A recurring theme in Prince's music his entire career has been just how adroit he is at crafting a song with signature sounds and embellishments you don't hear other places. Sometimes, it is obvious. The clever removal of the bass on "When Doves Cry" or the recital of the Lord's Prayer in "Controversy" seem simplistically genius in their way and leave people thinking, "Why haven't I heard something like this before?"

But I've been reading Possessed (thanks, again!) and it seems to me that by the time 1987 rolled around, Prince and Susan Rogers were way too precise and calculated to allow some of these "accidental genius" stories to be plausible. For instance, the story about "Forever In My Life" having an off-kilter vocal arrangement has been around for years but the distinguishing detail is that Alex says Prince specifically told Susan to turn off the background vocals preventing him from hearing them. Thus, his vocal cues were a bit off when he went to lay the final vocal track and he decided that the difference in timing "worked" for the song. It makes more sense to me, given all information I know about Prince's studio work prior, that this was part of the plan already - to have the background vocals slightly off from the lead vox.

If Prince truly wanted the backing vocals to perfectly match his lead vocals, he would've simply kept the vocals on in his monitors and he'd have been fine. In the end, they woulda lined his vocals up regardless if that is what he wanted. The idea he whimsically danced around the studio in a daze and simply said, "Let it be" to these fairly amateur mistakes is absurd to me.

Similarly, it strikes me as really out of character that the story about the creation of "If I Was Your Girlfriend" is supposedly true. Susan Rogers was no ingenue by the fall of 1986 and she had experienced some of the most grueling, diverse, complicated, and demanding work schedules in the industry for a person of her craft. To think that she simply would've allowed for the vocal tracks to run that hot without knowing it beforehand is unlikely. Mistakes are made and it happens and even though this might be the more realistic story of things that happened during the creation of the SOTT album, these are rookie mistakes. Not mistakes made by megastars and their studio wizards.

It seems to me that these kind of myths add to the allure and the mystery of an album. The idea that Prince, on a fame hangover, went into the studio and churned out a suite of understated, complex, and ultimately groundbreaking music makes the album sound more important than it might be. With the stylistic change in his aesthetics and the half in/half out aspect of the Revolution's contributions to the album juxtaposed with his solo work, the album already carries its own league of mystification.

So, do you think these stories are likely true? What are some other examples of supposed accidental genius that you think is actually Prince simply being very modest about how clever his ear really is?

My comments may not answer your question, but I've always accepted or believed that Prince's amazing productivity is a combination of both accidental genius and understated cleverness. So when Shelia E states that Prince isn't concerned with how well the song is recorded but what comes from your soul, this type of atmosphere will create room for accidental genius, and the understated cleverness is his being open to "what may come," and having the ear and the guts to use "what may come." Additionally, in many cases Prince will be strictly calculated. But that is the balance that all artists try to find or create: the intuitive, the calculated, and the happenstance. I would argue that the best example of this balance is that Prince is not as popular as he once was. I still find his work moving, but clearly his instincts of what works, whether it is calculating or embracing the "happy accidents"--to steal a term from painter Bob Ross--do not allow him to touch as many people as before. And if he was so much more calculating than being open to his accidental genius, he could definitely have more mainstream hits today. In 1980 he stated that he knew how to craft a hit for the radio, "that's what the second album was about; it was more for the record company because I had put myself in a hole with the first album."

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The creative writing textbook I use has a great story about the balance between the calculated and the accidental genius. Someone had the idea to combine a writing class and a dance class. The writing students walked into the classroom, took their places, and waited to be instructed. The dance students walked into the room, began stretching, and then began going through several motions, not formally practicing, but moreso playing or experimenting. After watching this for a while, one of the creative writing students stated, "We don't 'play' enough." The same happens with sports teams. No matter how tired players are at the end of practice, they will remain after practice and try trick shots and other things. In this vein, Prince was a master of allowing himself, his band members, and his engineers to "play," and even "play" can be calculated, understated cleverness.

