Most Overrated:

THE GOLD EXPERIENCE:

Most by the people on this site... It has aged horribly. Has some amazing tracks, Shhh, Eye Hate U, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World... But it sounds so dated.

Most Underrated:

GRAFFITI BRIDGE:

Minus all the crap song fillers, this would have been his strongest album of the 90's... The Question of U, Elephants and Flowers, Joy in Repetition, Thieves In The Temple, all amazing songs... Thieves was such a fresh 90's sound for Prince, don't know why he didn't continue on that track instead of the whole experimental hip hop fad he had from 91-94.

Okay... so Gold has some strong songs and some filler, and thus is overrated (by people who rate it according to just the strong songs, I guess)

and Graffiti Bridge has would have been stronger without the filler songs, so it's underrated (because people decide to rate it according to all of its songs, instead of just ignoring them like they do with Gold's weak tracks).

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Interesting.

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I actually agree with you, by the way. Gold is overrated--Come is probably better, in my mind, and the strongest tracks from Emancipation are certainly comparable, if not better. We were told it would be great, that Warner was keeping it from us, the live shows were exciting, Prince was excited... and so when it was good.... maybe we just kind of carried over the community feeling and overestimated it. It's not bad, though. And everyone was excited, and that affects how you feel about things. It felt like Prince was (and by extension, Prince's fans were) winning. To varying degrees, people started losing that feeling after the Warner war was over. But I think that feeling is still tied to people's judging of the album.

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Graffiti Bridge's failings as a movie also impact the evaluation of the album (and its Various Artist format does too--there are a fairly large number of people around here who have little or no interest in related artist tracks, and seem to automatically downgrade a track if Prince isn't outfront). But another important element is the existence of the outtakes of so many of the album's tracks. You get some second guessing anytime we have "originals" to compare to (think of how much people complain about the cowbell in Endorphinmachine), but here it wasn't just minor tinkering, or minor edits.

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If you get rid of the non-Prince tracks, you've got 9 songs on Graffiti Bridge. By almost universal agreement, Graffiti Bridge itself is a poor track (I don't hate it, but most people seem to). The idea that New Power Generation is when Prince lost it was the subject of a recent thread, and hardly anyone defended the song as good, though I don't think most people found it to be the turning point. Still Would Stand All Time usually gets pretty good marks from people, and I think Thieves is generally well received. Those are the new tracks.

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The other tracks are all connected in people's minds with the high points of the Revolution years. These are classic-period leftovers, except that they've been redone. So they become part of the argument about whether Prince and the Revolution is better than Prince alone (but it's clearly not Prince-before-Purple Rain alone, which is a different contingent). And we have most of the earlier versions, and many people judge Graffiti Bridge based on the idea that the original tracks were better (we don't have The Question of U). Can't Stop This Feeling I Got has the added bonus of being about sex in the original--remember that religion loses a lot of us; Elephants and Flowers is always spiritual, but the original had naked bodies--and many people like the rawer sound. We Can Funk... well, I think it has to do with how much P-Funk you want on your Prince album, and I think even for people who like both (and it isn't everybody here, strangely enough) the two just didn't match up on this track. And obviously the original has a far different sound. Tick Tick Bang clearly has a very strong the-first-one's-better contingent. Those songs are all fairly big changes from the earlier versions. I think people exaggerate the significance of the intro to Joy in Repetition, but even the practically-the-same version of that song has a pretty vocal support group.

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Many people don't really hear Graffiti Bridge as a whole. Even once they remove the non-Prince tracks (in my mind a mistake, but a lot of people just don't care about them), you're left with a series of choices that many people feel were a mistake--and it's not that they feel Prince should have come up with better tracks (the complaint with most other poorly rated albums), but that they feel Prince HAD BETTER VERSIONS OF THESE VERY SAME TRACKS and consistently made the wrong choices. There's proof of his bad judgment--they have the evidence in the outtakes.

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I know everyone talks about what if the Dream Factory, Camille or Crystall Ball albums would have been configured...

However Graffiti Bridge as an album as a whole would've been very interesting due to the fact there are many great songs that are missing that could've made Graffiti Bridge an amazing album...

Songs like:

Pink Cashmere

The Grand Progession

Big Tall Wall

Stimulation

and you configure if with great songs like Joy n Repetition, Question of U, Elephants and Flowers, Thieves In The Temple... Would've been such a great album.

