The question is:

Essential to 'us' Prince fanatics? Or essential in terms of a 'must have' for every serious music lover / everyone interested in great music?

I happen to go for the second, and in that sense Sign of the Times remains his last essential album. Why?
- Its the pinacle of his 'minimalistic', 'multi-styled' approach: IMO thats his MOST important strength / influence. Taking bits and pieces of several musical styles (Funk, soul, pop, rock etc.), stripping them down to their essence, and re-arraging them in clever, innovative ways.
- Its the album on which he showed a more subduded, mature, lets say: 'deeper' approach (both musicwise and lyricwise) to what he allready achieved with the Minneapolis Sound (Dirty Mind unto Purple Rain).

Allthough the Lovesexy album shows some impressive musicianship and arrangements, that album allready was turning away from his signature approach: Lovesexy is at moments a gem of 'overproduction', but its not representative of his 'less is more' approach between Dirty Mind and Sign of the Times.

The Batman album owes a lot more to his 'traditional approach', but unfortunately the songwriting on that album isnt up to par, and many of these songs sound like he is copying himself.

With Graffiti Bridge his albums became more "patchy', uneven, too much influenced by him trying to follow what became popular in the charts (house, new jack swing, hip-hop, contemporary R&B), and less relying on his own strenghts.

I see many people here praise The Gold Experience, while its hardly 'essential'.
Don't get me wrong, its a great album in terms of musicianship and production / end-mixing (its probably his best 'sounding' album ever), but in terms of songwriting / composing it shows him 'leaning back', and especially on a lyrical level its a very shallow album.

Hopping forward to The Rainbow Children: the more organic, layered approach of the music might have come as some sort 'relieve' after the generic, plastic sounding beats and instrumentation on Emancipation, New Power Soul and Rave, but both music- and lyricwise TRC is a very detached, conservative sounding album: worn-out seventies jazz-rock / 'fusion' (a lot of skills, a lack of soul) combined with lyrics that show any lack of comprehension about what life is about. A truelly horrible album IMO.

Riverpoet31 said:

well said young man!, nicley argued points. Although I disagree with your views on TRC.

MUSICOLOGY!!!!!
-It showed that Prince STILL HAD IT!!!!! Solid work all the way through, with the exception of "Life O' The Party" (which was better performed live; as Prince & the band incorporated James Brown's "Hot Pants")
-Everything else SINCE has been SPOTTY & SHODDY
-And I'm a HUGE Prince fan!!!!!

Essential as being part of the cultural and musical zeitgeist: probably Diamonds and Pearls.

Musically essential: Emancipation (disc 2 only)

Riverpoet31 said:

I remember going to the record store when Rainbow Children was released. I was holding the jacket and disc before purchase, and I was thinking of how Prince's music seemed to be on a steady decline. At best, Rave would have destroyed an unknown singer if that were their first opportunity at a cd cut, and New Power Soul would have done the same.

Prince had gotten to a point of resting on his name instead of his game. Then I put TRC in and gave it a listen. Now bear in mind, this was my first listen, and I almost opted out on buying it because of the last sets.

I was so thrilled to hear a new sound. It was a promise that maybe new things would come. I was even thrilled to hear the conservative over tones, because that is real life, not detached, for a person who is maturing.

I then looked forward to Musicology. I was over pleased with 3121. PE dampered a little. I'm still out on Lotus. I think it promised more than it delivered. (Site and CD). But it is still a far cry better than even the Gold Experience through NPS. I do look forward to the next album.

When I started liking Prince back in like 1981 or so, I would have never thought that I would be liking an artist that was going to deliver something almost every year.

WOW.

This is one of the reasons most other artist pale compared to him.