.....maybe his music isnt that genius anymore

its rare you'll get me dissing the man on here and im not hating now but theres very albums of his i play back to back from the last ten years

i relaised this in the car as i listened to PARADE for the 5489728728975489598758972458947289524797249th time WITHOUT skipping one track

this isalso true of most of his early 90's/80's stuff

hell i aint skipping shit on TGE!

ho hum-just noticed realy!

mind you TRC is still my fave intro and oh blah blah i could go on

oh actually-lotusflower doesnt get skipped much saying that.....

i think its put simply.....getting old sucks!

the vitality of youth will always produce KILLER music and genius is zipping along at a million miles an hour but hell we all get old and get less inspired!

A true genius never loses their genius..... maybe he needs something new 2 happen besides going 2 Kingdom Hall with Larry Graham, attending fashion shows with big titty heifers who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time if mankind depended on it, and get in contact with some real people! P.S. Oh, and never 2 make shitty albums like MPLsound again!!!!! Prince shoulda got bitch slapped 4 that!

personally, i don't see a problem with his music and think he's on an upward spiral; who knows what bombshell he's busy with now; after Lotus' intensity, he has to keep it deep.

he needs a producer or at the very least W&L tobe honest with their opinions. He is and always will be a genius BUT he does not know how to fully utilse it. Drives you mad, sometimes makes you smile but it with each newly released 'average' album it will continue to be another missed opportunity.

jonylawson said:

Amen to that!.

He just needs an editor. Someone to say... "Prince we've heard this before" or "You can do better than that". Like Wendy and Lisa used to. Just outside input. Someone to almost make him angry so he goes back into that studio and produces something better!

Bono said this and the mighty Alan Leeds did also. Alan has worked with the best and even he said that he doesn't think Prince (and a lot of artists) understand what the fans want. Now we all know Prince would say it ain't about what the fans want... it's about what the artist wants. But Alan Leeds also said that he meant that statement in terms of outside infuences and Prince has been living in Prince world for quite sometime.

Sign O The Times is considered to be one of his best pieces of work. Would it have worked as a 3CD Crystal Ball? No, commercially it would not. WB were right! Yes there was great music left off. But we got some as b-sides... it added to the album concept and experience. It worked.

And some idiotic moron, like me, could say: "Define genius"

And I could quote:



In this context, I'd say: no, Prince left his genius ways in the 1980's, where his work "transformed" the musical landscape and broaden peoples minds in terms of what music could be and what people could be.

Surely, a mind like that doesn't stop being exceptionally gifted, but I think Prince's so called genius is in essence his body of work and not himself, specifically in the 1980s, whereas everything else he has done has just been "music" and not a kind of musical revolution.

Oh, and I actually hate the notion of "Prince as a genius". He's just a dude with an earth shattering talent that happened to get lucky in the mid 80's and catch everyone's attention and through that, ripped the musical scene apart and rearranged it in his own image (so to speak).

More importantly, Prince himself should probably stop thinking he's a genius.
I mean..
If you believe you're a genius, why fight to get better? Why appreciate your fans, when you think they should worship you?

What he needs is a "rival". Someone to give him some damn competition. Someone to make him hungry to show the world his greatness again. Frankly that person does not exist at the moment. Back in the day he loved the Rick James rivalry and kicking his ass on tour.He loved throwing up his talent versus Michael Jackson. Where is his challenge now? What individual artist is out there to push him out of complacency? To make him stand up, take notice and say to himself I have to step my game up.

People, as they get older, become more risk averse - for any number of reasons. In a lot of ways, "genius" is just another word for "not afraid to take risks."

As you get older, you find that you've already aired a lot of the ideas that came thick and fast when you were younger. There are fewer things you want to try. You have a better sense of what might happen in any given set of circumstances. And you've also spent years getting knocked around.

There comes a point when you just aren't interested in getting smacked around anymore. And let's face it, when Prince was young, he had a record company that shielded him from a lot of hard knocks (especially financial ones). He doesn't have that anymore.

For better or worse, he's an elder statesman now. Elder statesmen don't use words like muthafucka and pussy in their lyrics. They don't run around onstage in butt-out pants (or no pants, at all).

Risk and rawness are for the young.

Genesia said:

And I'm not entirely sure I'd want to see him try that kind of stuff today. I'd hate to see Prince do a Madonna: "Hard Candy", legs spread and face photoshopped and sucking on some leather.

But I wouldn't mind for Prince to tackle life as it looks at the age of 50+. One should think that a 50+ year old could have more profound things to say about life, than a 20 year old, no?
[Edited 2/4/10 4:41am]
[Edited 2/4/10 4:43am]

I get the impression that Prince is just doing what he wants to do (as always) Whomever is interested to listen, listens. There's no effort to convert , nor is there any need.

Prince has come out with an album nearly every year. I think Prince is a genius too.

Inspiration comes when it comes.

Genesia said:

You are right. I'm greatful to the friends kind enough to share the sights and sounds from the past. Imo, he gave it his all back in the day. Guess there'll never be another like him...no pun intended.
[Edited 2/4/10 19:31pm]

I agree with most of the points on here: getting old sucks; he should stop hanging out at too many fashion shows and jw meetings; and he NEEDS a producer, or a foil -- Wendy and Lisa, or to allow someone else in as music director. The production on his songs is amazing, it is just the choice of material, and not allowing outside influence that causes problems. Even reading the articles with Eric Leeds on here the other day, I was struck by what a sobering influence he could have. If he put him in charge of a project, say one album, and asked him to choose songs, veto some ideas and basically sequence it and maybe even mix it, there would be far less bs. What do the fans want? Well, I can think of half a dozen songs that haven't been released that could be given a dusting off for starters. Then you'd only need to come up with 6 good new songs to make an album. I hope he doesn't go on with this pace of releases. He needs to hang back a couple of years now.

stichdoll said:

I get you, and I agree.

What Prince could consider now, is to do to his music what Lars Von Trier did to his films, say to himself:
"I can do anything technically .. so the problem is not my handcraft or anything of the sort, only my own idiosyncrasies or ideas about how I should do things". And as Von Trier did, he could put up some rules for himself (like the Dogma 95 rules, if anyone's familiar), like say for instance ..

1) No effects - the tune must carry itself
2) No concept - the individual song must be able to stand on its own
3) No ego (meaning, don't hide behind your own image. Trier wrote a similar rule, stating that he himself should not be credited for his work, so the film could only be looked at as a "film" and not a part of some Trier mythology).
4) No faking - write what you know, not what you think you can imagine.
.. And so forth.

Yeah, I know.. this is perhaps a topic on its own, but I really think that what Prince creatively needs aren't ideas but rather restraint. If he won't work with others as equals, then he could try out his abilities in self-competition, not in an ego-boosting sort of way, but in a serious artistic game.