No! Is what Spooky Electric say, it's not OK
But I know love is the only way till my dying day
No - til my dying day I'll be OK
Cuz Lovesexy is the one til my day is done!

Honorable Mention- Controversy, Parade, Diamonds and Pearls, 3121

10. Grafitti Bridge- Nice album that made the terrible movie just a little easier 2 stomach.

highlights- Joy in Repition, We can Funk, The question of u

9. Dirty Mind- He just blends Funk, New Wave, Pop, and Rock together hear like its no big deal. U can just about dance 2 every track on this one.

Highlights- Partyup, Sister, Head

8. LOtUSflower/ MPLSound- Just a great effort that is often overlooked and underrated. Prince did a good job of keeping up with the current sound but making it uniquely his. Also, this album could have been huge if Prince would have promoted it right and released singles. This album is full of potential hits. At least half of the songs on both sets could have been top 40 if they were released. This is one of the great Prince missed opprotunities.

Highlights- Colonized Mind, Dreamer, Valentina, Ol Skool Company, There'll Never B) Another Like Me, Elixer(Bria Valente duet)

7. The Gold Experience- So many gems on this one. Great album to bump in your car. Major hit potential, like most Prince albums though. Second best of the 90s, the best is yet to come from this decade.

Highlights-SHHH!, I hate U, Billy Jack Bish

6. Lovesexy- He gives you 2 of his funkiest jams in Alphabet St. and Positivity and also one of his most powerful songs ever both lyrically and musically in Anna Stesia. What more do you need?

Highlights- Anna Stesia, Positivity

5. Musicology- The album that showed them Prince still was and always will be the MAN! This album is cool cuz its one of those albums you play beginning 2 end. Not much filler in this album, nope no lettuce in this sandwhich. Every track is pretty much totally different from the one b4 and brings something totally different 2 the table.

Highlights- What do U want me 2 do Girl?, The Marrying Kind, A Million Days, ICPS

4. 1999- Just too funky to handle. This album contains what might just be the 2 single funkiest Prince songs to bounce of ur ear drums, DMSR and Lady Cab Driver. He coulda put just those 2 on the album and it still woulda sold like crazy.

Highlights- DMSR, Lady Cab Driver, Little Red Corvette, Lets Pretend We're married.

3. Sign O' the Times- He really goes all out with this one. He does it all on here and he does it all exceptionally well. Too many good ones to name on this one.

Highlights- SOTT, If eye was ur Gf, Housequake, The Ballad of DP, Adore,

2.Purple Rain- I Know, I Know Im supposed to make this number 1, but hey everyone is a winner on this list. Even stilll, this is with no question the best album of the 80s. So many hits on this one even the ones that werent hits were hits. Dont Beleive me? OK, Go to a clubh and request the beautiful ones and see if everyone doesn't sing along. This album is cool cuz its so commercial, yet so creative and out of the box. This album is good from 1 thru 9, and just imagine if he woulda took Take me With U off and put Erotic City or 17 days on instead. Scary.

Highlights- The Beautiful Ones,When Doves Cry, Computer Blue, Lets Go Crazy

1. Emancipation- Let the mad raving replies begin! But come on yall, when you have 36 tracks on an album from a genuis dude like Prince your bound to have plenty of good tracks. There are so many songs on this album that the number of good songs easily beats the number of good songs of any other album. Yes this album has its share of filler, but it also has some of the coolest and unique ones our boy has ever dropped. It's Kind of like the Sign O' the Times of the 90s, just takes a little bit longer to get to the point and has a few more misses. If Prince would have cut 12 or 14 of these off the resulting double album would have made every best of list in the 90s. And with the right promotion, Prince would have had enough hit singles of this one to make "The Hits" part 3. Hey, he did say he wanted to release 18 singles over a 2-3 year period.

Highlights- Emale, Jam of the Year, Somebody's Somebody,Style, 1 Kiss at a Time, White Mansion, One of Us, Joint 2 Joint.

1999 is my favorite. SOTT is close.... SOTT is a groundbreaking album imo.

Around The World In a Day is very underrated. Amazing album.

My top 10.

1. 1999

2. Sign O Times

3. Around The World In a Day

4. Purple Rain

5. Gold Experience

6. Black Album

7. Dirty Mind

8. Parade

9. Come

10. Lotusflower/ Controversy

kewlschool said:

...

5 Around The World In A Day

4 1999

3 Parade

2 Sign O' The Times

1 Purple Rain

Since everybody else is basing this on personal preference..

My favorites:

1. One Nite Alone...

2. N.E.W.S.

3. Chaos and Disorder

4. Xpectation

5. Emancipation

6. The Rainbow Children

7. The Gold Experience

8. Lotusflow3r

9. Parade

10. Controversy

1. 1999!!

2. Purple Rain

3. Sign "O" The Times

Purple Rain.

People extremely underrate 'Prince' on this forum.

Azz said:

People extremely underrate 'Prince' on this forum.

The album? Not in my top 10 favorites, but aside from "Sill Waiting" ( ), I love the whole album. I'd rank it above most of his 1980s albums..

