other styles?

Mindflux said:

there is a disco mix version of soft and wet, which is unsuprisingly more discoey