Hey guys,

I'm a relatively new Prince fan, and I was wondering if any of you had suggestions on which album I should get next. I have two of the classics Purple Rain and 1999, and I also have Musicology. I'm sort of leaning towards Diamonds and Pearls. What do you think? Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Diamonds and Pearls is just an OK album, imo.

You should try Around the World in a Day or Dirty Mind next.

I would avoid Diamonds & Pearls. It has aged horribly and only has a handful of solid tracks.

I would say Sign O The Times and Parade are the two most essential 80s albums (minus PR which you already own).

If you want to try something a bit more adventurous you could go for The Gold Experience or Emancipation - which are two of his best albums from the 90s.
[Edited 12/28/09 9:38am]

darkhorse72 said:

Actually Im not sure if Im a fan yet
[Edited 12/28/09 10:04am]

Dirty Mind, Lovesexy and everything in between, The Black Album included.

I go with Sign O The Times. It's on average the most hailed album from both fans and critics. (outside of the two you already have)

darkhorse72 said:

I'm going to be completely honest with you.

To get a true appreciation of Prince and why he's so brilliant, you have to listen to his 80's output sequentially. Listen to each album from beginning to end and try and 'get' what he's doing. He's 80's albums were not afterthoughts. They were brilliantly constructed artistic statements, which just happened to have great 'singles' in them.




So....

Dirty Mind
Controversy

(1999 & PR you have)

Around The World in A Day
Parade (one of my all time favorites)
Sign of The Times (this is considered his most essential album. I love it)
LoveSexy (and if you can find the Black Album, listen to each as if they're a set)


-----
After LoveSexy, I don't think it's necessary to listen to them in sequence.

I would go with:

The Symbol Album (quirky, uneven and brilliant)
Come
The Gold Experience (one of my favorites)
Emancipation (one of my favorites--and cheap now if you can find it)
3121 <--his most radio friendly album this decade
lotusflow3r (a real bargain)



The problem with Prince is that even his bad albums have really neat songs or moments in them. And all of his albums are different from each other. Even the often criticized Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic has moments in it that are great (I love the vocals in TGRES).


Just my 2 cents

P2daP said:

I think that's a fairly safe bet.

You won't be disappointed with that one.

Check the used stores or e-bay and get a copy of "The Gold Experience".

It's a must have.

Thank you very much for these suggestions!

I a couple of iTunes gift cards for Christmas, and since Prince albums are so hard to find in the store aside from the two that I already have, I knew exactly how I would spend these cards. I would prefer to actually own the albums, but this will do, at least for now anyway.

I ended up going with Dirty Mind, Around the World in a Day, Sign 'O' the Times, and Parade. That should definitely keep me busy for quite a while. Thanks again for your help and I look forward to digesting these albums. I'll do so in order, even though I am skipping on in Controversy, which will probably be my next purchase.

Thanks again!!

darkhorse72 said:

do you care about his early career?...the opening for the stones incident?
just curious
btw, get SOTT

darkhorse72 said:

This is good.


Dirty Mind - It was when Prince became "Prince". HIs first two albums only hinted at what he was going to be capable of. Although stuff on his second album is first rate, Dirty Mind is the album that let us all know he was insane. It's stripped, funky, and a little less sophisticated than future albums--lots of repitition in riffs on the title track, etc. etc. But you get a true sense of how he progressed listening to it sequentially.

Around The World in A Day - Real instruments, beetle-esch song writing, and lots of down tempo moments--a true risk for a musician at the time (Remember, PR was absolutely enormous and spent 14 weeks at the top of the charts). To followup with such a strange, quirky album was insane.


Parade - He took all the good elements of ATWIAD as far as song writing, added classical elements and produced an absolutely insane little gem of an album. It's one of my favorite.


SOTT- After splitting up with the revolution, you get to see Prince the song writer in the spirit of Joani Mitchell or Bob Dylan---only funked the hell up. It's a grab bag of all sorts of styles of music thrown together, and for the most part, works brilliantly. It also predominantly has a lot of horns in it--which Prince in his earlier works avoided--he used mostly synths before. There are so, so , sooooo many good songs on SOTT.



Great choices!

.
[Edited 12/28/09 10:28am]

darkhorse72 said:

If you have more left on your iTunes Gift Cards, gut the iTunes-only track F.U.N.K.

darkhorse72 said:

Hey & Welcome P-fam virgin!! I would say..go 4 Controversy and Emancipation ..this way u can get him in the raw (track; lets work-my favorite..), and when he became FREE (track; emancipation) !! - (2very important stages in his life, well its what I get from the music..that is)!!

Love
[Edited 12/28/09 10:57am]

Those are 4 good choices that you made.

darkhorse72 said:

The best way to experience Prince, is to just start from the beginning. Get For You, and Prince, then build from there, into Dirty Mind, Controversy, then you'd skip to Around The World In A Day, Parade, SOTT, Lovesexy, etc. Use this as a basic guide: http://www.dtt-lyrics.com.../home.html

I agree with most of the posts so far in this thread. However, it all depends on what Prince music you tend to like more. If you like the "funky" side of P, I would get Controversy, Come, For You. or Prince. If you like the "Rock" side of P more, you can't go wrong with Dirty Mind or Chaos and Disorder. If you like the "pop" Prince, I would get , or Diamonds and Pearls.

If you hit up used cd stores or ebay, you should be able to find P's Warner's catalog really cheap.

Some bootlegs

go in order of releases. to realy appreciate his growth.

Depending on the area U live in, some of Prince's albums are hard to find. I would get what U can knowing that most of us own everything and love everything.

It has been fun to go in order from 79' 4ward. I heard "Prince," before "For You." "For You." Prince's first album will always be my personal favorite.

How much do you want to spend????

So many to choose from, so get the Album list and start adding some to Birthday, Christmas wish lists etc.

Just make sure you get Dirty Mind or Controversy first

chocolatehandles said:

Why would you say get those over SOTT or the self-titled album? Especially for a newbie. I would think a newbie would love the self-titled and SOTT a lot more than DM or Controversy. If a newbie could learn to love SOTT and "Prince", then they can get into almost every other Prince album before and after.

To all new Prince fans..... get them all.

I would suggest going with

1. SOTT
2. DIRTY MIND
3. AROUND THE WORLD...
4. PARADE
5. CONTROVERSY
6. LOVESEXY

AND THEN GET 'DIAMONDS AND PEARLS' OR 'LOVE SYMBOL' (WHICH I ENJOY BETTER)

luv4u said:

If u can track them down.

mancabdriver said:

oh i'm too late

Welcome aboard, darkhorse72! Take the good advice of my fellow orgers and as you find them, get them from the first release. His growth through the years is exciting and there truly are musical gems to be found on every album! Remember that sometimes Prince's music needs to be listened to several if not many times, in some instances, to be fully appreciated. Peace

darkhorse72 said:

Welcome! You're in for a helluva ride and you'll have a whole lot more questions in the future, I assure you.

Since you prefer to own actual albums as I do, check out Best Buy, Amazon.com and Ebay...you can still get a lot of his albums from those outlets. Then you'll need to seek out the NPGMC releases and whatnot but that's whole nother adventure down the road.

do not neglect "for you". its very overlooked.

thats my only suggestion

Imago said:

Just do as he says.