Just to raise some controversy (excuse the pun), I'll say this, which I really think it's true. Although I love LoveSexy and agree that's one of his very best albums, I think Around the world in a day is critically, and even in this org (!), underrated. That album's Raspberry Beret, America and She's Always in My Hair are better than any song in Lovesexy (as well as any song in The Love Symbol, The Gold Experience and Emancipation, stopping to think).

[Edited 5/7/12 14:11pm]

coreysamson said:

Still have trouble deciding after top five really, but I will try.

5) The Love Symbol Album

I fell in love with this album first listen. The much better follow-up to Diamonds & Pearls. With this album Prince was off to a great start in a new decade, revamping himself and rebuilding his musical reputation with a new band and a refreshing sound. This album has literally everything:

Rap and Hip-hop ("My Name is Prince", "The Max", "Arrogance", "The Flow", "The Sacrifice of Victor"), Old-School Funk ("Sexy MF"), Smooth R&B ("Love 2 The 9s", "Damn U", "Blue Light"), Rock ("The Morning Papers", "The Continental"), Pop ("Sweet Baby", "7"), Jazz ("And God Created Woman"), Reggae ("Blue Light" once again), Electronica ("I Wanna Melt With U"), Progressive Rock ("3 Chains O' Gold")

He does a hell of a lot in the 70 or so minutes this album spans across. I love how each track changes style and consequently changes listener mood. This is probably the most genre-bending of any of his albums to date. It is definitely up there. There are not particularly any standout tracks but the diversity of the album makes each listen thoroughly enjoyable. I would say more but I would probably be beating a dead horse.

4) The Gold Experience

Hands down his best album of the nineties. His best guitar work since Purple Rain and until LotusFlow3r. Probably his best guitar work ever actually.

Either you completely adore this album or you don't get it and find it atrocious. I for one truly reward this album as a "Gold Experience" when listened to and consumed from start to finish.

"P Control" is, in my opinion, his catchiest song since "1999". Not his best, his catchiest. And he sounds very convincing as a "rapper" in this song. Perfect start to the album. His best rap song of course.

Because I love guitar rock, tracks like "Endorphinmachine" and "319" grabbed my ears with no mercy, no looking back. They especially gave me greater respect for Prince. No longer could anyone listen to these two songs and see him as "that short, creepy, gay black guy who wrote those eighties sissy pop hits like Little Red Corvette and Raspberry Beret". (I totally love those songs. I am speaking from the dim and ignorant mind of the underexposed casual fan.)

I totally dig how he can implement those rock riffs into hip-hop tracks "We March" and "Now". Only Prince baby.

I don't want to take up too much more time on this album but the last four tracks/songs work perfectly in conjunction together. The pure emotion and subject matter in "I Hate U" make the song a winner. The overall mood. And the kickass guitar solo of course. Don't even get me started on "Gold".... In the same league as "Purple Rain" without a doubt in my book.

3) 1999

His commercial breakthrough. His Minneanapolis sound magnum opus. Better than Dirty Mind and Controversy put together, capitalizing on the strengths of both records.

Thirty years later and "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" still stand the test of time and remain two of the most memorable songs of the eighties, or even the past thirty years. And here we have his classic long-winded funk jams "D.M.S.R" and "Lady Cab Driver" and dreamy synth-pop smashes "Automatic" and "Let's Pretend We're Married". We find him being most experimental with "Something in the Water" and "All the Critics", and most clever lyrically with "International Lover" and the previously mentioned "Little Red Corvette". This album is perfect from start to finish.

2) Purple Rain

In a league of it's own really. "The Beautiful Ones". "When Doves Cry". "Purple Rain". "Let's Go Crazy". Need I say more? His commercial high. Not that that is most important, but it sure helps, and it means SOMEthing. These songs in particular are of such immense quality that it would be a crime for me to rate Purple Rain otherwise. Sometimes I want to rank it number one actually, but I have my final reasons, after a long and painful struggle.

And so it is:

1) Sign O' The Times

To start off, similar to the Symbol album this has everything, layered with different stylistic approaches and appeals, from the hard-hitting rock of "The Cross" to the heavy-bottom funk of "Housequake".

Prince was at his creative peak with this album, and in the mid to late eighties in general.

Additionally, and perhaps what I dig most album this album is that each and every song tells a story, and shares every side of Prince. There is the social commentary ("Sign O' The Times"), playful enjoy yourself mentality ("Play in the Sunshine"), partying ("Housequake"), keeping guard up to new women ("Ballad of Dorothy Parker", "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man"), horndog ("It"), diversity appreciation a.k.a. beat of your own drum ("Starfish and Coffee"), sexual romance ("Slow Love"), charming flirtation Prince style ("Hot Thing", "U Got the Look"), emotional distress and yearning in a relationship or lack thereof rather ("If I Was Your Girlfriend"), unexplainable psyche behind unhealthy relationships ("Strange Relationship"), religious conviction ("The Cross"), concert funkfest ("It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"), commitment ("Forever in My Life"), complete emotional, spiritual, and physical infatuation with one's sweetheart of the opposite sex ("Adore").

That pretty much says it in a nutshell for me.

Albums 6 thru 10 is gonna take me awhile hahaha sorry

Definitely digging your top five albums and I enjoyed reading your explanation on them. It's extremely hard to rank the albums because they speak to me differently.

Parade