after all the years of him producing his own amazing music I no longer care if he has an associate producer. If the end result is a great song / album etc then THAT's the best result for me. As we well know P has often used others to finish off tracks - Kiss being the one prime example therefore I no longer care as IMHO he has nothing left to prove. What do you think, especially after Josh's obvious influence on AOA?

JOSH is the co producer of AOA, doesnt that kinda answer your own question? He was quite heavey involved according to a new interview with prince .

I never fancied the idea in the first place, honest, I don't think is the kind of person to be able to benefit from a producer, his work is too personal in a way. I enjoyed Kirk Johnson's productions in the late 90's a lot but that's because his work was perfectly integrated into 's music (proof being has, ever since and until today, continued to use the "Kirky J. sound" on various songs, long after Kirk was gone).

Josh' contribution on AOA is less worse than I feared it'd be, though I suspect I'd like the album more without his contributions, but it's hard to say for, save a few very obvious things, it's hard to tell who did what between him and . I don't like the sound of radio-friendly songs so much nowadays, so it's mostly my personal relationship to current mainstream trends than an objective perception, though. I still listen to lots of contemporary acts but very few that end-up being aired on mainstream radios.

Prince has always had uncredited writers, producers, and performers on his tracks. He makes a lot of music and at times other people have lent a hand. I'm not a believer in that whole one man band musical tour-de-force image. It's marketing, not fact and at this point it's a non-issue for me. At least this time he's been upfront about it. The problem though is that the chemisty is not right with his 'collective' and the songs are dull.

Never did......and still don't.

I dont see any problem with it, its the ones who use Ghost producers to produce the tracks in full with no mention of them in the credits that I dont agree with.

Prince is a proven producer and decades in the business 1000's tracks (nothing to prove to anyone) there are only so many ideas one person can come up with that are original.

Everyone moaned when it was made known Josh was helping him, but I think he has proven the majority of his critics wrong which is good to see. As Prince mentioned in his latest interview there are tracks where he left Josh to it, thats some trust he has in him right there.

funksterr said:

Prince has always had uncredited writers, producers, and performers on his tracks. He makes a lot of music and at times other people have lent a hand. I'm not a believer in that whole one man band musical tour-de-force image. It's marketing, not fact and at this point it's a non-issue for me. At least this time he's been upfront about it. The problem though is that the chemisty is not right with his 'collective' and the songs are dull.

There are a few examples, but not many.

I am very interested in the idea of an outside producer, and have been for several years. Prince's own productions have become quite stale in the last decade, and an outside producer could help him get the most out of any new ideas Prince comes up with.

That means cut out any cheesiness first, then make sure the basic structure song is fleshed out and interesting enough (quality control), and help him record and mix the song in the best possible sound quality.

In case of funk/rnb/dance music, get a cutting edge dance producer to help him create wicked current beats for his creations. In case of rock music: just use good musicians and traditional instruments.

I'd like to blame an outside producer for Prince's latest album sounding so horrible but that would be simply trying to place the blame on someone else instead of where it really belongs which is on Prince himself for allowing his music to sound like that in the first place.

paulludvig said:

funksterr said:

Prince has always had uncredited writers, producers, and performers on his tracks. He makes a lot of music and at times other people have lent a hand. I'm not a believer in that whole one man band musical tour-de-force image. It's marketing, not fact and at this point it's a non-issue for me. At least this time he's been upfront about it. The problem though is that the chemisty is not right with his 'collective' and the songs are dull.

There are a few examples, but not many.

And we know most, if not all of them. 's career has been seriously and thoroughly documented, at least until the mid-90's. Denying this amount of historical research is precisely this: denial. A few more unknown stories of unrevealing credits (both being uncredited on someone else's track or someone on a track) may surface in the future, particularly once again after 1995, but it's not like there's the tiniest chance that we'll one day discover that has always had an armada of producers behind him. + this is not marketing: this is dozens of past associates talking about what they've witnessed long after they were free from 's influence. I find it sad to still read such nonsense on this forum in 2014!

paulludvig said:

funksterr said:

Prince has always had uncredited writers, producers, and performers on his tracks. He makes a lot of music and at times other people have lent a hand. I'm not a believer in that whole one man band musical tour-de-force image. It's marketing, not fact and at this point it's a non-issue for me. At least this time he's been upfront about it. The problem though is that the chemisty is not right with his 'collective' and the songs are dull.

