KingSausage said:

I blame Geneva's cookies. Who knows what was in them.

lol U R silly

peege43 said:

Angelsoncrack said:

I was listening to a podcast about this kind of subject. I can't remember if it was peach and black or if it was the prince podcast (I think it was the prince podcast actually), but basically they were talking about how from about Graffiti Bridge onwards, he let outside music really influence him.

I think it was a combination of that and the feud with WB. I think he just scared a lot of people away with the whole 'slave' thing etc.

Good point. I had read where during the 80s he was setting the trends (Purple Rain, ATWIAD), but he got afraid of the rise of rap and felt he was getting left behind; suddenly he became a follower instead of a leader.

Prince reveals a lot during the 1997/98 happy period

He talked about that 1982-1986 period as a Community

and when you look back at everyone interconnected with him, and through the bands

you see what depth of human connection he lost after 1986

[Edited 4/9/15 6:03am]

V10LETBLUES said:

Whatever happened it happened at the flick of of a switch. Really strange. To go from do no wrong, to uber cheesy and unoriginal within an album is really confounding. From such originality and charm, to being in a rut regurgitating the same charmless joyless songs over and over. Something major happened.

This. He was still young when "Batman" and "Diamonds and Pearls" were released - both good, but not great albums. And "Graffiti Bridge"? Meh. They definitely didn't break any new ground, and he began venturing into New Jack Swing and rap after they had already hit the mainstream. It's like he went into neutral after 1988.

I dont see a decline Prince. If anything he evolved from that 80's sound. I admit that he lost me as a fan during the 90s. That mix of new jack swing and funk was NOT my cup of tea and I stopped following him for a while, however the Rainbow Children really impressed the heck out of me and I've enjoyed C-Note and 3121-love this cd, and Lotus flower and for what its worth I enjoyed AOA.

No those albums are not as innovate and big in sales as the 80's stuff, I know, but he impressively showed me he can stretch across genres and create pretty nice gems that I still enjoy today. Much of which I cannot say has been produced by any member of the Revolution post-prince days-sorry but that's the truth.

What are we discussing here? Decline in commercial success, decline in public acknowledgement or decline in artistic value? I suppose it's meant to be the latter, but then we should probably make clear first how we determine artistic value and what our criteria are.

He's 57 right?

That's nothing... he's been in a perfectly natural slump...

he's just about due to start turning it around, a la Bob Dylan...

Look at Dylan's 40s and early 50s, he floundered and struggled massively to regain his direction and sense of purpose...also coming through a religious conversion, which softened and faded after a time... then, by returning to his roots and knuckling down to his craft, he found a way through, and is actually now at a career high. Commercially, this period IS the peak of Dylan's career, (not bad for 73)... and creatively he's on a pretty high high too...

Hopefully, it's just around the corner.. Prince will regain his sense of purple and start putting out some really valid music again... I actually think AOA is a step in the right direction. Although the whole 3rdEyeGirl thing, while a nice idea, is pretty tired already. He forgot to put any actual good songs into the project, so while the sound is often tasty, the material/substance is McFlaccid.

Anyway, hopefully AOA Dylan's Oh Mercy... a solid album that's only hinting at the goods to come.

Or he could keep going with the Ex's Face stuff.... oh well..

Rimshottbob said:

He's 57 right?

That's nothing... he's been in a perfectly natural slump...

he's just about due to start turning it around, a la Bob Dylan...

Look at Dylan's 40s and early 50s, he floundered and struggled massively to regain his direction and sense of purpose...also coming through a religious conversion, which softened and faded after a time... then, by returning to his roots and knuckling down to his craft, he found a way through, and is actually now at a career high. Commercially, this period IS the peak of Dylan's career, (not bad for 73)... and creatively he's on a pretty high high too...

Hopefully, it's just around the corner.. Prince will regain his sense of purple and start putting out some really valid music again... I actually think AOA is a step in the right direction. Although the whole 3rdEyeGirl thing, while a nice idea, is pretty tired already. He forgot to put any actual good songs into the project, so while the sound is often tasty, the material/substance is McFlaccid.

Anyway, hopefully AOA Dylan's Oh Mercy... a solid album that's only hinting at the goods to come.

Or he could keep going with the Ex's Face stuff.... oh well..

Not taking anything away from the band members, I never understood what 3rd Eye Girl meant or represented

.

I can say even Vanity 6 had a defined vision direction etc beyond 6 = 6 breasts all2gether

.

I have yet to understand 3rd Eye Girl

Boring! This topic is so old.

