Hell no.

It's hard to say because i first fell in love with Prince because of his sexiness back in the 80's.

Nope. I would dig "Cinnamon Girl" and "Lolita" very much and have a certain fondness for other songs but I'm not sure I would even be able to give enough effort to wade through those albums for the gems if I weren't a fan in the first place.

Probably not.

No way jose! nothing grounbreaking on Musicology - thats what gave me that instant attraction back in the day

jstar69 said:

it might be groundbreaking if his prior albums had never existed though.

ElCapitan said:

Not at all because it is what it is.

Interesting question. And...no. It would feel like, interesting album, I wonder if he has a classic in him. 3121 probably would've made me lose interest tho...
[Edited 11/3/09 4:40am]

sorry but there's really no point in pondering hypothetical things imo
[Edited 11/3/09 4:49am]

Probably not. Although I would've become mildly interested around the release of PE.

yes i'd be. What Do U Want Me To Do, The Marrying Kind, Man In Ur Life, On The Couch, Call My Name, and a few others would let me know he was a serious and diverse artist. In this musical climate, it would've still sounded like NOTHING else on the radio so i'd be checking for him. and the subsequent releases u mentioned will have kept me interested. "HITS" don't = talent or success for me, so i'd be grateful for him

I have no idea. Prince's has pretty much shaped my musical tastes and even my personality.

There's no telling how I'd react if Prince's 1st album was Musicology.

For all I know, I'd be listening to and liking the crap that's on the radio nowadays if it wasn't for Prince.

Say if Prince was a new artist back in '04.

I think seeing a young cat out there, on a major label saying that there needs to be more musicianship would definitely get my attention.

Take away the Grammys performance, the Super Bowl, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and other performances that he wouldn't be able do to as a new artist. There still would be some great performances if he was a new artist.

If he still performed like he did on Leno, Ellen, Tavis Smiley, and of course if he still killed it on SNL like he did as a new artist?

Hell yeah, I'd be interested!

Obviously, he wouldn't be going on that huge Musicology tour. But if he played clubs, small theatres, and opened for other artists on their big tours. I would probably check him out.

thedance said:

I enjoy Musicology more so than I do his first 2 albums anyway.

I used to not like Musicology but in the last mont I've grown to appreciate it.

Prince has that irresistible go get em tiger thing going on, no matter if it were 1979 or 2009 I bet we'd all still Adore the musical genius purple man

Musicology is a great album in my opinion. When it came out, it was his first album that I listened to from start to finish... over and over and over again. Musicology made me dig up his older work again and turned me into a hardcore fan. Without it, I probably wouldn't have been on this forum

I doubt I would have even known he'd existed...

Mindflux said:

Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of his newer stuff as well. Although Musicology is different from anything else out there now, but it's not grounbreaking like 1999 was. The thing about 1999 was I not only love the songs, but I was in love with the new sounds(linn drums and syths).That's why 1999 blew my socks off. If Musicology was his first I would have gotten into it, but I probably would not have seen the genius yet.

fantasticjoy said:

No, I do understand you and I agree with your comparison of 1999's innovation versus Musicology! But what I was pointing out was the fact that, in the context of this thread, you can't compare it to 1999, because that album never got recorded! And my overall point is that it is almost impossible to do (so, your kinda just proving my point )

Yes

i'd probably be thinking - wot on Earth does this young upstart know about old-skool funk for the tru funk soldiers!?

lol

Cx

Tame said:

Co-sign

thedance said:

Would I be a teen in the early eighties with Musicology debuting? Or would I be a teen today with it debuting? That makes a big difference.
[Edited 11/23/09 14:14pm]

thedance said:

Good question ... Since I got into P's music during Emancipation Era I can answer this question and say "yes". I was looking for that LIVE feel and that organic sound that P was doing. His guitar was calling to me ... LoL

I tend to agree with what Paris9748430 said and go even further to say that the problem with the question is that it is asking us to be non-historical or devoid of personal and community history, which none of us who have answered have been able to do. Most have not been able to get Prince's earlier work from their minds to be objective.

Secondly, whether someone thinks that Prince's is washed up or not, we must understand that much of the music to which we are comparing his work is music that would not exist without him. Whether it is R&B, Rock, or Hip Hop, much of what is on the radio or selling has been influenced by him. So the question is impossible to theorize because to say whether we would be a fan of the artist that produced just Musicology to the present is also asking us to ignore what exist today, which we, clearly cannot. It would be difficult to name ten artists, say other than country music artists, who are played regularly on the radio who do not have any connection to Prince's body of work. When artists as diverse as L'il Wayne and B. B. King say they want to work with Prince, it is almost impossible to imagine a pop-culture landscape without Prince. This is what makes the question unanswerable.

I'm guessing that the point of the question is to explore more ideas of those who still think Prince is creating quality music in comparison to those who think that Prince is no longer producing quality work. And even that debate is based on people's personal history of when and why they became Prince fans. To answer that question we'd have to completely imagine a world without Prince, and because he's touched so much of pop culture, one cannot fathom or imagine popular culture without Prince. To erase Prince’s history would be to erase Alicia Keys, Andre 3000, Snoop Dog, Pharrell, Michelle NdegeOcello, Lenny Kravitz, Living Colour, Wendy and Lisa, No Doubt, Black Eyed Peas, almost any black kid using a falsetto over a big beat, and any number of white rockers born after 1984. So, if you erase all of that, and only the music that is not influenced by Prince is on the radio, then maybe I would be a fan because one of the reasons I liked Prince was because of how different he was from his peers. And yet, the other reason I liked him was because he reminded me, if even in a faint way, of the music that my mother and father blasted around the house and in their cars during the early seventies. So, Prince is a major bridge, connecting the 90s with the 60s and 70s. He is a kaleidoscope or a prism that has mixed and matched popular culture in a way that it is impossible to know it without him. As he says in "Don’t Play Me," his "only completion is, well, me in the past." So, all of those people quick to say no, Musicology or any thing after would not make them a fan, just remember that based on the question, there is no Dirty Mind that has paved the new revolutionary ground. So, whose to say that Musicology could not have been that record in this world devoid of Dirty Mind. But, again, there could not have been a Musicology without James Brown and others, so just how much history does this question want us to ignore?

So, I'll answer the question yes because Prince's guitar and bass work is still a bridge to the icons before him, and him following his own muse and becoming a Jehovah's Witness and writing songs about that is just as rebellious as when he followed his own muse on Dirty Mind or when he followed his own muse and removed the bass from "When Doves Cry," or when he followed his own muse and wrote slave on his face and changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol. Whether 2004 or 1980, he is still funky, and he is still doing it his way. And that separates him from his peers--then and now.

thedance said:

where's the fat cunt?

yeah but not as strongly

datdude said:

Co-sign