There are a few examples, but not many.

I estimate there are hundreds of examples of dodgey or missing credits. Not an issue for me in terms of how impressive Prince's talent is. He is an amazing talent and gifted artist regardless. If anything he has damaged his image more by not giving proper credit, than he gained by giving the impression he always did it all. But don't get me wrong, I think I understand his reasoning. Prince actually does 50% to 90% of the album and then takes 100% of the credit, while there are guys out there that contribute essentially nothing that also take 100% of the credit. So I'm not saying Prince is wrong for dodgy crediting. I'm just saying his fanbase has a false expectation of him sometimes, that he can't possibly live up to just because of the way the industry does things.

databank said:

paulludvig said:

There are a few examples, but not many.

And we know most, if not all of them. 's career has been seriously and thoroughly documented, at least until the mid-90's. Denying this amount of historical research is precisely this: denial. A few more unknown stories of unrevealing credits (both being uncredited on someone else's track or someone on a track) may surface in the future, particularly once again after 1995, but it's not like there's the tiniest chance that we'll one day discover that has always had an armada of producers behind him. + this is not marketing: this is dozens of past associates talking about what they've witnessed long after they were free from 's influence. I find it sad to still read such nonsense on this forum in 2014!

Nah, I'm not saying that. But there are time when various bandmembers played bigger, or different roles on songs than they were credited. Has Prince ever straight out bought tracks? Yes. Has Prince utilized producers and then fired them, before finishing off the songs himself? Yes. The guy has created hundreds of amazing songs essentially from scratch on his own so it's no big deal, that sometimes he has incorporated the work of other people. I'm not saying he's essentially a phony like Dr Dre, or anything. Just that Prince has always had other people involved in ways we didn't know about, including producer.

funksterr said:

databank said:

And we know most, if not all of them. 's career has been seriously and thoroughly documented, at least until the mid-90's. Denying this amount of historical research is precisely this: denial. A few more unknown stories of unrevealing credits (both being uncredited on someone else's track or someone on a track) may surface in the future, particularly once again after 1995, but it's not like there's the tiniest chance that we'll one day discover that has always had an armada of producers behind him. + this is not marketing: this is dozens of past associates talking about what they've witnessed long after they were free from 's influence. I find it sad to still read such nonsense on this forum in 2014!

Nah, I'm not saying that. But there are time when various bandmembers played bigger, or different roles on songs than they were credited. Has Prince ever straight out bought tracks? Yes. Has Prince utilized producers and then fired them, before finishing off the songs himself? Yes. The guy has created hundreds of amazing songs essentially from scratch on his own so it's no big deal, that sometimes he has incorporated the work of other people. I'm not saying he's essentially a phony like Dr Dre, or anything. Just that Prince has always had other people involved in ways we didn't know about, including producer.

I don't understand what, exactly, u're saying:

Is it

1/ Prince has always had other people involved in ways we didn't know about, including producer, i.e. what has been revealed by research so far, which isn't so much and therefore I don't understand the whole point of the argument.

2/ Prince has always had other people involved in ways we don't know about, including producer, i.e. there is a lot that we don't know about (yet) but you, in your great wisdom, know because you guess and in your world guessing is knowing, in which case I say that the whole point is biased, i.e. trying to disguise a personal opinion based on no facts into facts, something that I vividely fight against in any circumpstances.

+ to be honest if we look at what Per Nilsen and others have revealed, it turns up that there were waaaaaaaay many more situations in which gave credit to others for thing he did than in which he hid credits to make it look like he did the whole thing. Best example would be, not even speaking of the side projects, the Prince And The Revolution albums where the band got full credit when we in fact now know that many songs on those are alone.

has clearly stolen credits in some case (or miscredited, as in some cases one's contribution was given to another than ).

Please note that I'm not trying to get into a personal argument with u here, I'm just trying to make sure whether we're talking about facts or speculation.

funksterr said:

paulludvig said:

There are a few examples, but not many.