Graffiti Bridge is a disaster.

Thank you Sinéad.
Diamonds and Pearls was a sane reaction.

"Chaos and Disorder" is a top-notch album. It has a way of fitting nowhere in the chronology,
but that does not negate the sheer brilliance of the Power Trio.
He always tried to make a classic 50's swinging rock album ("Delirious","Peach", etc.),

and this is a perfect score. Of course ditching "I Rock Therefore I Am" is mandatory.

"The Gold Experience" is way overrated,
considering it is only a big egotistic whining (How come Warner doesn't love me when I can play all these styles?).

jcurley said:

I can never explain why but for me TGE wasn't about it being good or bad. It's obviously good. TMBGITW and I hate you are beautiful. It's for me a very heavy almost depressing album. I think possibly that despite the tracks I've just mentioned it feels more specifically male for a Prince album. There is an undercurrent of shit me kind of restrained aggression

I'm gonna agree here.

The Truth is very underrated great to listen to with the headphones on.

The truth, Don't play me, Circle of Amour great start to any album.

Man in a uniform and fascination are guilty pleasures. There isn't any really bad songs.

1999 is overrated for me, great but its dated worst than other albums.

Overrated: I think Moonbeam Levels is a bit overrated. Yes, it's good but I'm glad it was left off of 1999. Would've been a good B-side. Still, I would love to hear it in finished form.

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Underrated: 20Ten. Aside from "Everybody Loves Me", I think it's an outstanding, solid album from start to finish, and it's on a pretty good rotation for me since it came out.

feeluupp said:

Most Overrated:

THE GOLD EXPERIENCE:

Most by the people on this site... It has aged horribly. Has some amazing tracks, Shhh, Eye Hate U, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World... But it sounds so dated.

Most Underrated:

GRAFFITI BRIDGE:

Minus all the crap song fillers, this would have been his strongest album of the 90's... The Question of U, Elephants and Flowers, Joy in Repetition, Thieves In The Temple, all amazing songs... Thieves was such a fresh 90's sound for Prince, don't know why he didn't continue on that track instead of the whole experimental hip hop fad he had from 91-94.

Graffiti Bridge: if you get rid of all of the non-Prince albums, you have a stunning Prince album with a little bit of something for everyone.

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I think GB was the last album where we saw the Lovesexy version of Prince - the poet, the spiritualist, maybe the "kinder/gentler" Prince. The album GB is obviously headed toward R&B, but the Prince-only stuff seems still firmly planted in the Lovesexy world.

For me the most over rated album is Musicology. Whilst the album is just ok, I think it gets more love than it deserves. Its actually quite boring and pedestrian to my ears.

Most underated would be the Vault: OFFS. Whilst its nothing stellar that can hang with the big boys, I find it gets completely overlooked a lot. It may have been contract filler, but I think it stands up on its own as an official release.

I think Lovesexy is his most underrated album. It holds up over time musically and lyrically the archetypal struggle between good/evil and lust/love is on full display. The music here is so different than anything else he's done, it's like mystical funk or something. He took a bold chance writing such a God heavy album and he nailed it. I never skip a track on this album.

I can't pick an overrated album because I think all his albums should be more appreciated. I mean even Chaos & Disorder is a better rock album than most that were released last year. But if I was forced to pick an album to never listen to again it would be Purple Rain (don't kill me) not because it's not good I've just heard it enough and I hate that 90% of the people on Earth only know that album it's super annoying.

Okay I got one. Most overrated: The Black Album I rarely if ever listen to this album. The only song consistently listen to is Bob George.

aaroncanderson said:

I think Lovesexy is his most underrated album. It holds up over time musically and lyrically the archetypal struggle between good/evil and lust/love is on full display. The music here is so different than anything else he's done, it's like mystical funk or something. He took a bold chance writing such a God heavy album and he nailed it. I never skip a track on this album.

I can't pick an overrated album because I think all his albums should be more appreciated. I mean even Chaos & Disorder is a better rock album than most that were released last year. But if I was forced to pick an album to never listen to again it would be Purple Rain (don't kill me) not because it's not good I've just heard it enough and I hate that 90% of the people on Earth only know that album it's super annoying.

I wouldnt call Lovesexy underrated. It gets a lot of love on the org.

