3121 and Lotus Flow3r were definitely decent material from him.

Yeah, most Bowie fans don't put down the later output. So that's a bad comparison.

With Miles, well, most recognize that during the 1980s he just had an entirely different approach to music. Had Miles not died in the early-90s I'm sure he would have recorded jazzier or at least more freeform material again.

Ok, thanks guys, I feel better knowing that we're not the only ones trippin' like that

Still, since 90% of these thread is always "Prince hasn't released a decent album since 1995" and "Prince sucks". I feel the debate a bit well, not being much of a debate. It's like most people can't see the many merits of Prince's later releases. It's weird IMO.

That's because people with strong opinions usually feel the need to voice them out frequently.

novabrkr said:

Yeah, most Bowie fans don't put down the later output. So that's a bad comparison.

With Miles, well, most recognize that during the 1980s he just had an entirely different approach to music. Had Miles not died in the early-90s I'm sure he would have recorded jazzier or at least more freeform material again.

A lot of MFs (Miles fans) don't like what he did after 1975. Or even after the 60s. Not me.

madhouseman said:

databank said:

Why do we even care to compare (10 times a week in 10 different threads)? Honestly do Miles Davis fans compare "Tutu" to "A Kind Of Blue"? Do David Bowie fans compare "Ziggy Stardust" with "Hours"?

Prince said it as early as 1996: "My only competition is me in the past". Dammit he was sooooo right

Yes, of course people compare Bowie and Miles Davis' later work to their early work. They do the same with The Stones, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Beach Boys and so many other artists. It is a very fair comparison, because you are looking at the entire catalog of an entertainer and fairly noting their strengths and weaknesses. Any objective look at a career is going to note peaks and valleys, and any great artist is going to have hits and misses. Patterns are created from their output, trends can be seen with perspective and artistic growth can be charted (and appreciated) when someone steps back and examines a career. It is impossible to not hear the difference in The Beatles' music from 1963 compared to 1969. Entire books have been written comparing the two periods, their influences, their output and their legacy. The same about other artists/performers: Picasso, Walt Disney, Michael Jordan, even The Simpsons have all had their legacy scrutinized. Sometimes the comparisons are flattering and sometimes they are critical, but it is very common to do.

We care because we enjoy the music and want more than we have gotten from just listening to it. We care because to many of us on the org, Prince's music is the soundtrack to our lives.

Regarding comparisons of Bowie, just within the last week I've had two great conversations (one with a co-worker and one with Per Nilsen) comparing Bowie's most recent output to his early work. Both came up very favorably for Bowie.

bowie had his head up his own arse in the 80s, something he readily admits. once he woke up to himself he started releasing mature, classic, intelligent albums again and his reality tour in 2007 was better than anything prince has done since d+p. age really is no excuse for mediocrity, take someone like nick cave whose work has matured over the years but never lost its edge.

NouveauDance said:

I think Prince has self-destructive issues, so he was gonna go off the rails creatively either way.

Just gimme dem unreleased 78-88 tracks and he can piss out as many MPLSounds and Raves as he wants for all I care. Box O' Chocolates and Soundboard 7/6/84 are his best post-WB releases!

Yep, my thoughts entirely........

robertgeorgeakabob said:

madhouseman said:

Yes, of course people compare Bowie and Miles Davis' later work to their early work. They do the same with The Stones, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Beach Boys and so many other artists. It is a very fair comparison, because you are looking at the entire catalog of an entertainer and fairly noting their strengths and weaknesses. Any objective look at a career is going to note peaks and valleys, and any great artist is going to have hits and misses. Patterns are created from their output, trends can be seen with perspective and artistic growth can be charted (and appreciated) when someone steps back and examines a career. It is impossible to not hear the difference in The Beatles' music from 1963 compared to 1969. Entire books have been written comparing the two periods, their influences, their output and their legacy. The same about other artists/performers: Picasso, Walt Disney, Michael Jordan, even The Simpsons have all had their legacy scrutinized. Sometimes the comparisons are flattering and sometimes they are critical, but it is very common to do.

We care because we enjoy the music and want more than we have gotten from just listening to it. We care because to many of us on the org, Prince's music is the soundtrack to our lives.

