Wildboy said:

SOTT is OBVIOUSLY Prince's best album by leaps and bounds.

Contrary to popular belief, there's no 'official' ranking of Prince's albums. It is supposed to be decided on personal enjoyment and it's possible someone who likes Prince's music has other favs than PR or SOTT. I also think it's very rare that someone would enjoy a complete LP from start to finish so the amount of non-fav songs on a record are major deciding factors in rankings like this.

1. Purple Rain

2. Parade

3. Around the world in a day
4. SOTT

5. Dirty Mind

6. Lovesexy
7. 1999

8. The black album

9. Controversy

10. Prince

11. Old friends 4 sale

12. The Gold Experience
13. Chaos & Disorder

14. Come
15. Graffiti Bridge

16.
17. Batman

18. Diamonds & Pearls

19. For You

fine but you gotta add up the results and show us the final votes,,,

1. Sign O' The Times

2. 1999

3. Purple Rain

4. Dirty Mind

5. Parade

6. Prince

7. Around The World In A Day

8. Lovesexy

9. Symbol

10.The Gold Experience

11.Come

12.Black Album

13.Controversy

14.Diamonds & Pearls

15.Graffiti Bridge

16.Chaos & Disorder

17.For You

18.The Vault: Old Friends

19.Batman

Huggiebear said:

aiden3121 said:

12. Dirty Mind 13. Sign O' The Times 14. Parade

Say whaaat!!! And your not the only one some people are ranking Dirty Mind in 16th place, why, that album was the classic that inspired all his other classics.

I only like 4 songs off dirty mind and as i said before with sott i thought it was mixed poorly which brings it down i thought the movie versions were way better and i only like 5 songs off parade. in hindsight i probably would switch dirty mind and sott. but as some other people have said its an opinion thread which were all entitled our list and how can there be a vote on an opinion thread?

Abdul said:

I think it all depends on personal taste Wildboy, I rate SOTT fourth behind Purple Rain, Dirty Mind, and 1999 his best album IMO.

Ok, see, this is a list I can understand though. Putting those albums before SOTT could be a matter of conjecture. But people putting things like Chaos and Disorder and Graffiti Bridge in front of SOTT.....that's just crazy talk and people TRYING to start controversy on the Org.

Now don't get me wrong, there's definitely a matter of taste involved in a lot of things.

But if someone says "What feels better, a great back rub? Or accidentally getting a large drop of tabasco sauce in you open eye?"

Me: "Uhhhhh....obviously the back rub...."

Some Crazy People on the org: "NO!! WRONG AGAIN WILDBOY!!!! I like getting my hot sauce on my eyeball, it's the Best thing ever!"

We can sit here all day arguing every little thing, Is the sky really blue? The earth could be flat, Have you ever seen it? Gravity isn't real if you don't believe in it! WTF. You can argue that EVERYTHING in the whole world is just an opinion then. Here's how it goes to everyone who has ears

SOTT = Classic

Graffiti Bridge = Poop

Anybody who disagrees with me can feel free to not respond, cause I'm not going to look anyway

This is how I rate them as whole albums, however, some of the lower albums (such as Graffiti bridge) have a handful of amazing songs.

1. The Gold Experience

2. Parade

3. 1999

4. Purple Rain

5. Lovesexy

6. Sign O The Times

7. Love Symbol

8. Chaos and Disorder

9. Come

10. ATWIAD

11. Controversy

12. Diamonds and Pearls

13. Batman

14. Graffiti Bridge

15. The Black Album

16. The Vault

17. Dirty Mind

18. Prince

19. For You

But ask me again tomorrow and I'll totally change my mind. Except for numbers 1 and 2.

Wildboy said:

Ok, see, this is a list I can understand though. Putting those albums before SOTT could be a matter of conjecture. But people putting things like Chaos and Disorder and Graffiti Bridge in front of SOTT.....that's just crazy talk and people TRYING to start controversy on the Org.

Anybody who disagrees with me can feel free to not respond, cause I'm not going to look anyway

Oh you're going to look.

Whether you like it or not, art is subjective. There's nothing in the world that factually makes one album "better" than another. You can argue from a perspective of one being more "popular", influential, etc... but not when it comes to something like best/worst.

I truely honestly do not like Sign o the times. Its very boring to me. I always dont understand why people love it so much. I have tried and tried to like it because others love it so much but its just not for me. I never have any desire at all to listen to it nowadays. Its a permanent fixture on the shelf now. Purple Rain and 1999 are hands down his best. These are two of the greatest albums by any artist ever made!! I know die hards always like to be different and pick a different one but these two are amazing!! I really dig Gold, Chaos, Symbol and Around the World too but Purple Rain and 1999 are fantastic!!

