No one has yet brought up the fact of P's age. At 51 he's fast approaching the time when the lyrics he wrote as a younger man will begin to sound ridiculous coming out of a middle aged man's mouth.

I think P has to start thinking now about where to take his musical direction for the future so that it has integrity and congruency.

If he does it consciously and deliberately as a gradual transition (ie. phasing out songs with lyrics like Little Red Corvette and singing thoughtful tunes of a universal nature like Somewhere Here on Earth) I think his popularity and creativity will endure but doing hot dance numbers into his 60's? Unh uh, no way.

As an analogy, I deliberately chose not to go see James Brown when he came to my town because it would be just too painful to watch him try to scream and dance like he did in his younger days. James was da bomb but he was a one trick pony. His signature style did not age well.

Prince is too smart and too talented to let time make a parody of himself and for this reason he needs to decide what kind of style will keep his music dignified.

Personally, I think it would have to be fusion or jazz funk type stuff but as much as I'd like to see him colaborate with heavyweight jazz cats as someone mentioned earlier, I can't really see him doing that.

Good as the players are that he gathers around him,they are essentially sidemen (& sidewomen?) who have to play his compositions, not full-on creative musical partner relationships like you might find in a Herbie Hancock or George Duke aggregation.

P is in that awkward middle place where he's not quite yet a distinguished elder musical statesman but he's no longer the young satyr from the Kiss video either and there's going to come a time sooner rather than later where if he attempts to sing certain songs (and MOST of his catalog is going to have to be retired) it will become embarrasing to watch.

I think he'd better start serving up a volume of serious jazz based compostions soon to build the catalog he will be depending on for the rest of his career.

You know the brotha is never gonna retire. He just has to get cooler as time goes on.
[Edited 9/26/09 20:56pm]

theres been talk on here about prince releasing stuff that hasnt made it on to his albums. i played the album COME last night , how bad must the stuff be that didnt make it on to that cd.

whodknee said:

Back in the 80s it wasn't due to quality. it was due to quantity. WB only allowed so much to come out. Some of his most genius material from the 80s never saw official release.