The dynamic sound in Prince's music in the 1980s were indeed groundbreaking, the fusion between funk, rock and pop. The way Prince was using drum machines was unique.

Prince was a pioneer, but not anymore. That stopped with Emancipation and forward.

Sad but true.

MajesticOne89 said:

LinnLM1 said:

Prince combined funk and rock......but Sly Stone did that well before Prince. P Funk too. (Though neither of these artists took it to the extremes Prince did imo.)

[Edited 10/12/10 16:46pm]

[Edited 10/12/10 16:48pm]

[Edited 10/12/10 17:31pm]

Could you explain that a little more? I'm curious as to what extremes you think Prince furthered himself combining the two genres.

Specifically, the rockin' level of lead guitar in so many of Prince's songs. Sly never had that type of lead rock guitar in any of his songs that Prince has had. Prince songs like Let's Go Crazy, Computer Blue, Purple Rain, Temptation, Darling Nikki, Little Red Corvette, Bambi, etc...... I have to say though that P Funk's "Maggot Brain" is up there with those Prince tracks. Eddie Hazel was a monster.

he broke ground in Chanhassen to build Paisley Park, just sayin...

Tremolina said:

alandail said:

Prince was certainly groundbreaking. He's the reason there's something called the Minneapolis sound.

Is he groundbreaking today? Not really, no one person is going to be consistently groundbreaking for 30+ years.

Who, in this current day and age, still produces the "Minneapolis sound", except for Prince?

What does that question even mean? The Beatles were groundbreaking. Who in this current day and age produces the "beatles sound"?

And Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis made a career out of bringing the Minneapolis sound to other artists.

songs like "When Doves Cry""Kiss" and "Sign O' the Times" and "Housequake" still sound like signature Prince that was groundbreaking and hugely influential and respected.

They took musical genre vocabulary and combined them into sentences that said something new!

I personally feel that songs like the studio version of "Days of Wild", "Pheremone", "319", "The Ball" are also highly experimental and original, although they weren't widely pushed into the pop conscience.

Yeah he was ground breaking, combined New Wave, funk and rock. Sure he "stole" from a few people along the way.

Good artist borrow, great artist steal.

ufoclub said:

songs like "When Doves Cry""Kiss" and "Sign O' the Times" and "Housequake" still sound like signature Prince that was groundbreaking and hugely influential and respected.

They took musical genre vocabulary and combined them into sentences that said something new!

I personally feel that songs like the studio version of "Days of Wild", "Pheremone", "319", "The Ball" are also highly experimental and original, although they weren't widely pushed into the pop conscience.

I can see your appreciation for the ball but to say "Days of wild", "Pheromone" and "319" are highly experimental and original is absurd.

funkomatic said:

ufoclub said:

songs like "When Doves Cry""Kiss" and "Sign O' the Times" and "Housequake" still sound like signature Prince that was groundbreaking and hugely influential and respected.

They took musical genre vocabulary and combined them into sentences that said something new!

I personally feel that songs like the studio version of "Days of Wild", "Pheremone", "319", "The Ball" are also highly experimental and original, although they weren't widely pushed into the pop conscience.

I can see your appreciation for the ball but to say "Days of wild", "Pheromone" and "319" are highly experimental and original is absurd.

What song have you ever heard that had the construction of Pheremone? I've literally taken it apart and reconstructed as a joke back in '95. The harpsichord like keys come in and add whole different odd key flavor to it, and the distant vocal chants... and then the that underwater horn voice mixed with Prince's voice that comes in on the climax in this lazy taunting way. I've never heard that flavor outside of some hindi movie music I probably heard when I was 4!

And Days of Wild with it's basic musical toy crashing structure and the buried little orchestral hits is also unlike anything I've heard. Take away the vocal tracks (which are so cool and up front and clear), I'm talking about the music (arrangement and mix).

