Based on that other thread I've been doing a lot of listenting of the post Purple Rain output and working my brain around what happened in that crucial period 1988-1990. I now think I've figured out the exact moment Prince lost his magical powers.

Was it the day he fired W&L on an October day in 1986? No, still plenty of good stuff left in the tank even then...maybe it was a time for change for everyone anway.

Was it 12/1/87 "Blue Tuesday"? Perhaps...without this day we would have never had the Black Album fiasco, no Ingrid (and therefore no Grafitti Bridge?) no overthetop spiritualizm that led him right into the arms of the JW. Was that really it? What about LoveSexy which lots of people still really like.

I'm sure there are plenty of other theories out there for the exact date (death of the baby, June 7 1992-name change, the day License to Ill became the first "rap" album to hit #1) but musically I can only point to this moment, possibly on a cold day in early winter of 1989 (according to Prince Vault) when Prince began to put together the song "NEW POWER GENERATION".

That song really changed everything. All of the sudden Prince wasnt in his own little universe. It showed he actaully listed to contemporary music. He actually listened to (and liked????) Bobby Brown and all the other "new jack" acts. He tried to coop that sound but added some Princely pseudo relligious-psuedo-positive thinking philopsophy to it but unfortunatly, it didnt work at all.

I remember the huge let down feeling I had the first time I heard that track after the magical "Cant Stop". It really took the wind out of GB, especially after being so psyched up for it. OMG the sequel to PURPLE RAIN! THE TIME IS BACK!...A MOVIE!......good grief...what a letdown!. Have we really recovered since then?

Disagree.

New Power Generation is a fantastic song. To me it showed that actually, Prince could pick up a new style like New Jack Swing and incorporate it seamlessly into his own style. Michael Jackson did the same thing with the Dangerous record.

He didn't lose it but oh man, that song... cheesiest theme song ever. DREADFUL.

They shoulda got their own cartoon based on that song alone though.

ima say the moment was "horny pony" the fact this was ever released or performed really cemented the end of prince shit filter and ever since his output has been crapped all over by horrible ideas similar to everything that is horny pony

Great, now I have the damn song in my head!

I'll tell you what though, the remixes on the maxi single are awesome

[Edited 4/20/15 11:44am]

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emesem said:

Was it 12/1/87 "Blue Tuesday"? Perhaps...without this day we would have never had the Black Album fiasco, no Ingrid (and therefore no Grafitti Bridge?) no overthetop spiritualizm that led him right into the arms of the JW. Was that really it? What about LoveSexy which lots of people still really like.

Prince was already working on the script before he met Ingrid.

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I don't think Prince ever lost his "magical powers" but u r right in the sense that he allowed himself to try and sound like contemporay artists in the 90's, and this became obvious for the first time with GB and its new jack swing influenced sound, then in the 2000's he quit doing that but it was replaced by a constant rehash of previously used musical ideas. Not that I mind at all, but I see what u mean.

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However, what else could he do? He was primarly a R&B artist, and ALL R&B artists without exception have fallen into that trap to some extent: either trying to sound contemporary or rehashing past ideas, usually in that specific order (James did it, Herbie did it, George Duke did it, Stevie did it, even the P-Funk Allstars did it...). The only one who kept moving on was Miles, but still in the 80's he was trying to follow the trends of the time, and it's very possible that he'd have gotten back to his roots between two hip-hop albums in the 90's (see Django and the Montreux concert quith Quincy). And to be honest it's not just R&B, most pop artists followed that "first try to sound contemporary then rehash to death" road, too. Even contemporary classical music and experimental music composers end-up doing the same thing over and over again past the first decade of their career.

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So I fail to see exactly what fans expected Prince to do after his first decade. Go reggae? Make Brian Eno-like ambient? Have the latest hip producers produce commercial radio-friendly records for him?

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The very few times P tried to evade his usual musical vocabulary (The Undertaker, Kamasutra, The War, N.E.W.S., ONA piano, Xpectation) the reaction was often lukewarm at best, if not pure and simple bashing, though I'll admit that The Undertaker and The War were well received but they were respectively Hendrix and Funkadelic rehash in more than one way, so it's not exactly Prince "keeping the groundbreaking magic of his prime".

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Similarly, when P came back to his original sound (Mplsound, 20ten), reactions were far from positive, so I guess people didn't want him to go back to his roots either.

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And when people say he oughta get a young producer those are the same people saying he should not have followed R&B trends in the 90's, so I fail to follow the logic in this reasoning either.

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So I can totally respect people being disappointed with post 90 or post 95 Prince releases, but what I'd like to know is what, exactly, said people would have liked Prince to do? In 15 years on this forum I couldn't ever, EVER have anyone provide a clear, explanatory answer to that question. All I see is the weekly thread saying that P has lost it and trying (at best) to explain why and when, but this doesn't tell me (or Prince if he comes here and read those threads) what it is that y'all wanted, exactly...