You can't expect every artist to be AMAZING all the time. Prince is human - he's not a robot. Relax.

Milty2 said:

Boring! This topic is so old.

You can't expect every artist to be AMAZING all the time. Prince is human - he's not a robot. Relax.

Then don't contribute if you think it's old and boring. It's generating some good discussion.

I'm talking about a sudden dropoff in quality after 1988 - not a natural decline a la Dylan and R.E.M.

[Edited 4/9/15 10:33am]

Once Prince made conscious decision to censor his own work thru the lens of the J.W. perspective,

it was OVA. I'd add 2 that.........but this says it all.

His studio albums and the consitency of album availability.


Sure, Prince changed his name to a symbol, sued fans, and basically acts like a douche most of the time. However, Prince has always been a PR disaster. But during 1999, PR, ATWIAD, SOTT, and LoveSexy, most anyone looked past all that nonsense, because he was releasing music every friggen year and it was always brilliant and new, and original in sound.

His studio albums were just better back then. Now, we get albums every 2 to 4 years-ish, with almost nothing interesting on them, and the douche factor has been turned up to 10.

Graycap23 said:

Once Prince made conscious decision to censor his own work thru the lens of the J.W. perspective,

it was OVA. I'd add 2 that.........but this says it all.

.

I've thought you enjoy his more recent output...

EmancipationLover said:

Graycap23 said:

Once Prince made conscious decision to censor his own work thru the lens of the J.W. perspective,

it was OVA. I'd add 2 that.........but this says it all.

.

I've thought you enjoy his more recent output...

I enjoy all of Prince's work.............I'm answering the question of the OP.

That said, there has been a sharp lyrical decline since 1996.

Blixical said:

His studio albums and the consitency of album availability.


Sure, Prince changed his name to a symbol, sued fans, and basically acts like a douche most of the time. However, Prince has always been a PR disaster. But during 1999, PR, ATWIAD, SOTT, and LoveSexy, most anyone looked past all that nonsense, because he was releasing music every friggen year and it was always brilliant and new, and original in sound.

His studio albums were just better back then. Now, we get albums every 2 to 4 years-ish, with almost nothing interesting on them, and the douche factor has been turned up to 10.

You are right Blixical... sorry to realize it... though...

I think we can discount age, religion and the slave nonsense because his decline happened when he was still relatively young, not a JV, and before the slave blow-up.

And whatever it was, it affected a large portion of his inner social circle and co-workers, with most leaving, or being fired at the same exact time.

I am going to go with the drugs theory, irratic behavior that antagonizes friends and co-workers, work suffers, and it all goes down fairly quicky.

A lot of folks who, after a battle with drugs, who survive, go overboard on reigion in making a course correction. I think it all fits Prince's decline pretty well. That or a mental breakdown.

I know it's not polite to hypothosize about people away from the water cooler at work, but we'll make an exception just this once ok

[Edited 4/9/15 11:57am]

V10LETBLUES said:

I think we can discount age, religion and the slave nonsense because his decline happened when he was still relatively young, not a JV, and before the slave blow-up.

And whatever it was, it affected a large portion of his inner social circle and co-workers, with most leaving, or being fired at the same exact time.

I am going to go with the drugs theory, irratic behavior that antagonizes friends and co-workers, work suffers, and it all goes down fairly quicky.

A lot of folks who, after a battle with drugs, who survive, go overboard on reigion in making a course correction. I think it all fits Prince's decline pretty well. That or a mental breakdown.

I know it's not polite to hypothosize about people away from the water cooler at work, but we'll make an exception just this once ok

[Edited 4/9/15 11:57am]

But are there any evidence of this?

For me, its quite simple: At his artistic peak (obviously his 80s material), he was producing such high-quality music in large quantities that it was inevitable his streak was eventually going to sputter out in due time. He can only go to the well so many times for water before a lack of resources occurs. We all know that each and every album post-Lovesexy just simply isnt up to snuff compared to the holy first 10 years, but they ALL have at least 2-3 great songs on them. Its almost comparable to a summer drought: use the water resources sparingly, and turning on the sprinklers to water land is simply out of the question. Hes not able to turn on the hose and walk away anymore, if you get what Im saying.

paulludvig said:

V10LETBLUES said:

I think we can discount age, religion and the slave nonsense because his decline happened when he was still relatively young, not a JV, and before the slave blow-up.

And whatever it was, it affected a large portion of his inner social circle and co-workers, with most leaving, or being fired at the same exact time.