In contrast the live versions of Days of Wild are completely conservative and lack the groundbreaking aspects. Do you see where I'm coming from?

ufoclub said:

funkomatic said:

I can see your appreciation for the ball but to say "Days of wild", "Pheromone" and "319" are highly experimental and original is absurd.

What song have you ever heard that had the construction of Pheremone? I've literally taken it apart and reconstructed as a joke back in '95. The harpsichord like keys come in and add whole different odd key flavor to it, and the distant vocal chants... and then the that underwater horn voice mixed with Prince's voice that comes in on the climax in this lazy taunting way. I've never heard that flavor outside of some hindi movie music I probably heard when I was 4!

And Days of Wild with it's basic musical toy crashing structure and the buried little orchestral hits is also unlike anything I've heard. Take away the vocal tracks (which are so cool and up front and clear), I'm talking about the music (arrangement and mix).

In contrast the live versions of Days of Wild are completely conservative and lack the groundbreaking aspects. Do you see where I'm coming from?

In a vulgar sense Prince's music was ground breaking.

Most of us did not even know he was swearing in his music. Case in point erotic city, which many radio stations played all the time.

Also there is a Time song were Morris actually says "you can suck my d_ck." on Cool...correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty sure thats what he says.

I think Prince challenged censorship. The abilty for musicains to speak their minds.

In the way Prince crossed Punk funk and rock and roll was ground breaking.

The sexuality he brought to his shows and music paved the way for the LAdy Ga Ga's of today.

Sure others have done it, but not exactly like Prince. Prince did this so masterful. You knew right away he was not just another muscian. He had talent and was not a music nerd.

Basically there was a point when Prince can take any music and make it better. He understood music that well.

Now in later years Prince breaks new ground in his disatisfaction with his record company and now the distrubution of music. Is he right or wrong? Only time will tell. But Prince seems to out think the experts in some of his actions.

[Edited 10/22/10 9:32am]

Lets not forget, it was Prince who created the first alphabet for txt msg.

May u live 2 see the Dawn.

LOL!

muskiediver said:

In a vulgar sense Prince's music was ground breaking.

Most of us did not even know he was swearing in his music. Case in point erotic city, which many radio stations played all the time.

Also there is a Time song were Morris actually says "you can suck my d_ck." on Cool...correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty sure thats what he says.

I think Prince challenged censorship. The abilty for musicains to speak their minds.

In the way Prince crossed Punk funk and rock and roll was ground breaking.

The sexuality he brought to his shows and music paved the way for the LAdy Ga Ga's of today.

Sure others have done it, but not exactly like Prince. Prince did this so masterful. You knew right away he was not just another muscian. He had talent and was not a music nerd.

Basically there was a point when Prince can take any music and make it better. He understood music that well.

Now in later years Prince breaks new ground in his disatisfaction with his record company and now the distrubution of music. Is he right or wrong? Only time will tell. But Prince seems to out think the experts in some of his actions.

[Edited 10/22/10 9:32am]

Radio in my city never played the "fuck" version of Erotic City, and that's why we were so surprised when we listened to the 12" in 1984. One huge fan was actually turned off and prefered the radio edit where they just repeated "making love till cherry's gone" (I think).

Prince is groundbreaking simply by being himself.

This is not hyperbole. I challenge anyone to find a single artist who has been a commercially successful as Prince that can leap/cover so much ground, bridge as many musical genres, as Prince.

Example: Let's look at the 3CD set, Lotusflow3r. The fact is, no major superstar/artist would (could) put out a triple album as diverse as that.

[Edited 10/22/10 12:54pm]

skywalker said:

Prince is groundbreaking simply by being himself.

This is not hyperbole. I challenge anyone to find a single artist who has been a commercially successful as Prince that can leap/cover so much ground, bridge as many musical genres, as Prince.

Example: Let's look at the 3CD set, Lotusflow3r. The fact is, no major superstar/artist would put out a triple album as diverse as that.

Would? .............I'd change that 2 could.

skywalker said:

Prince is groundbreaking simply by being himself.

