Hello everyone! Whenever Around the World in a Day, Parade, and Sign O the Time (and projects in between) come up, there is no denying that these albums were musically more eclectic than previous projects. When reading about this time period, it is often stated that Prince had began to embrace collaboration much more. Working with Wendy and Lisa and other members of the Revolution exposed him to new music/influences.

I'm wondering if there is any info on what Prince was into musically (other artists) during this period. What others were turning him on to? and What influences do you here from this period?

actually the big step toward collaboration started with the Purple Rain project 1983

I'll post some quotes and responses to the rest of your post in a bit

prince has always collaborated in one way or the other Chris Moon wrote lyrics to some of Prince's ealriest productions. Not to mention all the early Minneapolis bandmates he worked with (dez,morris,andre,jesse, etc etc)

This is a view shared by many WendyNLisa-ists, who think Prince only collaborated for a short while and did his best music then. There is certainly no question Prince was at his best during those years, it's just that Prince has always collaborated to various extent. None of his many great collaborators could even begin to match his prodigious skills as a whole, so it was definitely driven by his talent.

Wendy (or Lisa) stated that he was listening to "Bolero" by Ravel all the time. He's himself mentioned Cocteau Twins on several occasions. I don't know where the quote comes from, but he's apparently himself stated that the album "Treasure" was an influence on Parade.

THen there's Miles Davis, obviously. It's hard not to hear it in the horn parts on tracks like "Adore". Prince apparently met Miles for the first time around the PR tour. I think Miles was the one that wanted to see him. So it wasn't necessarily just about other band members "hipping" Prince into him.

Oh yeah, let's not forget that his funk stuff also started sounding more like the artists that came before him - Parliament-Funkadelic and James Brown. If you know your Parliament-Funkadelic you should know perfectly well where the whole Camille thing got its inspiration from.

Aerogram said:

This is a view shared by many WendyNLisa-ists, who think Prince only collaborated for a short while and did his best music then. There is certainly no question Prince was at his best during those years, it's just that Prince has always collaborated to various extent. None of his many great collaborators could even begin to match his prodigious skills as a whole, so it was definitely driven by his talent.

I would say it was driven by his vision.
That is why I believe it was so great in the 1980s

those who were with him or came to him came to him because of his vision, in my opinion.
He has more talent now, but the vision now not so much, and we see that change from the 1980s 1990s 2000s

He said in a 1997/98 interview, that what he had back then was a 'community'
That is how he worded it.
It's no doubt as many of them said he asked a lot of questions.
That is something that you see in most creative environments where people are sharing and gleaming from each other. Prince had a vision of Uptown-Paisley Park in the 1980s and everything just clicked together. Right people at the right time.

It is no doubt that as people learned from him he learned from them, people he had intimate relations with, talented people, people with different experiences and reaches, as it should be.

Someone recently enough posted on here some influences on a few purple rain specific tracks from obscure early 80's bands i'd never heard of. Lets go Crazy especially. I know this isn't much to go on but does anyone recall the tracks?

jaawwnn said:

Someone recently enough posted on here some influences on a few purple rain specific tracks from obscure early 80's bands i'd never heard of. Lets go Crazy especially. I know this isn't much to go on but does anyone recall the tracks?

It might be Be Bop Deluxe's Crying to the Sky for the PR influence.

[Edited 1/9/15 15:14pm]

jaawwnn said:

Someone recently enough posted on here some influences on a few purple rain specific tracks from obscure early 80's bands i'd never heard of. Lets go Crazy especially. I know this isn't much to go on but does anyone recall the tracks?

I would be interested in this as well.

lrn36 said:

jaawwnn said:

Someone recently enough posted on here some influences on a few purple rain specific tracks from obscure early 80's bands i'd never heard of. Lets go Crazy especially. I know this isn't much to go on but does anyone recall the tracks?

It might be Be Bop Deluxe's Crying to the Sky for the PR influence.

[Edited 1/9/15 15:14pm]

That's nice! Thanks for sharing!

He was a lot into Kate Bush at the time, particularly Houds Of Love. He was also exposed to (and sampled in GB) some classical music as stated by Dr. Fink and evidenced by the lyrics of Good Love. Eric exposed him to some jazz as said above and W&L to more stuff but IDK exactly what. We all know he loved Joni Mitchell and he's been reported to dig Cocteau Twins a lot, too.

Besides some of the names above, the 1989 NPG Radio Show also featured works by Janet Jackson (Jam & Lewis), Miles Davis, Sly Stone, INXS (!), James Brown, The Chamber Brothers, Soul II Soul, Bobby Brown, Talking Heads, Grace Jones, Tracy Chapman, Sade, Rush (?), The DOC (?) and Andreas Vollenweider (?) (IDK who the last 3 acts are, though Google could tell me in a second).

He also covered Elvis, The Temptations, Duke Ellington, Terence Trent D'Arby and MJ among others in the 80's, and praised George Michaels's skills as a songwriter later in the 90's.

That's all that comes to mind right now.

It was also reported he liked The Bangles before he gave 'em Manic Monday, and Three O'Clock before he signed them on paisley Park Records. He possibly has some love for Missing Persons too since he signed Dale Bozzio as well, but IDK, and of course Mavis and Clinton.