Regarding comparisons of Bowie, just within the last week I've had two great conversations (one with a co-worker and one with Per Nilsen) comparing Bowie's most recent output to his early work. Both came up very favorably for Bowie.

bowie had his head up his own arse in the 80s, something he readily admits. once he woke up to himself he started releasing mature, classic, intelligent albums again and his reality tour in 2007 was better than anything prince has done since d+p. age really is no excuse for mediocrity, take someone like nick cave whose work has matured over the years but never lost its edge.

exactly. Hopefully Prince will have highs and lows like that as well. That would be great for everyone.

18 years of WB. hands down!

Well, as an artist myself, I am happy that Prince is free. But I always found strange that Prince complained that he could not release as much music as he wanted to at WB, but he is not releasing tons of stuff after he was free. His sites were always very poor and his recent albums dont have many outtakes. And back at WB, his albums were better promoted than today (and WB´s promotion sucked in the 90s).

But if Prince is happy, it´s fine for me. For me, that´s what matters.

robertgeorgeakabob said:

bowie had his head up his own arse in the 80s, something he readily admits.

Shut up, Absolute Beginners rules!

But your assessment of Nick Cave is spot-on.

Bowie either challenged himself (Tin Machine, Buddha Of Suburbia, Earthling) or explored new territories in his own style (Black Tie White Noise, Outside), then came back to a sort of neo-self-classicism, and everything was more or less acclaimed by his fans.

Prince cannot be compared precisely in the sense that he released 4 albums when Bowie would release one. But whenever Prince challenged himself (Kamasutra, The Truth, The War, One Nite Alone..., Xpectations, N.E.W.S., C-Note) his fans butchered him, whenever he explored new territories in his own style (the "plastic" albums), they butchered him even more, and when he finally came back to a sort of neo-self-classicism (starting with Musicology) his fans finally concluded that he'd lost his edge

So in the end what is Prince supposed to do that will make his fandom happy?

Most of his projects came across halfhearted and somewhat rushed without being thought through up to the end.

If you didn't get kissed by a muse anymore, you need to work extra hard, give yourself a bigger time frame etc. Prince doesn't do that. He doesn't question himself. Which makes it a lot easier from him to release lots of stuff, mediocre at most.

On the other hand there's a certain quality standard he set in the past. So expectation comes in. If I listen to a new Prince record, I expect him to try to reach out for something even better than what he did in the past.

So in the end it's the quality he should work on.

GustavoRibas said:

his recent albums dont have many outtakes

I'm not sure there's a correlation between the number of songs Prince records and the number of outtakes we get. There are fewer "leaks", that's all.

I would say WB old time but, I must say I had great moments during the past 15 years, some of them:

• 1999 Rave DVD
• Rave Un2 the joy fantastic
• Some of aftershow around 1998 (but not only) were kick ass!
• The NPGMC hadio show.
• The NPGMC high / concept album, some songs were really really good.
• One song (too bad there is only poor quality version)
• Cloud Guitar available for sale
• Cristall Ball

Would it have been better under a WB contract ? Nobody can tell...

Still I feel like Prince is missing some quality control, good engineer and/or personel.

If you take Come cd as example (or Gold) how many version WB asked from Prince ? In the end, we got somehing near perfect.

LAWD, you need only listen to the bulk of material Prince actually performs today.

mwu said:

I would say WB old time but, I must say I had great moments during the past 15 years, some of them:

• 1999 Rave DVD
• Rave Un2 the joy fantastic
• Some of aftershow around 1998 (but not only) were kick ass!
• The NPGMC hadio show.
• The NPGMC high / concept album, some songs were really really good.
• One song (too bad there is only poor quality version)
• Cloud Guitar available for sale
• Cristall Ball

Would it have been better under a WB contract ? Nobody can tell...

Still I feel like Prince is missing some quality control, good engineer and/or personel.

If you take Come cd as example (or Gold) how many version WB asked from Prince ? In the end, we got somehing near perfect.

WB only asked Prince to reconfigurate Come ONCE and they were as dissatisfied with the album as it was released than they were with the first version Prince had offered. They absolutely never messed with the content of The Gold Experience (Prince did reconfigurate it on his own every time), and from the lack of promo, we can deduct that WB had little faith it it either.

There was absolutely NO quality control from the part of WB save the few exceptions I've mentioned above: Prince was too stubborn and too much of a star for them to be able to mess with his albums.

