Good to see you have 17, can't wait for the results. The B sides poll should be more popular as there is less choices, but the fact he has some really good ones like 17 Days and Shes always in my hair, Love or $ and La La La Hee Hee, next to lesser songs like Girl and God.

Anyway love your polls Electricberet, keep them coming.

Adorecream said:

Good to see you have 17, can't wait for the results. The B sides poll should be more popular as there is less choices, but the fact he has some really good ones like 17 Days and Shes always in my hair, Love or $ and La La La Hee Hee, next to lesser songs like Girl and God.

Anyway love your polls Electricberet, keep them coming.

Thanks! I hope you're right about the B-sides poll. The polls for individual albums should also be easier, because there have been plenty of threads already about which are the best songs on each album. This one is hard because people aren't used to comparing all these songs from the whole span of Prince's career.

I have closed the poll. Here are the final results, with 19 votes:

The results above use the Condorcet-IRV completion method. If you go to this link, you can change the completion rule:

http://www.cs.cornell.edu...thm=runoff

It appears that some people pressed the "vote" button without actually voting, since a lot of the songs were ranked by 16 individual votes. But it doesn't matter too much, as the purpose of this poll is to act as a check on the various individual album polls I plan to do later on.

Not surprised that "When Doves Cry" topped the list. I voted for "Raspberry Beret" as the top song, but it came in at #8.

Many thanks to everyone who voted. This poll was not easy because of the number of choices and the range of songs to choose from. My next poll will be on the non-album B-sides, which should be easier to sort through as there are not as many.

[Edited 6/1/11 4:30am]

Very interesting results. I also voted for Raspberry Beret as number 1, and, as I voted very soon, I think my vote and electricberet's made it be the first number one, although it finally is number 8. I think it's the perfect Prince pop song. Not disappointed with When Doves Cry winning, though: it was my number 3, and it has been my favourite Prince song for a very long time.

After watching the results, I'd like to make two comments:

1.- Don't you think the singles from Dirty Mind, Controversy and 1999 may have been benefited from the current context (remastered LP versions)? I think those singles are great, but I also suspect they wouldn't have been so successful in the poll should their respective albums not have been rereleased recently.

2.- May we conclude that Black Sweat is a somewhat Prince classic? It's the highest ranked single post 1988 apart from Gett Off, which is only a place above. I think it is. I ranked it high, and am happy to see other orgers also did.

Javi said:

Very interesting results. I also voted for Raspberry Beret as number 1, and, as I voted very soon, I think my vote and electricberet's made it be the first number one, although it finally is number 8. I think it's the perfect Prince pop song. Not disappointed with When Doves Cry winning, though: it was my number 3, and it has been my favourite Prince song for a very long time.

After watching the results, I'd like to make two comments:

1.- Don't you think the singles from Dirty Mind, Controversy and 1999 may have been benefited from the current context (remastered LP versions)? I think those singles are great, but I also suspect they wouldn't have been so successful in the poll should their respective albums not have been rereleased recently.

2.- May we conclude that Black Sweat is a somewhat Prince classic? It's the highest ranked single post 1988 apart from Gett Off, which is only a place above. I think it is. I ranked it high, and am happy to see other orgers also did.

Good to hear from another "Raspberry Beret" fan. With regard to your points:

1. It's possible that the release of remastered LP versions of those three albums, and the resulting discussion, did benefit their singles in this poll. However, those albums were remastered for vinyl for a reason, and I suspect most of those singles would have made the top 25 in any event.

2. I was surprised by how well 3121 did in the album poll. "Black Sweat" obviously has its fans as well. If anything, that album and song are likely to be underrated, since some of the long-time fans may be less familiar with it. Wouldn't surprise me if 3121 and its songs rank even higher after more time has passed. Certainly the passage of time has improved the reputation of other albums.

i ranked black sweat in my top 15 as well, wonderful track, listening to it as i am typing

I'm thinking that what I will do when I make my final poll to determine the overall top 25 is to include the top 35 from this poll in the list of candidates. That will address the anomaly that no songs from The Gold Experience were included in the top 25 here even though the album ranked #7 in my earlier album poll. Also, since "The Most Beautiful Girl In the World" was the first and only #1 single by Prince/O+> in the U.K., it should probably be included for consideration in the final poll, especially given that this poll had such a low response rate.

I'll use the B-sides poll, the individual album polls, and the poll of rare, unreleased, and associated artist tracks to determine what other songs should be included in the final poll other than the top 35 here. That is, assuming I get enough votes in those other polls for them to be meaningful.

I have compiled a list of U.S. B-sides and bonus tracks from The Hits compilation to be ranked in the next poll. See here:

http://prince.org/msg/7/360189

Please let me know if I missed anything that should be included in that poll. For reference purposes, I included the A-sides that ranked #15, #20, #25, #30, and #35. This will help me decide how many songs from the B-side poll to include in the final combined poll. I will give people a day or so to comment on my selections and then start the B-side poll.

My number #1 Mountains, only got to 16, what a swizz, that was the song from a poll which involved the elimination of 128 songs down to 1, revealed as the winner. Its also just great. Glad to see that Black Sweat did well too, I voted for Doves at 2, but a lot of these big hit songs, I voted lower. Usually to me the big hits (#5 Pop and above) are the ones fans seldom listen to as much as they did, because they have been done to death (Mostly Purple Rain period songs) although LRC and 1999 never seem to get tired. (Then again they were only #6 and #45 on original release (1999 charted at #12 later on in 1983 as a re entry, and a double A side SINGLE released in Britain with 1999/LRC peaked at #2 )

I was really pleased to see I wish u heaven at 29, a sthe song was a complete flop when released in 1988 (I actually have a 45 single of it)