I am always of the opinion that we, as Prince fans, are pretty damned spoiled when it comes to having so much music to love, hate and debate over. I mean, MJ left behind about a quarter or fifth of what Prince has produced, right?

Think what your music life would be like if Prince had only released albums every 4 years, spending so much time fine-tuning production or what have you...meaning about 2/3 or 3/4 of his albums would never have been made. Consider if songs like Moonbeam Levels or even When You Were Mine would only cross your ears after Prince had lived a long, lonnng life (x's fingers) or maybe never at all.

Well, I was curious what I might potentially be missing out on, and started looking at it like this. Say there were Prince albums in 1979, 1983, 1987, and 1991. Given that the first two would only have like 8-12 songs on them, the second pair maybe 13 to 15 tops, which 23-27 songs would make the cut? Which would be known only as B-sides? (I have a sneaky suspicion this has been done multiple times, but if so, I've missed out, so ...:-p )

Here's what I have for the 1983 album, for example ...has to be culled from Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999 and the synchronous outtakes according to DTT.

Dirty Mind
Head
Little Red Corvette
When You Were Mine
DMSR

Controversy
1999
Let's Work
Do Me Baby
International Lover

Ask me tomorrow and Extra Loveable and Feel U Up might find their ways onto the album, lol!

[Edited 1/4/10 21:52pm]
[Edited 1/4/10 21:52pm]
[Edited 1/5/10 16:16pm]

LOL Four years? The average is 2.5 years between albums for the vast majority of artists out there.

fuck that

ernestsewell said:

Okay then, cool. Still doesn't invalidate the point or the proposition I had initially said 3-4 based on a quick look at MJ's rate. 2.5, the Madonna rate) is average... call it 3. You still end up having For You, then you've got to pare down Prince, Dirty Mind, and Controversy (or part of Controversy for your half year, lol) and 8-10 tracks for your album.

Even at every two years, you're left--for example-- tossing out 8-10 songs from Prince + DM, Controversy + 1999, ...Parade + Sign o' The Times??

Prince's average is 28 albums (no retrospectives, greatest hits, etc) in 30 years...a new one every 1.07 years. So the Prince fan gets MORE than TWICE as much material as the fan of an average artist.

MJ: every 4.4 years
Springsteen: every 2.13 ..almost exactly half of Prince's output
Stevie Wonder: every 2.8

The Stones are a little higher than Bruce's rate just eyeballing.
A young buck like Maxwell? every 4.3 years so far...D'angelo I'm not even going to mention. And if you have the misfortune of clinging to Sade it's every 5.2, Surprisingly, only Mariah Carey of the big names comes close (every 1.7 years?!)

And how many Nothing Compares 2 U's or Manic Monday's (or Nasty Girl, The Bird, or Love Bizarre) has Bruce got to his credit? I don't even pretend to know, so I'm not saying, ... I'm just saying

I actually think it wouldn't be a bad idea for Prince to have a break from realeasing a new album for at least 3 years - as Little Richard once said he should put out less product so he would be more appreciated.

Of course we all know Prince can't shit without a new song in his head - and good luck too him - but maybe by taking a break he can come up with an awesome album and show the world again what he is - a total genius.

I do believe we are fortunate to love Prince's music and have an album every year.

Prince has been faithful to music and we have been blessed to have him share so much of his heart with us.

That it would NOT be Prince.
[Edited 1/6/10 7:52am]

...We might get 5 or 6 decent tracks per album instead of just one or two.

A lot of artist used to release an album every year.

Look at the discographies of artist like Kool And The Gang,Funkadelic/Parliament, Cameo, Rick James,Barkays. All used to release albums every year.

Newer artist don't and It's a shame. When the first Plantlife album came I loved it and wanted more from this band but then had to wait 4 years, D'angelo took 5 years between 1st and 2nd albums and then nothing in ten years.

If Plantlife had been a 1970's we would have had about 5 albums by now.

NouveauDance said:

hmm... no one was complaining in '87-88 Maybe some of his recent stuff would be better served by the old school, 9 or 10 song format...thus being relegated to the 'unreleased' category. Then most of us here would fiend for the Joint2Joint's, Here's, or Zanalee's and proclaim that he should release more instead of nit-picking them to death, lol

JumpUpOnThe1 said:

Well, he has "Blinded by the Light" and "Because the Night", off the top of my head; I'm sure there are others.

billymeade said:

Bruce wrote "Because the Night"?? huh...somethin' new every day thanks!