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Does Prince wish to create myth and mystery? Of course he does. But the most creative of us are able to balance understated cleverness with accidental genius. The trick or the gift is to be able to know when an accident is worthy of being released to the public.

i think its a little of both. those sott stories could be true... although apparently that would mean they made quite a few silly mistakes on that album alone. seems like they were just really sloppy with it, but they got lucky and it came out great anyway.

but for the most part, i think he knows what hes doing when he makes those unique songwriting/musical decisions. he obviously did with when doves cry and controversy. i dont think he expected rainbow children to sell millions, but... thats not what hes aiming for anyway, right? even if he thought it deserved to.. he just writes what he believes in, as crazy as it is sometimes.

everybody knows hes got a wild imagination, so i dont think well never know for sure whether or not some of the amazing things hes done were actually on purpose :] and i bet he likes people to think he and his music are so mysterious. maybe thats part of why hes so private lol

That type of accidents happen every now and then, but I just think Prince had the guts to preserve some of them and build the rest of the track around them. The first reaction to such things by most production teams would be simply to erase them and then redo the takes. I think the reason why Prince has been able to put such things even on such commercially viable records is that he was in charge of everything. That doesn't apply to any of the 80s icons, really. He also had the tendency to use the equipment in quite unconventional ways - e.g. he used to put guitar pedals after the LinnDrum and I could see that complicating the process from the recording engineer's point of view.

I can't comment on "Forever In My Life" or "When Doves Cry", but the recorded takes ending up distorted is quite common. The thing is, you don't necessarily hear it on all recording environments and especially if you've been listening to the rough mixes for hours. Your ears wil get attuned to it and a small amount of distortion it isn't even that audible on some of the standardized monitors used in studios (I should know as I use a variant of the same type of monitors that most studios used in the 1980s for tracking / mixing) . Then you listen to the recordings a little bit later on and go "f-u-u-u-u-c-k", "why didn't I hear that earlier?".

The distortion can also occur at an earlier stage in the signal chain, so you won't necessarily even have a LED light on the mixer indicating that it's being overdriven. The distortion on "Little Red Corvette" and some SOTT tracks seems to be most apparent on headphones.

Yes I think they are true and they have been corroborated by other books too.

Even the most intelligent, skilled and professional people make mistakes and bear in mind the pressure and hours the engineers have to work then its very plausible.

I don't think it would be in any professional author's interest to make stories up, they would lose credibility in all their work and they would soon be corrected or cleared up by those involved.

Just because you don't think its likely doesn't mean it didn't happen. After all our knowledge of Prince is very shallow as Prince is very private and those close to him keep quiet.

I'm sure there are quite a lot of things to do with Prince we have no idea or comprehension about based on what is in the public domain.

[Edited 5/28/11 3:24am]

I think that mistakes did and do happen in the studio, maybe or not to the extent as described in "Possessed" or any other book, but at the end of the day Prince and whoever was his engineer at the time are human, and humans make mistakes.

Maybe some mistakes/mishaps/whatever were left on the original recordings. I'm not sure that stories were made to create some kind of myth surrounding the recording process of any given album though.

Maybe, maybe not, difficult to say for sure, only they know for certain of course.

Spinlight said:

The idea he whimsically danced around the studio in a daze and simply said, "Let it be" to these fairly amateur mistakes is absurd to me.

It's about art and how great artists work. In many ways Prince had always reminded me of Pablo Picasso. I first thought this when I listened to the original unreleased version of "Crystal Ball"

If any of you are familiar with Picasso, he was a young prodigy. His early works were more traditional precise representations of the subjects. It was only as he matured and grew as an artist that he was able to experiment the way he did. He did so with confidence and could only really move to the the abstract artwork that some of us know and love by having first mastered the basics for him to be able break free the way he did.

Similarly if you listen to Prince's first album, it is very perfect and precise. I do not think Prince or any other artist could have moved from and album like "For You" so confidently to songs like "Shockadelica" or "If I was Your Girlfriend" if he had not first mastered the basics to have the confidence to know he could pull something like these songs off.

What is the difference between and cleverness and genius with Picasso's or Prince's use of experimentation? It's just art. It's a matter of interpretation and appreciation by the viewer and listener nothing more.