I estimate there are hundreds of examples of dodgey or missing credits. Not an issue for me in terms of how impressive Prince's talent is. He is an amazing talent and gifted artist regardless. If anything he has damaged his image more by not giving proper credit, than he gained by giving the impression he always did it all. But don't get me wrong, I think I understand his reasoning. Prince actually does 50% to 90% of the album and then takes 100% of the credit, while there are guys out there that contribute essentially nothing that also take 100% of the credit. So I'm not saying Prince is wrong for dodgy crediting. I'm just saying his fanbase has a false expectation of him sometimes, that he can't possibly live up to just because of the way the industry does things.

This word is the problem here. Anyone can "estimate" anything, we can estimate that is an alien from outer space sent by God on Earth, too, but honestly I am not in the least interested in what people "estimate", only in what they know.

Once again, no offence, this is a stand I'm taking daily in those days of internet hoaxes, conspiracy theories and paranoia.

daingermouz2020 said:

he needs to be produced by Questlove, Bilal, D'angelo or whoever they work with. They tend to do Prince better than Prince in the last 20years

They're doing lots of great stuff but I see little relation between their works and 's, save what he imposed on R&B as a whole, but then we can also say they're doing George, James, Stevie and Sly. There's very little of 's trademark sound in those artists' work IMHO.

databank said:

funksterr said:

Nah, I'm not saying that. But there are time when various bandmembers played bigger, or different roles on songs than they were credited. Has Prince ever straight out bought tracks? Yes. Has Prince utilized producers and then fired them, before finishing off the songs himself? Yes. The guy has created hundreds of amazing songs essentially from scratch on his own so it's no big deal, that sometimes he has incorporated the work of other people. I'm not saying he's essentially a phony like Dr Dre, or anything. Just that Prince has always had other people involved in ways we didn't know about, including producer.

I don't understand what, exactly, u're saying:

Is it

1/ Prince has always had other people involved in ways we didn't know about, including producer, i.e. what has been revealed by research so far, which isn't so much and therefore I don't understand the whole point of the argument.

2/ Prince has always had other people involved in ways we don't know about, including producer, i.e. there is a lot that we don't know about (yet) but you, in your great wisdom, know because you guess and in your world guessing is knowing, in which case I say that the whole point is biased, i.e. trying to disguise a personal opinion based on no facts into facts, something that I vividely fight against in any circumpstances.

+ to be honest if we look at what Per Nilsen and others have revealed, it turns up that there were waaaaaaaay many more situations in which gave credit to others for thing he did than in which he hid credits to make it look like he did the whole thing. Best example would be, not even speaking of the side projects, the Prince And The Revolution albums where the band got full credit when we in fact now know that many songs on those are alone.

has clearly stolen credits in some case (or miscredited, as in some cases one's contribution was given to another than ).

Please note that I'm not trying to get into a personal argument with u here, I'm just trying to make sure whether we're talking about facts or speculation.

You say it's not personal, after taking numerous personal shots... but err.. ok.

I don't understand what you find controversial about anything I've said here. Nearly every bandmember that worked for Prince in the 80's, has at some point claimed they are missing credits, or had their contributuions misappropriated for projects or reworked into new tracks without their permission. There are claims from engineers that say they were producers. Musicians who came to hang out at the studio with Prince and contributed various performances that sometimes made it to the final record, or a Prince re-played for tempo changes performance of their contribution that made it to the record. Is Sheila E credited on everything she played on? No. Is Morris Day credited for everything he played and produced on? No. W&L? No. Andre Cymone? No. What about lesser known names? Who are some of the people that were surprised to find tracks, that they'd submitted to WB for their own projects, released on Prince albums? The stories are out there. And the more I read interviews and bios, and listen to NEW Prince music, the more it is my impression that it's not 4 or 5 instances but actually hundreds of instances of Prince crediting things in a vague way to hide the source. I think he's been doing that since at least Dirty Mind. And with NPS or so he started releasing more purely 100 percent Prince records thus the music really has more in common with FOR YOU than it does any of his other projects. Take a song where the music was originaly an AC demo, but then the drummer is MD, and the percussionist is Sheia E, all uncredited, then that one track has 3 instances of vague or unclear crediting. Even in Prince's newet interview, they catch him in the act of boosting ideas off obscure soul classics via his MacBook and Youtube. Should that track feature no credit to the original writer then that's an instance. How many times do you suppose he has used this method to write songs? So that's why I say likely hundreds of time he had help one way or the other creating songs.

funksterr said:

databank said:

I don't understand what, exactly, u're saying:

Is it

1/ Prince has always had other people involved in ways we didn't know about, including producer, i.e. what has been revealed by research so far, which isn't so much and therefore I don't understand the whole point of the argument.