As for the good engineers and personnel, I don't think the staff at Paisley is less qualified than ever before, and Prince's musicians are as good (if not better in the case of the Blackwell/Smith/Neto configuration) than any band he had before.

funkomatic said:

Most of his projects came across halfhearted and somewhat rushed without being thought through up to the end.

I'd say it's the opposite, at least recently: some of the material used on Lotusflow3r and Elixer has been matured for 3 years, which was very uncommon in the 80's (only Jill Jones was recorded in such a long time). Sure 20Ten seems to have been recorded in a rush, but if u listen carefuly to albums such as Emancipation, Rave, LotusFlow3r and Mplsound, there's obviously a LOT of hard work behind them, with complex multi-track construction and well-thought arrangements.

Other projects like The War , C-Note, Xpectation or N.E.W.S were based on improvisation sessions, so of course too many overdubs would have killed the spontaneity more than it'd have helped.

Anyway as we now have little information on Prince's recording sessions, we cannot say if Prince worked a lot or not on his material since 1996, but anyway if he was spending more time on his material and releasing an album every 3 years, we all would go mad saying that he should release more albums

Now i agree that Prince doesn't seem to question himself a lot, nor does he listen to any new music save the mainstream artists he cannot avoid to hear, and that's a pity because he could explore many musical territories that he does.

[Edited 5/16/11 2:29am]

SquirrelMeat said:

I'm a bigger fan than most of the post WB stuff, buy weighing it all up, the WB era material from was far superior.

Did Prince suddenly lose it musically when he left WB? Some will argue yes, with the albums as evidence. I don't think Prince has lost it musically at all.

So the question should be not which do I prefer, but why do I think the independent era is weaker?

I think the problem stems from the fact that the record company was the only entity EVER in Prince's career to question and reject his work. They were the only other party with a serious commerical interest and the only people around Prince that were not "yes" men. Of course, this is the very reason Prince eventually wanted out, because he felt a "Slave", but the fact is, the power that WB had to say no actually improved Prince's output.

WB spend most of the partnership strangling Prince's output. This did two things. Firstly, it usually focused his mind on one concept at a time. He only had one shot a year to say something to the world and I think the output was often more connected and whole.

Secondly, it restricted his volume. Meaning the better cuts made the grade. Sure there are some great outtakes, but as a whole, the best tracks made the album. Without that restriction, we got bloated productions like Emacipation.

I also think that technology played a part in making the WB material feel stronger. Again it's about the effect of restricting Prince's output. Vinyl made Prince think about what he could get out. Its no coincidence that the "Classic" albums were all native to vinyl. The advent of Prince albums native to CD in the 90's led to Prince leaving track on albums that would not have made the cut previously.

Prince is still making great material, he just doesn't have a foil to make him raise his game like WB, and that has made him lazy with his production, and allowed him to put out below par material all over the place.

The new good stuff is there, its just drowned out with mediocrity.

I agree with this.When Prince was with Warners,his career had more structure,more focus.Of course,he began to feel restricted and wanted his "freedom" but from a fan's perspective,him being signed to Warners was a great thing.Now that he's free to do what he pleases,it just feels like things are out of control (most of the time).There are good songs here and there,but I can't call any of the post-Warners albums a "classic".

On the other hand there's a certain quality standard he set in the past. So expectation comes in. If I listen to a new Prince record, I expect him to try to reach out for something even better than what he did in the past.

This is the problem IMO: every artist has a golden age and very few manage to reach it again. Now as it was said before they EVOLVE.

If D'angelo or Raphael Saadiq or Janelle Monae had released ANY of the albums Prince released since 1996, everybody would have had multiple orgasms and covered their walls with sperm, and everybody would be talking about these artists' genius.

Same goes with Goldnigga: if it had been a fresh new hip-hop band releasing their first album, in the context of 1993, everybody would have gone crazy about this lovely new combo who mixes jazz, funk and hip-hop in such a clever manner.

And if George Clinton had released The War in 99 it's likely that most people would have acclaimed a "return to form" reminding them of the great years of Funkadelic

It's funny because Prince himself was aware of this as early as 1987: "If I release 8 under my name, they're gonna slaughter me for trying to play jazz. But if they think it's a band led by Eric Leeds, they might like this nice little jazz-funk album"

Prince will NEVER be the "avant-garde" Prince of 1980-1988 again. NEVER.

