accidently put EVERY outake onto my ipod

DAMN..post 87 there is some not bad stuff esp the madhouse 24 outtakes but damn!

i found myself pressing skip ALOT

most are pretty mediocre compared to every single outake from 82-86

infact his outakes from that purple period helped to create the legend of the outtake didnt it

without them.....hmmmm

let me just clarify

im comparing prince against prince here

but DAMN did the same man who wrote all day/all night and in all my dreams realy record united states of division or mad?

i know you shouldnt compare the original joy in repition to i am the dj..but when ipod is on random its ahrd not too

united states of division is not an outtake.

No surprise here...

The same goes for his official stuff!
[Edited 4/21/10 1:49am]

Right about the time he hermetically sealed himself up at PP. Hmmmmm.

NouveauDance said:

And that's the key point. Prince was awesome in the 80s because he allowed outside inspirations to intermingle with his own creativity and especially his acute sense for strong pop melodies. This took him to unparalleled heights, especially compared to his main rivals.

Make no mistake - it still required Prince's own genius to make that happen. But he couldn't have done it on his own.

But then he thought he could do just that. And he lost his curiosity. So yes - that's how the same man who wrote Sign O' The Times ended up writing Planet Earth.

It's a pretty dense period to go through if you have one of those The Work style mega collections, if you take the time to find what's good your patience will be rewarded.

Also: The Grand Progression

Xpertlover said:

THANK YOU! You're exactly right. He allowed Wendy, Lisa and others to influence his creative output. After 1988 that stopped - and he wanted to go it alone and we see what happened. Things worked through the early 1990's because his band, the NPG, was so bad ass (i.e. creative/talented/confident enough to provide their own creative vision -- see exodus) they could step up his game. but when they disbanded in the late 1990's - prince's output when to crap.

I found a lot of outtakes on a site recently that i had never heard of, and you are absolutely right. I stopped even clicking on any that listed the date after 92.
Everything about the post 87 tracks make them almost unlistenable, boots or otherwise.
The attention to detail is completely gone, all the drum patterns are not just run of the mill presets, but terrible ones to boot.
There just seems to be no passion on these, no bursts of creativity, no attention to detail in any way, just barely competent music by a very talented pro musician that seems bored and is just going through the motions.
[Edited 4/21/10 13:12pm]

U guys constantly over rate is early outtakes & officially released work for that matter. He definitely had some great work but he continued to even through the mid & late 90`s. It`s all a matter of opinion anyway. I`m not saying it wasn`t good b/c it was I`m just saying it`s not as amazing as u guys make it out to be in my opinion.

jonylawson said:

I loooove 'Mad' and also 'Eye am the DJ'! They're great fun. I mashed DJ up with Bowie's 'DJ'. It was groovy as hell.

Well considering most Orgers think everything after 1995 sucks that leaves you with 8 years of good music to enjoy.

My work is done.

Xpertlover said:

Good point. But I made the point in some other thread (I think the one about the Black Album) that I think it has more to do with the fact that up through the main recording of the Black Album, he was making albums out in the world. Influences could creep in, but more importantly, he had a lack of time and resources to "overdo" things and the experimentation was on a very bare-bones level, making do with what was available in whatever recording studio he happened to be in. When he opened PP, it was a state of the art modern studio stocked with every toy and gadget in the catalog. And he had unlimited access to it for as long as he wanted. First stuff he recorded there would have been some of the GB album and Lovesexy and then Batman and you can tell the difference between that stuff and even SOTT and the Black Album. he's got every sound effect and studio trick known to man thrown on that material. it's a completely different sound from what he was doing before. and that's fine. but I think he overdid it like a kid in the candy shop. one of the great things about his music before that was his use of "space" in his recordings. they're very dry and crisp and (usually) uncluttered. not to mention, fairly raw. after he started recording at PP, the sound got so bloated. it got really clean and polished and weighed down with a lot of pointless junk thrown onto tracks that didn't need it.

nosajd said:

Shhh!! No reality here!

I agree with you and it's exactly what I don't like, for example, on SOTT : those songs are brilliant but they sound "little", dry and flat.
Did not you even think that, what some call Prince's sound, was not his own in fact ? I mean before PP opened he was technically unable 2 achieve the level of production he was maybe looking for...

musicolog said:

Or maybe wasn't able to achieve the level of production without key personnel that parted ways most likely. Remember that Prince would record a lot of great stuff by himself at his home studio, and likewise at state of the art facilities in LA and it all sounded great.
The level of production of most of his later 90's work just sounded lazy. Gone were the mercurial, or even playful drum patterns replaced by either uncreative presets or uncreative live drumming. Gone were studio playfulness and artistry found even in B-sides like Shockadelica or Erotic City.
Its hard to pin-point exactly what the cause of his sudden and steep loss of musical creativity and quality, but it doesn't even sound like the same man.