2/ Prince has always had other people involved in ways we don't know about, including producer, i.e. there is a lot that we don't know about (yet) but you, in your great wisdom, know because you guess and in your world guessing is knowing, in which case I say that the whole point is biased, i.e. trying to disguise a personal opinion based on no facts into facts, something that I vividely fight against in any circumpstances.

+ to be honest if we look at what Per Nilsen and others have revealed, it turns up that there were waaaaaaaay many more situations in which gave credit to others for thing he did than in which he hid credits to make it look like he did the whole thing. Best example would be, not even speaking of the side projects, the Prince And The Revolution albums where the band got full credit when we in fact now know that many songs on those are alone.

has clearly stolen credits in some case (or miscredited, as in some cases one's contribution was given to another than ).

Please note that I'm not trying to get into a personal argument with u here, I'm just trying to make sure whether we're talking about facts or speculation.

You say it's not personal, after taking numerous personal shots... but err.. ok.

I don't understand what you find controversial about anything I've said here. Nearly every bandmember that worked for Prince in the 80's, has at some point claimed they are missing credits, or had their contributuions misappropriated for projects or reworked into new tracks without their permission. There are claims from engineers that say they were producers. Musicians who came to hang out at the studio with Prince and contributed various performances that sometimes made it to the final record, or a Prince re-played for tempo changes performance of their contribution that made it to the record. Is Sheila E credited on everything she played on? No. Is Morris Day credited for everything he played and produced on? No. W&L? No. Andre Cymone? No. What about lesser known names? Who are some of the people that were surprised to find tracks, that they'd submitted to WB for their own projects, released on Prince albums? The stories are out there. And the more I read interviews and bios, and listen to NEW Prince music, the more it is my impression that it's not 4 or 5 instances but actually hundreds of instances of Prince crediting things in a vague way to hide the source. I think he's been doing that since at least Dirty Mind. And with NPS or so he started releasing more purely 100 percent Prince records thus the music really has more in common with FOR YOU than it does any of his other projects. Take a song where the music was originaly an AC demo, but then the drummer is MD, and the percussionist is Sheia E, all uncredited, then that one track has 3 instances of vague or unclear crediting. Even in Prince's newet interview, they catch him in the act of boosting ideas off obscure soul classics via his MacBook and Youtube. Should that track feature no credit to the original writer then that's an instance. How many times do you suppose he has used this method to write songs? So that's why I say likely hundreds of time he had help one way or the other creating songs.

Sorry if the shots seemed personal, they didn't intend to

Thx also for elaborating even though I'm still a bit confused. The stories that are out there are out there, as I said there are more cases of credits given than taken, and at least as many stories of credits displaced from an artist than another than stolen too. I've studied all those infos pretty closely over the years, I often find it extravagant how some people take these exceptions in order to make a rule (that's the impression I have here, sorry if wrong.

Personally I think i've read almost everything that was to be read about this, both in books and in past collaborators interviews, save maybe a few new bios and Sheila's book, my impression isn't that there's so much more to be revealed for the info we have is pretty detailed and pretty comprehensive, at least until 1995.

Now borrowing ideas from other, previously published, compositions and incorporate them in one's own work is an intrinsec part of any artist's creative process and it seems pretty far-fetched to me to put this in this specific conversation, for I think it has little to do with the topic at hand.

Anyway time will tell, there will be more ex-collaboarators speaking, more books written, more research done, and eventually more and more will be revealed. Until then I'll stick to the facts and try to avoid elaborating too mich on what we know

u people believe wrong things.....he's just giving him accolades to give him more work for the future.....josh probably has less involvement than u think

luvsexy4all said:

u people believe wrong things.....he's just giving him accolades to give him more work for the future.....josh probably has less involvement than u think

Same as above: this is mere speculation.

i have wanted him to do this for a long time

databank said:

luvsexy4all said: