1985-1986. The outtakes from this era really speak volumes about how creative he was at this time. I suppose you could say 1983-1986 if you wanted to extend it a bit. I really don't see how anyone can say 1987 was part of Prince's peak. We haven't heard much music that was recorded in that year (compared to the years immediately before and after) and what we have heard pales when compared to the 1983-1986 era.

....HARD 2 TELL...cuz he STILL climax'in
.this has been the L-O-N-Gest ORGASM i have ever experienced musically EVER in the history of my L-I-F-E!!!..
.
...and i never want it 2 end!!!
..mzsexybaby'EVERYTHING U THINK..IS TRUE..NOBODY CAN CHANGE UR UNIVERSE..BUT U'

rialb said:

I'm not just thinking of recording. Did you see that tour?!

1981 - 1988 (Dirty Mind unto Lovesexy) remains his 'golden period' IMO:
A stream of recordings, releases and concerts that can be compared to the creative growth and the artistic importance of the Beatles in their period between Rubber Soul and Abbey Road.

Within that period i think he had his real peak from 1985 - 1987:
ATWIAD, Parade, songs like In All my dreams and Crystal Ball, The Family Album, The Jill Jones debut, Clare Fisher, The aborted Camille Album, Dream Factory, The Crystal Ball set resulting in the Sign of the Times album.

He did a tremendous job between 1981 - 1984 (Dirty Mind unto Purple Rain) by mixing 'black' and 'white' styles: mixing funk, soul, pop, rock, electronic dance music and new-wave into the 'Minneapolis sound', but it also was a bit too calculated for me sometimes (using his clothes and lyrics for 'shock value', his posure as the new black-white 'crossover' artist 'raunchier' then Michael Jackson, the rather blatant 'american dream' story of the Purple Rain movie)

Between 1985 and 1987 he sounds 'liberated' IMO. Its like the succes and money Purple Rain (the album and the movie) brought him, gave him he thought: i have reached my goal, lets go 'freewheeling' now!
His music from this short period simply bursts with rewarding creativity: wether its the stripped down drummachine beats meeting baroque orchestrations of the Family album and the Jill Jones debut, the Parade album going from Beatlesque marches, to calypso, to vaudeville, 'Pet sounds', Parisian Jazz, stripped down funk and a folky ballad, his embrace of jazz-funk on the Madhouse albums, the genious minimalism of songs like Sign of the Times and If I was your girlfriend, let alone the music that didnt get officially released (the dark, dense 'psycho-funk' of the Camille album, playfully genre-leaping compositions like Crystal Ball and In all my dreams).
Its like he 'paid off' his duties as a 'superstar' with the Purple Rain project, and it opened the way the just follow his creativity without caring too much what the 'big public' would think off it. IMO his music (and lyrics) did benefit a lot from that: it became less obvious, less superficial and more subtle and playfull.
The fact that the Sign of the Times album derives from an aborted 3 album-set, that it compromises three types of Prince sessions (Prince with the Revolution, Prince as his Camille alter-ego, and stripped down, minimalistic Prince after 'getting rid' of the Revolution) and that it still is such a great album, seen by many as his 'magnum opus', shows how much he was 'on a roll' in those years.

Going forward to his 1988 release: Lovesexy. I think that album is great on some levels, and not so great on other ones.
The great part of Lovesexy is that it musically tries to combine everything he did in the eighties: soul, funk, gospel, jazz, hard rock, dance, psychedelic rock, resulting in rather busy, but nonetheless ingenious arrangements (George Clinton and Frank Zappa come to my mind).
Also on a 'lyrical level' he tries to go for 'big answers': trying to combine the carnal with the spiritual, God and sex, love and lust.
But ultimately its a step back from what he achieved with the lyrics of Parade and especially Sign of the Times: On 'Sign' he finally showed some subtle doubts and vulnerability i could relate to. But on Lovesexy he reacts on some bad trip in a totally exeggerated way. Hiding himself behind dogma's and acting like some catholic from the 1930's. He might bring the 'sex' element into his redemption, but its annoying to see someone losing himself in his own dogma's.

1988 was the year when Prince did start to censor himself again upto to an annoying level. He played the funk-rock sexgod between 1981 and 1984. He seemed to get more carefree and 'human' between 1985 and 1987, But for whatever reason he decided to hide himself again in 1988.

IMO he has never recovered from it. He has delivered some great songs (at least, on a musical level) since. His own dogma's about romance (Emancipation), religion (The Rainbow Children, the Jehovah thing) and ownership (the '00's, the youtube-issue) have first of all shown me Prince is an artist affraid to grow up and develop himself as a person, and second, a dogmatic conservative who seems to doesnt know shit about life.

vivid said:

Well I differentiate between Prince the studio artist and Prince the live artist. As a liver performer I think you can argue that he is currently among the best and has been for most of his career. I don't think his studio albums have been as consistently excellent as his live performances.

Dave1992 said:

Although I would extend it to 1996.

I really don't see how anyone can say 1987 was part of Prince's peak.
We haven't heard much music that was recorded in that year (compared to the years immediately before and after) and what we have heard pales when compared to the 1983-1986 era.

Well the reason I put 1986-1987 as his creative peak was because he recorded the majority of Lovesexy in 1987. '87 also saw the recording of the Black Album.

rialb said:

squirrelgrease said:

rialb said:

I'm not just thinking of recording. Did you see that tour?!

When Jehovah inserted the butt plug.

vivid said:

In my opinion, what we saw and heard on the Sign o the Times album & tour was the aftershocks of the previous years

I think Cat brought the added live encouragement for the live show, but I don't think the band had the studio creative connection he had with the previous band, it would have been cool to see Cat with the Revolution

Shango said:

I'm pretty sure that most of The Black Album was recorded in 1986.

OldFriends4Sale said:

True, but also true of every other year previous to that. I get your point, but all in all, I still think he was on fire in '87 and so I include that year.

He has not reached it YET!

rialb said:

Good points: anyone who is familiar with the outtakes will know the largest amount were made in the 1983-1986 years, and the people in his life and band had a lot 2 do with it,

Just 4 Purple Rain era alone there are rumored 2 be about 300 outtakes
and Prince said similar in a 1985 interviewit started to pick up during the 1999 era, Vanity's place in his life also influenced or stimiluated it

Purple Rain - Dream Factory hit out music we still have not heard yet it started to go down immediately during SOTT era and onward

OldFriends4Sale said:

That interveiw was from 1986 and Prince said that there were 320 unreleased songs, he meant overall. Not just from the Purle Rain era. Overall.

Do u draw charts? Do u know about patterns, waves, technical analysis? its a cycle dam it

OldFriends4Sale said:

That interveiw was from 1986 and Prince said that there were 320 unreleased songs, he meant overall. Not just from the Purle Rain era. Overall.

PRINCE: You think you hit on something, right! You try to do it again...ya know? (both laugh) I try not to do that too much. If I do, then it's usually someone around, Wendy or Lisa, who says, "Hey, man, I've heard that. Put it away." And it goes away.