Most of peoples discography covers such little ground compared 2 Prince. Even though Prince has new albums like Lotusflow3r and Planet Earth, I would still consider Musicology and even The Rainbow Children newer material, so my question is what do u all consider 2 b old and new Prince?

Back when I was a huge Prince fan (early 90's), old was anything preceding 1999.




Today, old is anything preceding the Symbol name change. He seems to have three phases to me


1) Old phase / all albums up to COME

2) Symbol/plastic/npgmc/wasteland years / From Gold to One Nite Alone [Live]

3) Relaunched Career years / Anything after Musicology


There are albums in each phase that go against the grain of my descriptions, but this is how I look at his work.

Imago said:

That's pretty much how I would divide up his career too.

Before rap
During rap
After rap

I'd say "new" is everything after LoveSexy.

exenn said:

?

IshmaelB said:

This decade, pretty much.

the Sexy Mother Fucker and the Sexy Mother Scratcher

Old - 80s

Mid - 90s

New - OOs

This is tough because Prince has reinvented his sound so many times. It almost seems like he keeps a sound for 2 albums and then goes in a different direction. It is also tough because there is definitely a middle period.

I would break Prince's music into 5 eras

For You - Controversy: A lot of disco-type stuff mixed with some experimental stuff.

1999 - SOTT: Commercial music along with some amazing rock and ballads. In my opinion, by far his best period

Lovesexy - : More heavily focused on R&B along with some but fewer commercial hits

Come - Rave: An era that is really hard to define because so much stuff was released but it all came from different eras. In my opinion, this was his worst period. There was a lot of good stuff from this era, but there was a lot of bad stuff and some questionable stuff as well.

Rainbow Children - Lotus (and possibly beyond): Sort of a renaissance era in which Prince has been able to find a new sound. With this current stuff, he is does not seem to be running from the past, but he is also not trying to hold onto it.

Three phases

- Everything up to the Hits/B-Sides I consider old Prince
- After Hits/B-Sides up to Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic is mid career Prince
- Rainbow Children up to Lotusflow3r/MPLSound/Elixer is new Prince

there is only one prince. I hate when people say there is a difference between 80's prince and the new joints– all the songs are from one brilliant mind. Face the music.

piku said:

Of course it all came from the same brilliant mind, but there are obvious differences among each eras. It is also important to consider Prince's mindset during each era.

During the For You - Controversy era, he was trying to make a name for himself.

During the 1999 - SOTT era, he was at the acme of his popularity, so his music needed to be broadly appealing.

While in the Lovesexy - Symbol era, it seemed as though Prince was trying to reject the need to be universally appealing. I imagine that his mission was to put out the music that he wanted to release and let the truly sophisticated Prince fans enjoy it.

During the Come-Rave era, Prince was going through many hardships. He had issues with his record label, he had a marriage and a divorce, the death of his parents, and even a miscarriage. Of course, all of this is going to affect his music.

In the current era, Prince has seemed to have found a good mental state. It has cleared his mind to make some good music.

japanrocks said:

Old Prince is 1978-1984. Since then, Prince has gone through so many various changes that there is no New Prince but classic Old Prince is still 1978-1984 before he changed his style with "Around The World In A Day".