I agree that they are rookie errors, but I don't see them as made up stories. They aren't exactly groundbreaking. My guess is two fold.

Firstly, Prince and Susan were recording these tracks at the end of his most active period. Prince was recording track after track after track, often in the middle of the night. So easy mistakes are probable.

Secondly, I think a mistake may have led to an idea, but not directly to the final product that we hear. Forever in my life is more complex than simple a miss cue. The backing vocals don't all come in at the same delay. Its obviously editted or planned.

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U must be the last 2 know, Wendy and Lisa are responsible 4 his genius.

Sometimes the genius is realising the serendipity in the accidents.

pepper7 said:

Bring on some more god damn mistakes I say!!

A recording studio is a very controlled environment. NOTHING gets done without someone pushing a button or turning a knob. Everyone has an "accident in the studio" story to tell. Prince, MJ, Madonna, Gerado, Jack White...it seems nobody knows what they are doing in the studio if all is to be believed. Experimenting with an effect and then saying it sounds good, it not the same as an accident that ends up on tape. Forever in my life? Really? Get a couple of friends together and start singing "Row Row Row your boat"...still seem so ground breaking?

Either by accident or by design, some of the "quirks" in his music are what's most endearing.

Stuff like the cough in Raspberry Beret, the mistiming of Forever In My Life, even the very chopped ending of Life Can Be So Nice.

You can tell that he is beyond this phase now, as every single song (whether it's good or not) is completely polished.

Se7en said:

Either by accident or by design, some of the "quirks" in his music are what's most endearing.

Stuff like the cough in Raspberry Beret, the mistiming of Forever In My Life, even the very chopped ending of Life Can Be So Nice.

You can tell that he is beyond this phase now, as every single song (whether it's good or not) is completely polished.

Totally agree - love these quirky and random touches he does to the songs.

One of my favourites is the love moan part towards the end of Girl (Extended).

All I can say is that Susan told all these stories to Per Nielsen (not Alex Hahn) in the mid-90's, about 10 years after she started working with (and being around) Prince, so there's no way Prince could have told her to tell these stories, and I see no reason for her to invent false stories either. Besides, from the interviews I've read she doesn't seem to be the kinda person who talks BS.

Prince was recording in a rush, all the time, day and night. People get tired, act too quickly, make mistakes. Sunset Sound is supposedly a top-notch professionnal studio but they managed to accidentally erase half of Cookie Jar while Prince was away.

Although I think Prince is great etc.. I think he'd be the first to let people know that it was his idea to do these little things in these tracks that they may call genius. I don't see why he'd not want that credit.

He doesn't have to shove it in our faces that he thought of them but I'm sure he wouldn't put it down to accidents (or allow others to say it was an accident for so long) without actually saying 'well it was something I thought we could try'.

Dunno though.

databank said:

All I can say is that Susan told all these stories to Per Nielsen (not Alex Hahn) in the mid-90's, about 10 years after she started working with (and being around) Prince, so there's no way Prince could have told her to tell these stories, and I see no reason for her to invent false stories either. Besides, from the interviews I've read she doesn't seem to be the kinda person who talks BS.

Prince was recording in a rush, all the time, day and night. People get tired, act too quickly, make mistakes. Sunset Sound is supposedly a top-notch professionnal studio but they managed to accidentally erase half of Cookie Jar while Prince was away.

I don't mean to suggest any duplicity. Just that perhaps the myths aren't true as presented; an idea which others in this thread have expanded upon better than I. While the mistake itself may not have been released on wax, the mistake brought forth the needed touches to complete the song and that the genius was in noting that the mistake was an incidental improvement.

I have the utmost respect for Susan Rogers and knew her name, as a kid reading my old Prince tapes, before I knew who the damn president was. lol.

Spinlight said:

databank said:

All I can say is that Susan told all these stories to Per Nielsen (not Alex Hahn) in the mid-90's, about 10 years after she started working with (and being around) Prince, so there's no way Prince could have told her to tell these stories, and I see no reason for her to invent false stories either. Besides, from the interviews I've read she doesn't seem to be the kinda person who talks BS.

