Are there songs you feel Prince should have been sang in a lower register or in falsetto when he chose not to use it? Perhaps some of the earlier songs would have had a bit more bite if he hadn't used his deeper singing voice so sparingly? Sometimes you hear the difference in concert.

[Edited 8/6/14 21:32pm]

Yes, Bambi. Uptown. Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad. Maybe even When You Were Mine.

It would be great to give us at last an 'alternative version' in concert, but he still hasn't seen the light...

Sort of off topic, but not really. Somebody made a version of the Camille album called the "Un-Camille album," with the voice slowed down. It's a really interesting listen, but I kinda like the regular versions with the sped up voice better.

I think it would be neat to hear Forever In My Life with the falsetto, but it's great the way it is.

Not so much, for me it's usually the other way around. Take "Jam of the Year" & "Get Your Groove On" from Emancipation. I watched him perform those on the Emancipation Celebration before the album was released and thought they sounded pretty good using his normal voice. I was looking forward to the album versions, only to be disappointed because he used the falsetto on both album versions. The vocals sounded rather weak in comparison to me.

BlackSweat86 said:

Not so much, for me it's usually the other way around. Take "Jam of the Year" & "Get Your Groove On" from Emancipation. I watched him perform those on the Emancipation Celebration before the album was released and thought they sounded pretty good using his normal voice. I was looking forward to the album versions, only to be disappointed because he used the falsetto on both album versions. The vocals sounded rather weak in comparison to me.

True, especially with Get Yo Groove On. That performance was great.

(And compare One Of Us from that performance to the disc version. No falsetto involved this time. But where's the guitar and the passion on the studio version...?)

Pentacle said:

Yes, Bambi. Uptown. Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad. Maybe even When You Were Mine.

It would be great to give us at last an 'alternative version' in concert, but he still hasn't seen the light...

Prince has sung When You Were Mine in a lower register in concert, hasn't he? During the First Avenue 82 performance certainly, and quite often after that, and a lower register version has been officially released on the Dortmund video, although the song is truncated there.

Pentacle said:

BlackSweat86 said:

Not so much, for me it's usually the other way around. Take "Jam of the Year" & "Get Your Groove On" from Emancipation. I watched him perform those on the Emancipation Celebration before the album was released and thought they sounded pretty good using his normal voice. I was looking forward to the album versions, only to be disappointed because he used the falsetto on both album versions. The vocals sounded rather weak in comparison to me.

True, especially with Get Yo Groove On. That performance was great.

(And compare One Of Us from that performance to the disc version. No falsetto involved this time. But where's the guitar and the passion on the studio version...?)

I never liked that song that much. The music was only ok, and the lyrics made me cringe. It seemed to be another example of Prince having to use the slang or hot term of the moment to show how "modern" he was. Like using "Bling Bling" in My Medallion, or using "The Bomb" in the album version of Rave. It just sounded like he was trying to fit in instead of creating trends himself.

Emancipation would have been better sung in his lower voice.

"Breakfast Can Wait"...I love this song, HOWEVER, I would have preferred that Prince use his lower register voice from start to finish. At times, the "Camille" vocals aren't appropriate for some songs. This song is so funky without it....That is why I like the remixes without the Camille vocals...I think Prince uses the "Camille" vocals when he wants to get "nasty" with it...LOL!

Jamzone333 said:

EyeHatechu said:

Jamzone333 said:

"Breakfast Can Wait"...I love this song, HOWEVER, I would have preferred that Prince use his lower register voice from start to finish. At times, the "Camille" vocals aren't appropriate for some songs. This song is so funky without it....That is why I like the remixes without the Camille vocals...I think Prince uses the "Camille" vocals when he wants to get "nasty" with it...LOL!

I totally agree. Thats why I listen to the remixes. He could have left the chipmunk (Camille) voice out of the original. It was just unnecessary.

high voice on that song isnt Camille

thebanishedone said:

EyeHatechu said:

thebanishedone said:

high voice on that song isnt Camille

You know what i mean.

It's pretty much an insult to Camille...but sure, we all know what you meant. It's just that voice on Breakfast nearly ruined the song for me. It so pandered to the drivel you hear on Pop radio with overdoing the voice altering thing.

stillwaiting said:

This was such a problem for me in my early fan days...

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Songs such as Let's Work and Uptown to me, would have sounded 3,000,000 times better in Prince's normal vocal. Sometimes I wish Prince had recorded alternate versions of his 1978-1981 work in his normal voice and it was circulating... those albums are wonderful (especially love Prince, Dirty Mind, & Controversy) but with normal voice? Lawd. They'd become 100x more accessible/better

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Don't get me wrong, I think P has THE most beautiful falsetto I've ever heard, it's unbelievably smooth and high, and makes ballads like Insatiable, International Lover, and The Beautiful Ones the classics they would never be in his normal voice. But songs like Mountains? Let's Work? Private Joy? Uptown? Those are high-powered songs that NEED Prince's normal voice imo. Particularly Mountains and Let's Work.

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Alas, Prince does things his way, and his falsetto songs are still gr8.

stillwaiting said:

thebanishedone said:

Private Joy is a combination of falsetto and regular voice and it sounds great.Live versions of Uptown are also mix of falsetto and chest voice and norhing wrong with studio versions of uptown

Private Joy yeah, prettty good.

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Uptown sounds weird when he sings in such a high voice, it would be much better if he sang it in a normal voice. Just my opinion of course

I prefer his falsetto 99% of the time.