I am going to go with the drugs theory, irratic behavior that antagonizes friends and co-workers, work suffers, and it all goes down fairly quicky.

A lot of folks who, after a battle with drugs, who survive, go overboard on reigion in making a course correction. I think it all fits Prince's decline pretty well. That or a mental breakdown.

I know it's not polite to hypothosize about people away from the water cooler at work, but we'll make an exception just this once ok

[Edited 4/9/15 11:57am]

But are there any evidence of this?

none whatsoever, just gossiping like 50's housewives.

I suspect it's probably a combination of different things, some connected to him and some connected to the music scene that was changing in the early 90s. Probably, having an enviable run of critical and commercial success based off his own artistic intuitions in the 80s made him kind of unprepared for flops like GB, and how to handle something he didn't really understand, like hip hop and the new styles that were coming out; plus the segregation of music that was happening in the early 90s and the challenges for the old 'crossover artists'.

I think there's probably a lot in any explanation that focuses on his relationships with other people, though: i.e. that he built himself an elaborate playpen and sealed himself off from the outside world, and (as people are mentioning) cut ties with people who he'd come up with, and those who had a real artistic contribution to make (like Wendy & Lisa), rather than musicians for hire. (When he did have an inspired artistic run in the mid-90s, working on the material that became Come and TGE, it was with a core of Minneapolis musicians, some of whom, like Sonny T, connected back to the days of his youth and significant formative musical experiences on the old 'Uptown' scene.)

I say there were actually two points where things changed: one after 1988 and another after 1996/7. In both cases, it might be significant that those times correlate to personal crises in his life (breakdown of significant romantic relationship in the former, and we all know what, in the latter). I always imagine that Prince is a guy who must carry around all kinds of abandonment issues with him, from his childhood, and probably has some abilty to 'close off' certain parts of himself - which may be an understandable personal reaction, but which is artistic suicide.

I saw an interview with (the famously 'therapied') Springsteen years ago, saying the price of not dealing with the things you're carrying around only increases as you get older. I wonder if there's something of that with Prince. You notice him coming up with "I've found The Secret!" self-cures of religion or other dogmas, but those must have diminishing returns. Plus (and I mean this sympathetically), most people have some kind of mid-life sense of a void, but seek meaning in family, kids, etc. It always makes me a bit glum when I here him writing yet another lame 'party' song about the club, the DJ, or last night's conquest, because those seem like childish ideas about what's 'cool' (although, at the same time, I wonder if that connects him back to his youth, in the 60s, when singers did indeed put out throwaway songs about new dance crazes, etc). Still, not really things that reflect some hard-won adult sense of what could make a life feel meaningful, though - or at least it seems he's not inclined to share that with us.

[Edited 4/10/15 5:21am]

V10LETBLUES said:

paulludvig said:

But are there any evidence of this?

none whatsoever, just gossiping like 50's housewives.

Very true. I like these kinds of threads, though.

Prince didn't really decline as much as he lost the cool factor to a new generation of fans. A lot of people will say that Prince stopped being relevent in 1988-90 but in truth he was still being featured on MTV/BET/VH1 in 1994-96. As a kid I got Prince because he was my Uncles favorite star and he was a huge rebel of that time. By the time the mid 90's was around none of the kids wanted a tiny man with high heeled boots and a falsetto singing to them and no urban radio was playing anything with a guitar on it. It's not that people no longer understood that Prince was an incredible musician, it was that a generation of kids chose rap and grunge as the cool rebel music. This kind of thing happens all the time in music. The generation that loved Elvis is not the generation that loved Elton John. This is a natural thing but people always want to make it out to be some kind of fatal flaw of Prince or that the Revolution was disbanded and neither of those have any merit as reasons. Time waits for no man and just like today, Jay-Z's time has passed and Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole have arrived. It's nothing that Jay-Z did or could be blamed on Jay-Z, he doesn't have the music that grabs kids anymore. An artist just has to sit back and wait for their time to come again and as you can see now Prince is more respected and creates more buzz today than back in his heyday. It's all cyclical, what Prince should be applauded for is that he stayed his course and stayed ready. He didn't disappear and use drugs and waste his talents and become a typical former big star sad story. He did jazz albums, concept albums and music he wanted to try and kept his skills sharp. People will also use religion as his downfall which is ridiculous becuase his music always had a God influence and what would the climax to story of his life be if he never surrendered to God? Who didn't see that coming especially after Lovesexy? Everything about his music was juxtaposed to his torment of God 'calling' him and his own sinful desires. That tension had to be resolved and if anyone thought Prince was always going to be the pied piper of sexuality then what can say is those people never got his lyrics. Bottomline for me is, people will come up with all kinds of bogus reasons but the truth is it passed him by just like it passed others before him.