This was more difficult than I thought. I had to make 2 lists. The first list is based on what I like to listen to today. The second is what I consider to be the quality of the album in terms of, well basically, in terms of pop music history. So while in some sense I can see SOTT and PR as better albums than, say, Controversy, when it comes right down to it, I’d rather listen to Controversy.

What I like to listen to today

1. 1999

2. Lovesexy

3. Controversy

4. The Gold Experience

5. Dirty Mind

6. Sign O The Times

7. The Vault: Old Friends for Sale

8. Parade

9. Purple Rain

10. For You

(I stopped at 10 because while the other albums are really good and everything, they don’t get that many spins on my stereo these days so it's hard to rank them. Plus there’s a non WB album that i would throw into my current top 10, except its not WB, so it ain’t on this list.)

Quality of the Songs, Groundbreaking Music, Greatness at the time, etc.

1. Sign O The Times

2. 1999

3. Purple Rain

4. Lovesexy

5. Dirty Mind

6. Controversy

7. The Gold Experience

8. Parade

9. Diamonds and Pearls

10. ATWIAD

11. Love Symbol

12. Graffiti Bridge

13. Prince

14. Batman

15. The Vault: Old Friends for Sale

16. Come

17. Chaos and Disorder

18. The Black Album

19. For You

The difference in the 2 lists is in part what has or hasn't aged well (the poor mixes and production hurt some of the songs on SOTT) and in part on changes in my personal taste.

It's not easy indeed.... I'll divide into ones that I still listen to and ones that I don't really listen to anymore.

1. Parade

2. ATWIAD

3. Sign O The Times

4. The Vault: Old Friends for Sale

5. Dirty Mind

6. The Black Album

7. Come

8. For You

9. 1999

The way it sounds is quite important in this. The horns on the Vault and Come make the albums a lot more enjoyable than they would be solely based on the power of the songs. And Purple Rain is in the "not listened to anymore" list because of that atrocious title song, it kills the album for me. And I listen to 1999 in spite of how it sounds, so I don't understand Prince's obsession to make his last albums sound the same (and using samples of 1999), as the songs are nowhere near as strong.

10. Purple Rain

11. Prince

12. Chaos and Disorder

13. Graffiti Bridge

14. Lovesexy

15. Controversy

16. The Gold Experience

17. Diamonds and Pearls

18. Love Symbol

19. Batman

It's interesting to me that his albums lovesexy and onward haven't aged well. If only production was as good as Rainbow Children/Vault/Come/Madhouse 8 on most of his albums!

Purple Rain

1999

Sign "O" the Times

Parade

Dirty Mind

Lovesexy

Controversy

Around the World in a Day

Love Symbol

The Black Album

Prince

Come

The Gold Experience

Diamonds and Pearls

Graffiti Bridge

Chaos & Disorder

For You

Batman

The Vault

[Edited 10/19/10 13:31pm]

LiveToTell86 said:

Wildboy said:

SOTT is OBVIOUSLY Prince's best album by leaps and bounds.

Contrary to popular belief, there's no 'official' ranking of Prince's albums. It is supposed to be decided on personal enjoyment and it's possible someone who likes Prince's music has other favs than PR or SOTT. I also think it's very rare that someone would enjoy a complete LP from start to finish so the amount of non-fav songs on a record are major deciding factors in rankings like this.

Wrong -

OFFICIAL LIST - AS PAST BY US AND EUROPEAN, NATO & THE UN LAW 19-10-2010 OR 10-19-2010

BEST ALL TIME GREATEST PRINCE CD/ALBUM BY WB IS .......................................

DRUM ROLE.......................

1. SIGN OF THE TIMES

[Edited 10/19/10 14:01pm]

1. Sign “☮” the Times
2. 1999
3. Dirty Mind
4. Purple Rain
5. The Gold Experience
6. Prince
7. Controversy
8. Around the World in a Day
9. Diamonds and Pearls
10. Parade
11. 
12. The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale
13. For You
14. Lovesexy
15. Batman
16. The Black Album
17. Graffiti Bridge
18. Come
19. Chaos and Disorder

[Edited 11/1/10 22:09pm]

1. Parade

2. Purple Rain

3. Lovesexy

4. Controversy

5. Dirty Mind

6. Sign "O" the Times

7. 1999

8. Love Symbol

9. Around the World in a Day

10. Diamonds and Pearls

11. Prince

12.The Gold Experience

13. Batman

14. Graffiti Bridge

15. Come

16. For You

17. Chaos & Disorder