By underrated I mean it is his best album ever but most people pick SOTT or Purple Rain. It should always be at the top. It is 2015 and it still sounds otherworldly I can't think of another album that sounds like it. If you happen to know of any like me know please!

Rebeljuice said:

For me the most over rated album is Musicology. Whilst the album is just ok, I think it gets more love than it deserves. Its actually quite boring and pedestrian to my ears.

Most underated would be the Vault: OFFS. Whilst its nothing stellar that can hang with the big boys, I find it gets completely overlooked a lot. It may have been contract filler, but I think it stands up on its own as an official release.

Good point about Vault: OFFS. The album is contract filler, but the songs are mostly NOT filler songs. Going to go listen to it now.

aaroncanderson said:

By underrated I mean it is his best album ever but most people pick SOTT or Purple Rain. It should always be at the top. It is 2015 and it still sounds otherworldly I can't think of another album that sounds like it. If you happen to know of any like me know please!

Maybe, but you can't expect a Prince newbie to connect with Lovesexy like this.
All the albums before count.

Lovesexy is the result (final statement?) of the Sex/God dichotomy that Prince started with "Temptation" (and I meand the Purple Rain Tour segue, not the song).
Album after album, Prince has grown his own vocabulary and vignettes about it.

Since it's an album that says "I've been to the mountain top, I saw God",
you have to know about the sin if you want to understand the redemption.

Se7en said:

Overrated: I think Moonbeam Levels is a bit overrated. Yes, it's good but I'm glad it was left off of 1999. Would've been a good B-side. Still, I would love to hear it in finished form.

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Underrated: 20Ten. Aside from "Everybody Loves Me", I think it's an outstanding, solid album from start to finish, and it's on a pretty good rotation for me since it came out.

Did you hear it in the pristine quality that surfaced early this year? Sounds pretty finished to me...

Most Overrated: The Black Album, Controversy (sorry )

Most Underrated: Lotusflower, The Vault, 20Ten, Batman, N.E.W.S.

rusty1 said:

"Moonbeam levels" is the essence of his Minneapolis Sound.. Prince's best unreleased song ever. Lyrically & musically it flows perfectly.. I don't get the hate for this song

I don't know about "Moonbeam Levels" being Prince's best unreleased song, but it's definitely solid. The sound and lyrics would've fit perfectly on 1999. It's a shame it wasn't there instead of "Free," which I like aside from the lyrics to the chorus.

It would just sound like I think I, MOI, should be rating everything for yer old unwashed masses, so instead of being specific, let me say this:

There's probably quite a few post-Lovesexy albums that are way overrated, since the tradition has become to pee on them before they are even released. .

And there's probably quite a few released and unreleased pre-Batman tracks that were put on a pedestal a little too high early on, at least according to Timmy though Janice would vehemently disagree.

I think both TGE and Chaos and Disorder are underrated : C&D always was, TGE is becoming underrated because people are deciding it may not be as great as they initially thought it was. But for me, that's revisionism, both albums have quite a few gems and some tracks people find weak -- even 1999 and SOTT are thought to contain some "weak" tracks, and there are some people who don't like Take Me With U.

This means there will never be a perfect Prince album. All hope is lost and we should all get drunk and sleep for three days.

Most overrated: ATWIAD---I know this isn't a popular opinion (lol) but I don't think that this album is the big masterpiece that many people claim it is.There are a few great songs ("Paisley Park","Pop Life") but I think the album is a little boring at times.It lacks the urgency and power of the albums that came before it.

not sure what album I think is underrated.

Under Rated : CHAOS & DISORDER

Dig U Better Dead is so tight!

The guitars on Same December are insanity.

Zannalee is just too cool.

Over Rated : Musicology

It was such a relief to get something semi-digestable from Prince back in 2004. But listening to it now? Good Grief. A wet cardboard box has more soul.

RJOrion said:

Moonbeam Levels is horrible

stuff like Xtralovable, Purple Music, Possessed, Dance With The Devil, Donna, and a couple others

Suit yourself.

But honestly? That silly"Xtralovable" failed experiment traded for one of his best pop songs ever?
Not in my book, mister.

"Horrible". Please define. Give us your "Jughead scale".

Underrated: The Chocolate Invasion. It's flawed, but I think it would rank a little higher in Prince's canon if it wasn't an internet only release.