[Edited 4/20/15 11:53am]

ZahndiFadzhina said:

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databank said:

So I can totally respect people being disappointed with post 90 or post 95 Prince releases, but what I'd like to know is what, exactly, said people would have liked Prince to do? In 15 years on this forum I couldn't ever, EVER have anyone provide a clear, explanatory answer to that question. All I see is the weekly thread saying that P has lost it and trying (at best) to explain why and when, but this doesn't tell me (or Prince if he comes here and read those threads) what it is that y'all wanted, exactly...

I can think of a bunch of things i'd personally like him to do musically but that would't be fair. Instead i'd like him to go study musical theory and maybe also some literature. And by study I mean in university, not through some wacky conspiracy theory websites and preachers (The science of Cymatics). Expand his horizons beyond "I like the Bible and I like sex". Sly Stone studied music theory, is Prince too good for that?

Militant said:

Disagree.

New Power Generation is a fantastic song. To me it showed that actually, Prince could pick up a new style like New Jack Swing and incorporate it seamlessly into his own style. Michael Jackson did the same thing with the Dangerous record.

God knows I love GB but Dangerous, man, that was something else entirely, at least the first side (minus Heal The World) and the title track. This album litterally redefined dance music as 1999 did, only with a more visionary take in the sense that while everything sounded like 1999 in the 80's, it took nearly a decade for everything to sound like Dangerous, i.e. this album was waaaay ahead of its time. However, I agree that NPG is a fantastic song and, even though I'll admit that the OP is right, as you do too, when saying P integrated other styles in his music from 1990 on, I don't see any harm in it.

This thread should also be :locked: as a dupe/ http://prince.org/msg/7/415437

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Militant, why don't we have a "Prince is over and done" sticky once and for all? Those threads pop up virtually every week, rehashing the same thing over and over again... I can respect a thread popping up every once in a while, but when it's been every week for YEARS, it oughta be a sticky

If Prince "lost it", what is the interest of people who believe this and continue to post long soliloquies to bad mouth his work?

prince lost it when fans were able to speak so openly and now they can shut u p

I didn´t mind Prince dabbling in New Jack Swing sounds.....I mean, didn´t he do the same in his heyday? Take current musical trends like New Wave, the New Romantics and Funk and Rock to give it his own twist? There are quite a few New Jack Swing inspired songs that I really like, for instance Don´t Say U Love Me or Acknowledge Me (it IS reminiscent of New Jack Swing, isn´t it? ...but I must admit that I never liked the song New Power Generation or most of the other songs on Graffiti Bridge.

He kind of lost me around those years or albums (Graffiti Bridge and Batman).

TrevorAyer said:

ima say the moment was "horny pony" the fact this was ever released or performed really cemented the end of prince shit filter and ever since his output has been crapped all over by horrible ideas similar to everything that is horny pony

I´m in the minority here but I actually neve had a problem with the Diamonds and Pearls album and still like it to this day (though I did not and never will like Tony M´s parts).

However, I totally agree with you that Horny Pony is an embarrassingly bad song and I was thinking "WTF?" when Prince came up with that song, among others.

Though I love the D&P album, I think it could have easily turned into a disaster if he had stuck with the original configuation. It still baffles me to this day how he could ever think that the first configuration was something that people would dig.

Glam Slam 91?

Horny Pony?

Terribly bad songs.

I´m glad he changed that original configuration and came up with much better songs instead.

-

How do you feel about the D&P album and about that era in general?

I think some of the shows were really great and still are in hindsight, and I liked some of the remixes such as Violet the Organ Grinder or the long version of Gett Off, or Get Some Solo.

And the album contains some great and timeless songs that make me forget about the clunkers on it.

I was never crazy about this song.It sounds too.....'ordinary',like alot of songs on the radio at the time.

I think a stronger,more powerful song was needed for Prince to open the movie with.

Prince was already putting overtly spiritual themes in his music, even before but especially evident, as far back as Purple Rain - In UTCM we get the whole "spirit is stronger than the flesh" stuff, Prince's diatribe after the bats in the restaurant scene is really out of place and obviously part of his overall manifesto rather than part of the plot and I think it was a seed planted that bloomed on Lovesexy, the unreleased Rave and various configurations of Graffiti Bridge.

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From memory Prince met Ingrid on the night he had the fabled e-trip which led to the cancelation of the Black Album? Which means she wasn't really crucial to Graffiti Bridge, as she wasn't around when Prince started the project and later on she was a second or third choice for the role of Aura. Though I would say her influence is definately a part of the overall project and character in it's final form.

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I'm not sure if NPG was the first New Jack influenced song, I definately agree that era shows Prince was soaking in influences of current black pop/chart music and hip-hop but as a musical magpie he had always taken from what he heard. Maybe this was the first time he was taking from people younger than himself and he had been defensive of his position in black popular culture since the Black album, 87-90 is definately all a part of the same reaction.