Get over it & enjoy the music for what it is, not what u expect it to be.

4 me NO DOUBT = 18 years of WB is far away the best ones 10000 times than his 15 years of freedom !!!!

databank said:

funkomatic said:

Most of his projects came across halfhearted and somewhat rushed without being thought through up to the end.

I'd say it's the opposite, at least recently: some of the material used on Lotusflow3r and Elixer has been matured for 3 years, which was very uncommon in the 80's (only Jill Jones was recorded in such a long time). Sure 20Ten seems to have been recorded in a rush, but if u listen carefuly to albums such as Emancipation, Rave, LotusFlow3r and Mplsound, there's obviously a LOT of hard work behind them, with complex multi-track construction and well-thought arrangements.

Other projects like The War , C-Note, Xpectation or N.E.W.S were based on improvisation sessions, so of course too many overdubs would have killed the spontaneity more than it'd have helped.

Anyway as we now have little information on Prince's recording sessions, we cannot say if Prince worked a lot or not on his material since 1996, but anyway if he was spending more time on his material and releasing an album every 3 years, we all would go mad saying that he should release more albums

Now i agree that Prince doesn't seem to question himself a lot, nor does he listen to any new music save the mainstream artists he cannot avoid to hear, and that's a pity because he could explore many musical territories that he does.

[Edited 5/16/11 2:29am]

Even if he worked hard for the more recent releases, it wasn't enough IMO. This is mediocre conventional stuff, done before without very little new interesting aspects. I'm bored with it.

Of course your're right, every project is a little bit different to judge.

BTW: I like "The war", some parts of "C-Note" and "Xpectation".

I listen to Prince's new material maybe once maybe twice. So I wouldn't have any problems at all to wait a few years for a really ambitious project.

In the end I'm not interested in how Prince does it, if he worked hard for it or not, I'm all about the result.

databank said:

On the other hand there's a certain quality standard he set in the past. So expectation comes in. If I listen to a new Prince record, I expect him to try to reach out for something even better than what he did in the past.

This is the problem IMO: every artist has a golden age and very few manage to reach it again. Now as it was said before they EVOLVE.

If D'angelo or Raphael Saadiq or Janelle Monae had released ANY of the albums Prince released since 1996, everybody would have had multiple orgasms and covered their walls with sperm, and everybody would be talking about these artists' genius.

Same goes with Goldnigga: if it had been a fresh new hip-hop band releasing their first album, in the context of 1993, everybody would have gone crazy about this lovely new combo who mixes jazz, funk and hip-hop in such a clever manner.

And if George Clinton had released The War in 99 it's likely that most people would have acclaimed a "return to form" reminding them of the great years of Funkadelic

It's funny because Prince himself was aware of this as early as 1987: "If I release 8 under my name, they're gonna slaughter me for trying to play jazz. But if they think it's a band led by Eric Leeds, they might like this nice little jazz-funk album"

Prince will NEVER be the "avant-garde" Prince of 1980-1988 again. NEVER.

Get over it & enjoy the music for what it is, not what u expect it to be.

Prince doesn't really evolve! Look at him! He still tries to look like he's 30. He still plays the same old stuff in concerts. The new material on record sounds pretty much exchangable. You wouldn't even know if it was written or recorded in the 90s or 00s. etc.

Do we really need to talk about "what if"-questions?

It's all about striving for the best. Of course I know that he won't be avant-garde again! I would be an idiot to think so after 20 years going by...lol

Sorry, most of his new material doesn't appeal to me. So I don't want to force myself to listen to it more than once or twice.

There was a time when I looked forward to the next Prince record. Now I look forward to the next Bob Dylan record. Bob has gotten better with age. Prince is a mess. But at least he is free! But is he really free when he has to rely on performing his WB hits catalogue to sell tickets? Hmmmmm......