jaawwnn said:

Aerogram said:

So Prince's career isn't one long crescendo, each album reaching reaching new heights, expanding artistically and commercially forever and a day. There are many reasons why that's not what happened, not only in his case but in all cases. One reason has to do with how albums become classics. Recording stars usually rise when they are young, and they attract a young audience. As both the artist and his public age,something happens : the initial fan base buys fewer records, but cherish those earlier records, the soundtrack of their youth. They go on to call those records classics, newer and younger fans see them call them classics, and the legend is born, chronicled by the once incredible artistic and commercial feats everyone agrees on. In other words, conventions set in, everyone ages, few buy as many records and history is written... for now. Looking back at you other artists in different mediums, later works are often rehabilitated. They did not benefit from the same perfect dynamics as the now classic period, but remove all that and you still have great artistry. A good example of that is Aretha's 70s stuff, many songs consider d not as great as earlier material received a new appreciation when they came out wi the box sets.

Yeah, i don't buy prince's age as an excuse at all. Plenty of older artists release brilliant work as they get older, as long as they stay inspired and interact with the world. I'm not sure I see prince doing that though.

Bigger question though, will we ever be allowed rediscover Prince's life-long catalogue? Will there ever be a box set with F.U.N.K. on it for example? Prince'll probably just burn it all on his deathbed.

No way you can just dismiss age as a factor, both for the artist and his/her fan base -- not when the audience that drives pop culture remains young.

Commercially his relevance finished after the Symbol album...

Artistically his relevance faded after Lovesexy...

That whole symbol period, Gold Experience era as much as the fans call that the second coming of Prince... Was just a disaster, and made him a laughing stalk in the public eye.

Polo1026 said:

Prince didn't really decline as much as he lost the cool factor to a new generation of fans. A lot of people will say that Prince stopped being relevent in 1988-90 but in truth he was still being featured on MTV/BET/VH1 in 1994-96. As a kid I got Prince because he was my Uncles favorite star and he was a huge rebel of that time. By the time the mid 90's was around none of the kids wanted a tiny man with high heeled boots and a falsetto singing to them and no urban radio was playing anything with a guitar on it. It's not that people no longer understood that Prince was an incredible musician, it was that a generation of kids chose rap and grunge as the cool rebel music. This kind of thing happens all the time in music. The generation that loved Elvis is not the generation that loved Elton John. This is a natural thing but people always want to make it out to be some kind of fatal flaw of Prince or that the Revolution was disbanded and neither of those have any merit as reasons. Time waits for no man and just like today, Jay-Z's time has passed and Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole have arrived. It's nothing that Jay-Z did or could be blamed on Jay-Z, he doesn't have the music that grabs kids anymore. An artist just has to sit back and wait for their time to come again and as you can see now Prince is more respected and creates more buzz today than back in his heyday. It's all cyclical, what Prince should be applauded for is that he stayed his course and stayed ready. He didn't disappear and use drugs and waste his talents and become a typical former big star sad story. He did jazz albums, concept albums and music he wanted to try and kept his skills sharp. People will also use religion as his downfall which is ridiculous becuase his music always had a God influence and what would the climax to story of his life be if he never surrendered to God? Who didn't see that coming especially after Lovesexy? Everything about his music was juxtaposed to his torment of God 'calling' him and his own sinful desires. That tension had to be resolved and if anyone thought Prince was always going to be the pied piper of sexuality then what can say is those people never got his lyrics. Bottomline for me is, people will come up with all kinds of bogus reasons but the truth is it passed him by just like it passed others before him.

Well he was never that big with mainstream audiences, but had a devoted hardcore following that was hardcore because he was THAT good.

REGARDLESS of how weird or freaky he came across, his talent always trumped the spectacle.

I think he kinda abandoned that hardcore demographic who loved all his work as aesoteric as some of it was, and watered it down to try and jump on the then MTV gloss.

Maybe that's the reason for the decline. He wanted a bigger audience, to be everything to everybody, and was in turn rejected for coming off as pandering and lightweight for courting the transient disposibe youth market at ripe old age of 35. I guess to the MTV generation he was old. He was a legendary creative artist muscian pedeling down instead of keeping up. Thats never a good look.

[Edited 4/9/15 15:01pm]