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Again I have to say that GB being a sequel to Purple Rain was garbage. Originally it was no such thing and ended up being so largely due to a need for funding as far as I can fathom. So I kind agree with the OPs idea, but I'd say NPG isn't the moment it comes far earlier before SOTT even but yes it's still Prince showing himself to be reactionary than pro-active.

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Fuck this forum and it's borked paragraphs!

[Edited 4/20/15 14:21pm]

TrevorAyer said:

ima say the moment was "horny pony" the fact this was ever released or performed really cemented the end of prince shit filter and ever since his output has been crapped all over by horrible ideas similar to everything that is horny pony

YEP!! I can forgive him for writing and recording it. The day he decided to release it though

emesem said:

Was it the day he fired W&L on an October day in 1986? No, still plenty of good stuff left in the tank even then...maybe it was a time for change for everyone anway.

That's exactly what I was thinking the other day listening to some rehearsal boots. You can tell that Prince and The Revolution probably needed a break.

I remember one critcic asking what was so "new" about (what P was proclaiming) in the New Power Generation song..He asked "Aren't these guys in their 30's?"

emesem said:

Based on that other thread I've been doing a lot of listenting of the post Purple Rain output and working my brain around what happened in that crucial period 1988-1990. I now think I've figured out the exact moment Prince lost his magical powers.

Was it the day he fired W&L on an October day in 1986? No, still plenty of good stuff left in the tank even then...maybe it was a time for change for everyone anway.

Was it 12/1/87 "Blue Tuesday"? Perhaps...without this day we would have never had the Black Album fiasco, no Ingrid (and therefore no Grafitti Bridge?) no overthetop spiritualizm that led him right into the arms of the JW. Was that really it? What about LoveSexy which lots of people still really like.

I'm sure there are plenty of other theories out there for the exact date (death of the baby, June 7 1992-name change, the day License to Ill became the first "rap" album to hit #1) but musically I can only point to this moment, possibly on a cold day in early winter of 1989 (according to Prince Vault) when Prince began to put together the song "NEW POWER GENERATION".

That song really changed everything. All of the sudden Prince wasnt in his own little universe. It showed he actaully listed to contemporary music. He actually listened to (and liked????) Bobby Brown and all the other "new jack" acts. He tried to coop that sound but added some Princely pseudo relligious-psuedo-positive thinking philopsophy to it but unfortunatly, it didnt work at all.

I remember the huge let down feeling I had the first time I heard that track after the magical "Cant Stop". It really took the wind out of GB, especially after being so psyched up for it. OMG the sequel to PURPLE RAIN! THE TIME IS BACK!...A MOVIE!......good grief...what a letdown!. Have we really recovered since then?

But 1999 and Purple Rain were copping popular sounds of the 80's hits right before them on many tracks.

Militant said:

New Power Generation is a fantastic song. To me it showed that actually, Prince could pick up a new style like New Jack Swing and incorporate it seamlessly into his own style. Michael Jackson did the same thing with the Dangerous record.

I agree with u Militant:


I love New Power Generation as well.

Amazing pop-funk song, too bad it was split into 2 pieces.

The album version is better than the the maxi single version imo.... It just sounds better.

jaawwnn said:

that song... cheesiest theme song ever. DREADFUL.

I'll tell you what though, the remixes on the maxi single are awesome

[Edited 4/20/15 11:44am]

The things people say on this site...

Anyway, if you want bland try Partyman. And that's what the 21st century has been for Prince music: one big Partymahahahahan....

Pentacle said:

jaawwnn said:

that song... cheesiest theme song ever. DREADFUL.

I'll tell you what though, the remixes on the maxi single are awesome

[Edited 4/20/15 11:44am]

The things people say on this site...

Anyway, if you want bland try Partyman. And that's what the 21st century has been for Prince music: one big Partymahahahahan....

So which bit do you disagree with? Both?

I think the 12" version of Partyman does a lot to redeem it.

Shitty song that's for sure, lol. Still I'd say that the Batman album takes this crown.

[Edited 4/21/15 1:18am]

jaawwnn said:

Pentacle said:

The things people say on this site...

Anyway, if you want bland try Partyman. And that's what the 21st century has been for Prince music: one big Partymahahahahan....

So which bit do you disagree with? Both?

I think the 12" version of Partyman does a lot to redeem it.

Well, first you say NPG is a dreadful song, which it's not. And then you rave about the remixes, and I start doubting your sanity

Anyway, Loveleft is strangely catchy, and Partyman 12" is fun - but it's hardly good.

Seriously, I know there 'different strokes for different folks', but sometimes my jaw just drops. Like when people say 'Another Lonely Christmas' is not only good but has touched them... Or they say 'Crazy You' is a classic ballad...

'Official people' also surprise me. Like Alex Hahn claiming that 'Schoolyard' should have been on Diamonds And Pearls, or Susan Rogers saying that 'Witness 4 The Prosecution' is amazing. 'Witness' is a nice song, but amazing....