At various times in my life as a Prince fan I have read in comment from other musicians and in reviews and things that Prince's music lacks melody? So what exactly is the definition of melody and how does his music lack it, if it indeed does? Does this detract significantly from his music? Or is this argument just bollocks anyway?

Once I made a really funky piece of music for my GCSE that was heavily inspired my Prince stuff. (Black LP stuff etc). I played it to a music teacher and they said are you going to put in a melody. I didn't know what she meant, I liked it the way it was. My guess is that funky stuff lacks melody, but that's ok because it isn’t meant to have one.

At least that’s is my theory.

All i know is that if you can describe it, it aint funky!

Amen brother

the thing is, i think melody is somtimes confused definitionally speaking.

e/g/ i think muse has a fantstic melody, some dont, cos its quite ocmplex.

I've always presumed that a melody is something that you would be able to play on a single instrument and it would work, musically.
Prince's strength does tend to lean towards arrangement, rather than melody. The 'architecture' of his music is what usually makes it so great (IMO).
Kiss is a fabulous piece of funk, but could you sit at the piano and play it? It would sound dire.
But Prince has managed to come up with some great melodies. She Gave Her Angels, The Question Of U, Free, etc. etc.

If you can hum it, then it's a melody. Well, that's my take on it.