Creativity is a very interesting thing. When you are a musician like Prince who can write, play, arrange, and produce music, you could be creative with multiple things. Prince is the most creative musician I know of that tries different things with music (genres, styles, instruments) and it impresses and inspires me a lot.

There are many Prince albums when I have the first listen, I get the same reaction as you, "Where did that come from"? Around The World In A Day (my favorite 80's album) really brought that question out of me. The flute sounds, the finger cymbals, etc. it threw me off gaurd. Very different album, espeacially since it was the follow up of Purple Rain.

Sometimes I do wonder how he gets these brilliant ideas. I just draw the conclusion that the man is a genius.

NeonCraxx said:

Creativity is a very interesting thing. When you are a musician like Prince who can write, play, arrange, and produce music, you could be creative with multiple things. Prince is the most creative musician I know of that tries different things with music (genres, styles, instruments) and it impresses and inspires me a lot.

There are many Prince albums when I have the first listen, I get the same reaction as you, "Where did that come from"? Around The World In A Day (my favorite 80's album) really brought that question out of me. The flute sounds, the finger cymbals, etc. it threw me off gaurd. Very different album, espeacially since it was the follow up of Purple Rain.

Sometimes I do wonder how he gets these brilliant ideas. I just draw the conclusion that the man is a genius.

I genuis that was both listening to old and new classics was inspired by both and was stubborn enough to get what he wanted. He did excatly what he wanted to do, creativy being a bigger motivation than the money. Psychedelic pop/rock/funk... sounds more original when it's not in an era where that is being trendy music. THerefor some thought it sounded old, but not as good as the originators, or to others it was completely new, because they had not heard any of that era. But Prince was combining different era music, and taking it a step in a new direction not heard before. So personally I think both of these are wrong. The music is competely new to it's time, just heavily inspired by the past and present, as music should be imo to evolve into anything that actually sounds new.