Prince was recording in a rush, all the time, day and night. People get tired, act too quickly, make mistakes. Sunset Sound is supposedly a top-notch professionnal studio but they managed to accidentally erase half of Cookie Jar while Prince was away.

I don't mean to suggest any duplicity. Just that perhaps the myths aren't true as presented; an idea which others in this thread have expanded upon better than I. While the mistake itself may not have been released on wax, the mistake brought forth the needed touches to complete the song and that the genius was in noting that the mistake was an incidental improvement.

I have the utmost respect for Susan Rogers and knew her name, as a kid reading my old Prince tapes, before I knew who the damn president was. lol.

I don't think they are myths per se - Prince has had his fair share of deliberate myth building in his career - I don't think accidental genius is one he would want.

As you say the genius was letting the accident or serendipity happen and then being brave enough to say "hey I kinda prefer it that way." Fixing them would have been easy, but but of the hook of the songs we are discussing is the quirk of something not being just right.

Swa said:

Spinlight said:

I don't mean to suggest any duplicity. Just that perhaps the myths aren't true as presented; an idea which others in this thread have expanded upon better than I. While the mistake itself may not have been released on wax, the mistake brought forth the needed touches to complete the song and that the genius was in noting that the mistake was an incidental improvement.

I have the utmost respect for Susan Rogers and knew her name, as a kid reading my old Prince tapes, before I knew who the damn president was. lol.

I don't think they are myths per se - Prince has had his fair share of deliberate myth building in his career - I don't think accidental genius is one he would want.

As you say the genius was letting the accident or serendipity happen and then being brave enough to say "hey I kinda prefer it that way." Fixing them would have been easy, but but of the hook of the songs we are discussing is the quirk of something not being just right.

It's hard to say if he would want the myth or not because he didn't take credit for groundbreaking jams like "Sugar Walls" or "Cool" or "777-9311" - he let the myth ride, even creating it and getting others to go in on it.

I thought what you said earlier about the serendipity was true. But when I read some of these stories, I take them at face value and don't really input anything else. For the longest time, I really did believe that the "Forever In My Life" thing was just a mistake as it is on the record. Over time, the perfectly imperfect timing felt a little too perfect to me. The book seems to have opened up new questions (for me).

SquirrelMeat said:

I agree that they are rookie errors, but I don't see them as made up stories. They aren't exactly groundbreaking. My guess is two fold.

Firstly, Prince and Susan were recording these tracks at the end of his most active period. Prince was recording track after track after track, often in the middle of the night. So easy mistakes are probable.

Secondly, I think a mistake may have led to an idea, but not directly to the final product that we hear. Forever in my life is more complex than simple a miss cue. The backing vocals don't all come in at the same delay. Its obviously editted or planned.

,

Thank you! You really hit the nail on the head, I think. That makes a lot more sense.

Because these albums are digested as presented and you typically get the outtakes and the history shit later, it's hard to think of the sessions as sort of open-ended works in progress. As opposed to thinking of it in the sense of take after take of continuous track after continuous track, miracles crop up along the way and those are what made it to the record.

Spinlight said:

Swa said:

I don't think they are myths per se - Prince has had his fair share of deliberate myth building in his career - I don't think accidental genius is one he would want.

As you say the genius was letting the accident or serendipity happen and then being brave enough to say "hey I kinda prefer it that way." Fixing them would have been easy, but but of the hook of the songs we are discussing is the quirk of something not being just right.

It's hard to say if he would want the myth or not because he didn't take credit for groundbreaking jams like "Sugar Walls" or "Cool" or "777-9311" - he let the myth ride, even creating it and getting others to go in on it.

I thought what you said earlier about the serendipity was true. But when I read some of these stories, I take them at face value and don't really input anything else. For the longest time, I really did believe that the "Forever In My Life" thing was just a mistake as it is on the record. Over time, the perfectly imperfect timing felt a little too perfect to me. The book seems to have opened up new questions (for me).

A possible explanation for this is that the miscue was realised - Prince liked it, had a "light bulb" moment then went back in and structured it accordingly.