rdhull said:

avasdad said:

I go back any listen to his album any none of them would fit in any type music scene today...

thank god

+ 1
Given the current state of music, yes, it's a compliment.

rdhull said:

avasdad said:

I go back any listen to his album any none of them would fit in any type music scene today...

thank god

co-sign

JoeTyler said:

Yeah, Mozart's music hasn't aged well either; none of his pieces would fit in "any type music scene today"...

^

so true, good point.

--- the original poster may be a newbie, who else would write that nonsense.

I think most Prince albums have aged well. The albums from the 80s have aged extremely well, except for Batman which has aged well but only up to a certain point. The albums that sound most timeless to me are probably Sign O The Times, Purple Rain and 1999.

Prince's ability to blend different styles of music into a very impressive whole is popular music's equivalent to the fountain of youth.

At the time that most of Prince's "classic" albums were released, they sounded NOTHING like what was on the radio at the moment. By the time other bands started aping his style, he'd moved on to new sounds.

That having been said, I feel that a small minority of his albums are truly dated. Diamonds & Pearls, in particular, sounds like Prince desperately trying to capture the hip-hop sounds of the early 90's. Still, these are few and far between. Even his rather lackluster stuff, like New Power Soul, still don't sound like anything that was contemporary to it.

Every single one of them have aged well. I've kept them in their covers and cases.

avasdad said:

I go back any listen to his album any none of them would fit in any type music scene today...

thoughts???

Well hell, that's a good thing. I'd hate the hell out of them if they did.

I was just at a hipster new years party and they played: Love Bizarre, Nasty Girl, Controversy

ufoclub said:

I was just at a hipster new years party and they played: Love Bizarre, Nasty Girl, Controversy

Pfft. If they were true hipsters, they would've played Wedding Feast, Da Da Da, and Jughead (just to be ironic)

Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe that's why my New Year's party was so low on guests.....

avasdad said:

i am/was...even classics can sound dated...right??

what is with all these 'dated' questions

where is the rule that says you are not supposed to be able to tell when the album was made?

What music that you know of in general cannot be 'dated'?

I can tell most songs by listen what years it was made in.

out of all his album I would say Parade is probably the one that has a sound that doesn't easily fit in the years it was made,

But I always thought a lot of the 1999/Purple Rain music was very futurist in sound

Around the World in a Day is very past present & future

As good as many albums of his are, they all sound dated today, as good as SOTT and 1999 are, they sound dated and from the 80s. His 90s and 00s stuff sounded like it was dated when it came out. I think Prince stopped being fresh and cutting edge in 1988.

Diamonds and Pearls and Symbol's rap cuts sound like an old man giving his 80s interpretation of fresh and funky raps of the 1990 -93 period. His 2000s albums like 3121 are great but 3121 still sounds rather 1989/90.

Not that its a bad thing, todays music scene sucks big time, no art, no instruments and machine pumped dross that still sounds 90s. I have no idea what 2010s music would even sound like.

But the best sounding least dated albums of his is

Dirty Mind (Its rawness and sparsity is refreshing in an age of overproduced disco music is a real plus)

1999 again the solid funk and dance numbers have not dulled the funkiness

Purple Rain Superb pop music that has partially stood the test of time

Parade the sparse stripped down sound and funkiness keeps it vital.

Most dated overproduced albums

Lovesexy, despite its great singles, this sounds heavily overproduced, totally 80s schtick

Batman, full of clunky overproduced 80s bass and beats

Graffiti Bridge, Over produced and too long, some great tracks but a lot of glossy overproduced filler and one mediocre jam after another. Its too cute too, Graffiti Bridge the song is like being force fed a bag of sugar

Diamonds and Pearls, Cream and Money are magic, the rest is either opverproduced or overproduced and clunky. The rapping bogs it down furtehr, by this stage it was truly self indulgent

Symbol, Again suffers from the same, its pompous too, still I love these records, but they are dated now.

Gold I know I will get crucified, but so much production and bombastic ballads, in your face rapping and overdone vocals made it sound dated when it came out.

NPS Fake frivolity and over produced dance filled flat mediocre grooves, crass and crude to boot, is it any wonder he credited it to the NPG

I don't know, have you?

Adorecream said:

Gold I know I will get crucified, but so much production and bombastic ballads, in your face rapping and overdone vocals made it sound dated when it came out.

I agree. It sounds both low budget, and overdone at the same time, with all that New Jack Swing and what others hear as anthems, sound like he's going through the motions to me, and coming out as sincere as Celine Dione. Too bad, because you can tell there were good songs buried in there.

For You (No)

1979-1989 (Yes)

1990-2011 (No)

Don't know why people are discrediting post 1990 work. I've heard "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold", "Te Amo Corazon" in public places over speakers and they fit right into the mix, and I still hear "Pussy Control" played at clubs and parties.

Most people don't even know it's Prince they're hearing and that is a true test in my opinion. If new ears don't identify it as Prince in a dismissive way, it HAS aged well.

I recently played "Days of Wild" for a 19 year old, and he said it sounded nothing like Prince.

Of course I'm talking about select cuts.

I just heard some John Mayer song that sounded exactly like the standard gospelly blues R&B formula as "On the Couch".

OldFriends4Sale said:

avasdad said:

i am/was...even classics can sound dated...right??

what is with all these 'dated' questions

where is the rule that says you are not supposed to be able to tell when the album was made?

Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe its because critics like to throw the word 'timeless' around, and that means a record is really good (for some reason), and 'dated' is the opposite of timeless, so it's gotta mean something, right? I dunno, it doesn't make much sense.

Maybe if 'timeless' and 'dated' refer to the staying power of the music, they mean something. Like saying 'the Beatles is a timeless pop act and the Backstreet Boys are dated' is probably a statement about the staying power more than production techniques or whatever.

Under these definitions, I think the majority of Prince's music isn't dated at all. I'd be interested in hearing different opinions though - maybe someone feels Prince stuff was good for the 80s but for whatever reason should have stayed in the 80s, like the backstreet boys belong in the 90s.

And unrelated to all that:
Anyone familiar with Faith No More's album King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime? That album to me is the most 'dated' thing i've ever heard, in the sense that it sounds like 1995 put into cd form. I like the album well enough, and like OldFriends says, this notion of 'dated' shouldn't matter, but for some reason the 1995-ness of it is so pronounced that it's a bit jarring. That's the only instance I can think of where a dated sound came close to detracting from a good album.

avasdad said:

I go back any listen to his album any none of them would fit in any type music scene today...

thoughts???

Certain songs sounds 'dated' on some of the albums and if you've never heard some of the pre-80's music you can tell it's from the pre-80's or 80's. Take something like Gold Experience forward, now THAT music I can see puttin' on the vinyl or CD 10 or 20yrs from now and it would sound like it came out yesturday.

I don't think now-a-days you'd hear anything from any artist we haven't heard before. There's not that much originality going around. Everything's been done. For example: Lady GaGa comes off a little Madonna and Marilyn Manson and I LIKE her music and perfomances. [img:$uid]http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/9.gif[/img:$uid]