if he would have released albums like For You(78') Prince(79") Dirty Mind(81") Controversy(83") 1999(84") Purple Rain"(86") dont u think his music would be more appreciated like Little Richard said?

TheKing662 said:

Do you want to check your dates?


Oh, no now I see what your saying.



I dont think so, the thing with getting it out so quick was that it was stil current and ahead of its time, if he'd waited he would of missed the zeitgeist.


[Edited 6/16/09 22:05pm]

mostbeautifulboy said:

no,im saying he should have released like dat

TheKing662 said:

Yup, I see. Ive edited my previous post

For sure. It's tough for us to swallow as hard core fans, but unfortunately Prince's prolific recording catalog has become much better known for it's quantity than it's quality.

I'm paraphrasing right now, but I think Prince's old engineer Susan Rogers once said that she thought it would have been better if Prince had recorded about one half as much as he did. She implied that he would have been better focused on a smaller amount of material.

I think that on every album after SOTT, Prince should have released one album every other year instead of an album every single year. Imagine combining Batman with Graffiti Bridge and dropping the weakest tracks. What would it have looked like if there was a mix of The Gold Experience and Come? 3121 and Planet Earth? NewPowerSoul and Rave (well, that one would still have sucked....J/K ing)

Yeah, this is part of a big theory I've been repeating to myself lately. I love Prince music soooo much. And if he released a new album every month I would get it. But I'm obviously in a VERY small minority of hard core fans. For the average person a modern Prince album contains a lot of filler for 3 or 5 good tracks. Sometimes an 8 cut, 45min album of really good stuff is better than a 13 track disc with five extra so so songs added. Prince needs an editor.

I know his ego would NEVER allow it, but if Prince got with Timbaland as his producer, and he started singing some dirty lyrics....that would be so crazy hot. It would probably be the best dance album anyone's seen in years
[Edited 6/16/09 23:16pm]

I personally don't think that the rapid pace has anything to do with quality or success.


Many folks like The Batman album, and it was recording very quickly.
The critics didn't care for it, but it went on to be a #1 album.

Also, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, PARADE & SOTT where brilliant albums with approximately year long gaps between each. They were also more successful than his current releases in comparison, which are roughly 2 years apart now.

Prince's primary problem , to me, is his relationship with the media and general public. Half of the 'bad' reviews I read are so biased and acidic, I can't help but wonder if the critic holds a grudge against him. Moreover, half the of those reviews are filled with inaccurate information about songs or silly, lazy comparisons of his music to that of other artists (ex: Guitar from planet Earth steals from U2's New Years Day ?)

He's also managed to construct working relationships with certain celebrities that he uses as promotional vehicles (Jay Leno, Tavis Smiley, etc.) who don't ask tough questions of him. In other words, you never get to see the really interesting parts of him...you just hear very strange statements. I was laughing my ass off when Tavis didn't follow up on the chemtrails discussion. Tavis knows better.

Prince's promotional machine is just not very good. Which is a shame cause his eccentricities really add up to not being very odd outside of his religious fervor and extreme self-consciousness. I mean, he's not dangling babies off of balconies like MJ or anything like that.

But he is threatening multiple fansites constantly. He's refusing to work with youtube instead of against them. He's extremely protective of his bootlegs (I'm referring specifically to live or unreleased performances--not illegal copies of official releases) which are often brilliant and once used as one hell of a promotional platform and testament to his talent.
The list goes on and on, but it all boils down to how he promotes himself and his relationship with the media.


I can't really explain why his music since 2000 has been less inspired than his earlier material, but this is not unusual for an artist. Many artist experience this lull in the middle of their careers, and some actually end their careers in this manner. What I do think is that it isn't due to the rapid pace with which he works, but more with what inspires him to go into the studio.

Imago said:

I think it is everything here AND the rapid release (Though I don't agree PR should have been any later than it was as it tapped into that Footloose/Fame/Flashdance-American dream Zeitgeist/Rites of passage thing). Post Purple Rain Prince was too famous for such a succession of releases. I respect P for what he did as it showed true belief in himself and proved he was an artist-but I do feel that in terms of marketing you have to make people hunger, almost grateful. When the song BAD came out I was shocked how dire it was but you knew it was gonna be huge regardless as it was the return of MJ. Prince could never have that because you could take him for granted. We can never underestimate how easily people get bored. A P release was nolonger an EVENT but an INEVITABILITY

Better? Better for who? Prince did alright for himself back then.

If he had released albums with two or three years in between, he would probably have been more appreciated. It would have given him the chance to release fewer ok songs and more great songs. I'm a hardcore fan and appreciate his prolific output but I realize that it has its downside in terms of overall popularity.

peter430044 said:

EXACTLY!

I think what Little Richard said had merit but with Prince's so called fanbase as it is now would "that" really matter?

Imago said:

Good post.

I'd like to add that releasing albums in quick succession might affect how hungry the average listener might be for Prince, but that aside, as it would do nothing but increase his sales, it certainly did not affect the quality of his music (well, okay, that's my opinion), but something everyone has to agree on is that he still was focused afterall in every single song he put out. People, do you realise how much time a musician spends in the studios? It's his life. He could record and arrange a song as brilliant as If I Was Ur Girlfriend in less than one week! There are no "fillers" on his albums, rushed songs to be included quickly and we should know even better than others, because we know about all the unreleased stuff.

The only reason for why we perceive some tracks as "fillers" nowadays is simply because we can't relate to them due to personal reasons, age, lack of momentum, society, ..., bad marketing. But the music itself (songwriting, producing, lyrics, ...) is still the same. There are many songs from the 90s and later I'd place above some 80s material.






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[Edited 6/17/09 14:33pm]

I think people are forgetting when these albums were released. When Prince
started it was still the 'vinyl' era, and it was quite common for artists to release
an album once every year or so. So Prince wasn't considered overly prolific
back then. If we go a bit further back to the early 70's (before Prince had
released anything), artists sometimes released two albums in the same year!

Many other major 80's artists used to release new albums every year - year 1/2
on average. Madonna, Eurythmics, Duran Duran and The Cure all did. It's only
with the advent of CDs and longer album running times that the average Artist
album release rate decreased to what it is these days.

Boris I think that we need to start a thread on how drastic the music industry has changed in the last 20 years. Kids don't really know the feeling of going to the record store and buying music or getting the single for the B-side.

muleFunk said:

I'd be the very first one to skip school and wait in front of the stores to open, get the new single and listen to it via headphone, lying naked on the floor!

We used to call the record store every hour on the hour until she put the record out on the shelf.