This is not hyperbole. I challenge anyone to find a single artist who has been a commercially successful as Prince that can leap/cover so much ground, bridge as many musical genres, as Prince.

Example: Let's look at the 3CD set, Lotusflow3r. The fact is, no major superstar/artist would put out a triple album as diverse as that.

yes. If you look through a microscope at an artist, hardly any of them are groundbeaking because every detail of their work might be influenced by someone before them, but zoom out and look at them through the full scope of their work and Prince is clearly groundbreaking.

Graycap23 said:

skywalker said:

Prince is groundbreaking simply by being himself.

This is not hyperbole. I challenge anyone to find a single artist who has been a commercially successful as Prince that can leap/cover so much ground, bridge as many musical genres, as Prince.

Example: Let's look at the 3CD set, Lotusflow3r. The fact is, no major superstar/artist would put out a triple album as diverse as that.

Would? .............I'd change that 2 could.

Done and done.

skywalker said:

Graycap23 said:

Would? .............I'd change that 2 could.

Done and done.

THIS THREAD IS PATHETIC, REDUNDANT, AND IDIOTIC

JoeTyler said:

THIS THREAD IS PATHETIC, REDUNDANT, AND IDIOTIC

See reply #5.

ufoclub said:

funkomatic said:

I can see your appreciation for the ball but to say "Days of wild", "Pheromone" and "319" are highly experimental and original is absurd.

What song have you ever heard that had the construction of Pheremone? I've literally taken it apart and reconstructed as a joke back in '95. The harpsichord like keys come in and add whole different odd key flavor to it, and the distant vocal chants... and then the that underwater horn voice mixed with Prince's voice that comes in on the climax in this lazy taunting way. I've never heard that flavor outside of some hindi movie music I probably heard when I was 4!

And Days of Wild with it's basic musical toy crashing structure and the buried little orchestral hits is also unlike anything I've heard. Take away the vocal tracks (which are so cool and up front and clear), I'm talking about the music (arrangement and mix).

In contrast the live versions of Days of Wild are completely conservative and lack the groundbreaking aspects. Do you see where I'm coming from?

We are talking about songs from the mid 90s. There were a lot of sounds around at this time. So I myself wasn't surprised at all by these kind of sounds and arrangements and didn't consider them experimental at all. Apart from that I don't think that these experiments were very successful ("Days of wild" sounds unfinished, "Pheromone" simple as hell).

[Edited 10/23/10 0:32am]

funkomatic said:

ufoclub said:

What song have you ever heard that had the construction of Pheremone? I've literally taken it apart and reconstructed as a joke back in '95. The harpsichord like keys come in and add whole different odd key flavor to it, and the distant vocal chants... and then the that underwater horn voice mixed with Prince's voice that comes in on the climax in this lazy taunting way. I've never heard that flavor outside of some hindi movie music I probably heard when I was 4!

And Days of Wild with it's basic musical toy crashing structure and the buried little orchestral hits is also unlike anything I've heard. Take away the vocal tracks (which are so cool and up front and clear), I'm talking about the music (arrangement and mix).

In contrast the live versions of Days of Wild are completely conservative and lack the groundbreaking aspects. Do you see where I'm coming from?

We are talking about songs from the mid 90s. There were a lot of sounds around at this time. So I myself wasn't surprised at all by these kind of sounds and arrangements and didn't consider them experimental at all. Apart from that I don't think that these experiments were very successful ("Days of wild" sounds unfinished, "Pheromone" simple as hell).

[Edited 10/23/10 0:32am]

I'm talking about the basic structures and creative ideas of the songs (like that herky smashing pattern of Days of Wild that is hi-lighted by the zylophone hits), but if you think Pheremone is simple and Days of Wild sounds unfinished, then we are listening in completely different ways to sounds and music! All I know is that my perception of what I feel Prince is doing new in these songs informs my own creative process, and I like where it takes my own work.

^Nevertheless it's really interesting how different we perceive music. Thanks for explaining me your point of you!