I remember listening to Diamonds and Pearls when it was first released with some friends who were also Prince fans and they all laughed at how "dorky and lame" it all was. Dorky and lame were not what anyone would have described Prince music pre-88, but for the most part it describes just about everything he released in the 90's. And lets be honest here, Prince was not growing musically, he was stuck in a rut. Prince lost a lot fans in the 90's not because he was creating great music that went over peoples heads, it was because he was pandering down to shoe level to the lowest common denominator and his original fan base expected a hell of a lot more from him than that. And the kids he was desperately trying to pander to were not having it either.
[Edited 4/22/10 5:53am]

errant said:

Your post hit it on the head. I think also that's why Lovesexy is so so because he's still in that purple glo of SOTT but the sound is changing and you start to hear it reproduced in a lot of the post 88 music.

musicolog said:

Many people in his camp back then from Sheila E Alan Leeds Susan Rogers Dr Fink
have said/stated/pointed to a fact that Prince 'shines' or does his best with rawness with unpolished people and work.

The more technically advanced the musician or the equipment the more Prince looses that Rude boy rawness.

It's even similar to photos. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the 21 Nights book that I just bought at Borders for $4.99.

But I would kill for a similar book from the Dirty Mind tour or the Purple Rain tour, with raw photos or random shots taken by band members or whoever. Something about the simple quality of the music and photos even up to SOTT just had something more interesting.

I don't really know how to put my finger on it. I can listen to Leaving 4 New York, Broken, Tick Tick Bang(81) Old Friends 4 Sale, Extra Lovable Heaven, Electric Intercourse, over and over with the static and the muffled sound over LotusFlower(and I do like LotusFlower)

I enjoy Prince’s 90’s work as well as the 2000’s. To me they are all brilliant, creative and superior to most of what was released during this time by other artists. Now I know it’s all relative based on personal tastes and opinions but for me Prince delivered musically with imagination, boldness and spunk.

I’ve grown up with Prince’s music. I was hooked when I experienced my first listen with Controversy. It was so odd and funky. I was 11 years old and begged my parents for the album back in ’81. I got it and listened to it non stop. But when ’82 came along and 1999 and Little Red Corvette were all over the radio I was thinking wow, this is amazing. A double LP set with more funky, odd, pop and quirky songs just blew me away. Then when Purple Rain came out along with the film I was hooked for good. It wasn’t until Around The World In A Day was released that I was first “challenged” as a listener to Prince’s music and direction. Raspberry Beret was all over MTV and the radio and I could not get enough of it. But when I bought the album the first day and mind you I skipped part of the school day to walk to the mall to buy it, I wasn’t really ready for what I was about to hear that night. The title track threw me for a loop because it wasn’t Prince…it wasn’t Let’s Go Crazy or 1999 or Controversy. It was weird and it took me a few listens before I found the groove and loved it. In fact the entire album was like that for me. It wasn’t a hit or miss type of issue but more like a I’ve got to go back a re-hear that again. Around The World In Day was the first real challenge for me to realize that Prince was more than pop, funk and quirky songs but he was and is a conglomeration of all elements of music.

Prince still challenges me musically with each release. I still, to this day, get that feeling of excitement for his new music and enjoy the direction he takes me as a listener. I understand there are some people who differ but I'm having fun indulging in all music that is Prince…past, present and future.

i blame technological advances in music.

ludwig said:

it is not very good either

There is a reason why there outtakes

DAMN!

dont get the shit twisted

im on about his outtakes

i dont have a problem with his official output at all






















cept 1998

lotusflower said:

And Jughead gets released but not Moonbeam Levels, All My Dreams or Others Here With Us. Not really following your logic.

LuneCerise said:

The songs that you listed, don't seem to fit on any record... All My Dreams maybe on Parade... but Prince left them off. And Jughead, well yeah... that song sucks... I agree, Don't get me wrong, I love those outtakes you posted but they don't 'FIT' well on any of his records he released, does it?

And not all outtakes are brilliant...

lotusflower said:

Can't ague with the brilliant part. Some of his outtakes should have never made it past a fleeting thought. I get your point about them fitting on the albums as we know them. Although, I could see "Others" on ATWIAD.

I disagree. I think there are a lot of great outtakes circa 1993-1996. No doubt about it, for me (and I think most fans) 1983-1986 were his peak years as a studio artist but I think that 1993-1996 was a second, although inarguably weaker, peak. It seemed like by the mid '90s Prince was starting to use elements of rap and hip hop in a way that added to his music.

I am very curious to know what his post 1996 outtakes sound like. I'm sure that there are a lot of duds but sometimes Prince forgets about some great songs and releases much lesser ones, there have got to be a few unreleased gems in the vault circa 1997-2010.