LayDownMisty said:

There was a time when I looked forward to the next Prince record. Now I look forward to the next Bob Dylan record. Bob has gotten better with age. Prince is a mess. But at least he is free! But is he really free when he has to rely on performing his WB hits catalogue to sell tickets? Hmmmmm......

the wb hits catalogue was mainly written by prince, not wb. Most artists have to play their hits to sell out to the masses, casual fans do not give a damn about his (or anyone else's) back catalogue

LayDownMisty said:

There was a time when I looked forward to the next Prince record. Now I look forward to the next Bob Dylan record. Bob has gotten better with age. Prince is a mess. But at least he is free! But is he really free when he has to rely on performing his WB hits catalogue to sell tickets? Hmmmmm......

Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?

eyewishuheaven said:

robertgeorgeakabob said:

bowie had his head up his own arse in the 80s, something he readily admits.

Shut up, Absolute Beginners rules!

But your assessment of Nick Cave is spot-on.

i'll give you absolute beginners, and as i'm in a good mood i'll chuck in modern love too. love that song, cheesy as it is!

databank said:

mwu said:

I would say WB old time but, I must say I had great moments during the past 15 years, some of them:

• 1999 Rave DVD
• Rave Un2 the joy fantastic
• Some of aftershow around 1998 (but not only) were kick ass!
• The NPGMC hadio show.
• The NPGMC high / concept album, some songs were really really good.
• One song (too bad there is only poor quality version)
• Cloud Guitar available for sale
• Cristall Ball

Would it have been better under a WB contract ? Nobody can tell...

Still I feel like Prince is missing some quality control, good engineer and/or personel.

If you take Come cd as example (or Gold) how many version WB asked from Prince ? In the end, we got somehing near perfect.

WB only asked Prince to reconfigurate Come ONCE and they were as dissatisfied with the album as it was released than they were with the first version Prince had offered. They absolutely never messed with the content of The Gold Experience (Prince did reconfigurate it on his own every time), and from the lack of promo, we can deduct that WB had little faith it it either.

There was absolutely NO quality control from the part of WB save the few exceptions I've mentioned above: Prince was too stubborn and too much of a star for them to be able to mess with his albums.

As for the good engineers and personnel, I don't think the staff at Paisley is less qualified than ever before, and Prince's musicians are as good (if not better in the case of the Blackwell/Smith/Neto configuration) than any band he had before.

Well, like said, it is just a feeling.

I do not know precisly everything that happen around gold / come production or lets say post WB era.

I just remember a bunch of interviews I read, specially an old one of Tomy B. and Statik the programmer.

They said at that time they were fooling around PP, designing new sounds, programming new groove and in the end we got days of wild, now, aknowledge me etc.

Not sure if Prince alone could make such a complicated multilayers song these days.

Same for andy beach and zeke clark (former van halen guitar tech) who could achive the massive raw sound of the undertaker session.

Now, who is around Prince when he is tracking a song? What is the technology ? Who are the sound engineers, guitar tech and so ?

Pro tool and autotune ?

I beleive around WB, he had more budget thus more personel around that gave him the proper tools (guitar, loop, synth, sample etc.) to shape his output.

free to discuss.

databank said:

Bowie either challenged himself (Tin Machine, Buddha Of Suburbia, Earthling) or explored new territories in his own style (Black Tie White Noise, Outside), then came back to a sort of neo-self-classicism, and everything was more or less acclaimed by his fans.

Prince cannot be compared precisely in the sense that he released 4 albums when Bowie would release one. But whenever Prince challenged himself (Kamasutra, The Truth, The War, One Nite Alone..., Xpectations, N.E.W.S., C-Note) his fans butchered him, whenever he explored new territories in his own style (the "plastic" albums), they butchered him even more, and when he finally came back to a sort of neo-self-classicism (starting with Musicology) his fans finally concluded that he'd lost his edge

So in the end what is Prince supposed to do that will make his fandom happy?

- Good point. It´s very hard to please his fanbase. Some love the musician Prince, others like the dance tunes, others like his attitude (cursing, talking about sex, etc). Prince still challenges himself, especially when he goes in the jazz direction. But some fans dont like, because it´s not ´edgy´. A good example is ´Te amo corazon´. The chord progression on this song is very different from the ´Do me baby/Scandalous/Insatiable, etc´ formula. But some fans found it cheesy.

[Edited 5/17/11 20:55pm]

But for me the most annoying thing of the ´free´ Prince is the lack of DVDs. It´s been 8 years since he released an official one! And we are talking about the greatest live artist. No Coachella, no Montreux, no London...other artists released 3 or 4 DVDs since 2002.