Hmm. I would say going from somewhat plastic pop-n-B in the late 1990s into The Rainbow Children. That was a total 'WTF' move. For the longest time, he was releasing commercial records such as Emancipation, Rave, New Power Soul and was trying his best to market them as hits, constantly doing promotion/award shows and attempting to stay relevant in the Britney/NSYNC teenybop era. Then 2001 rolls around, and bam, a random new era begins where he's releasing jazz-influenced crazy records like TRC, a piano album, instrumental albums, internet-only records, no promotion anymore, just an indie artist totally following his muse and doing quiet, no-accessories-added shows. I don't know what happened, but that was pretty significant how he went from a somewhat still relatively commercial artist in the late-90s to totally dropping into his own world in the early-2000s. Wasn't there (), but it must have been a surprising yet refreshing change for Prince fans. His 1998-03 work isn't in any way comparable to the '80s, but is still very interesting and has quite some gems.

I agree with you about "Right the Wrong"... I've shitted on it several times before, but I was listening to the album the other day and it really isn't THAT bad. I actually enjoyed it! It's not an amazing song, not even great, but it's not terrible. It was cool seeing him do country/western. "Jughead" though... song has a funky beat but those lyrics... that delivery... that chorus... it's one of the worst songs by anyone

[Edited 5/17/15 13:15pm]

CharismaDove said:

Hmm. I would say going from somewhat plastic pop-n-B in the late 1990s into The Rainbow Children. That was a total 'WTF' move. For the longest time, he was releasing commercial records such as Emancipation, Rave, New Power Soul and was trying his best to market them as hits, constantly doing promotion/award shows and attempting to stay relevant in the Britney/NSYNC teenybop era. Then 2001 rolls around, and bam, a random new era begins where he's releasing jazz-influenced crazy records like TRC, a piano album, instrumental albums, internet-only records, no promotion anymore, just an indie artist totally following his muse and doing quiet, no-accessories-added shows. I don't know what happened, but that was pretty significant how he went from a somewhat still relatively commercial artist in the late-90s to totally dropping into his own world in the early-2000s. Wasn't there (), but it must have been a surprising yet refreshing change for Prince fans. His 1998-03 work isn't in any way comparable to the '80s, but is still very interesting and has quite some gems.

I agree with you about "Right the Wrong"... I've shitted on it several times before, but I was listening to the album the other day and it really isn't THAT bad. I actually enjoyed it! It's not an amazing song, not even great, but it's not terrible. It was cool seeing him do country/western. "Jughead" though... song has a funky beat but those lyrics... that delivery... that chorus... it's one of the worst songs by anyone

[Edited 5/17/15 13:15pm]

I´m just speculating here but it might have to do with the fact that he was married to a former fan during those years. His setlists became more interesting, he played more obscure songs, was more fan friendly during the ONA tour, had the "celebrations" at Paisley Park, released some vault material on the NPGmusiclub website, etc. etc.

Now I´m not saying that she inspired him...maybe she did, maybe she didn´t. He didn´t write as many ballads for her like he used to for other women in his life. But he was definitely very fan friendly as far as music and concerts go.

I think dropping his name was the the biggest WTF moment.....

Prince also was one of the first to see the potential of monetizing on the internet however the tech was too open-ended for it to work for him the way he envisioned, but he did have the vision a long long time ago.

His change of name was genius.

Everybody seemed to be talking about it, including non-Prince fans.

Actually most of them thought he was quite mad, so maybe it wasn't such a genius move after all.

The internet albums were great. I also thought it was quite a shift to 'give away' his albums with newspapers and at concerts.

He had hinted about doing this for sooo long, that when he finally did it felt like Prince finally had control over his music.

I hope his next shift is to invent a new altnative ego like Camile. Then the new ego could release some more risque albums that the more spiritual Prince won't anymore.

monkeytennis said:

His change of name was genius.

Everybody seemed to be talking about it, including non-Prince fans.

Actually most of them thought he was quite mad, so maybe it wasn't such a genius move after all.

The internet albums were great. I also thought it was quite a shift to 'give away' his albums with newspapers and at concerts.

He had hinted about doing this for sooo long, that when he finally did it felt like Prince finally had control over his music.

I hope his next shift is to invent a new altnative ego like Camile. Then the new ego could release some more risque albums that the more spiritual Prince won't anymore.

I agree that the name change was genius, in hindsight even moreso....

and yaaasssssssss we need him to give us an alter-ego that spiritual Prince can blame everythig on hooooooo!

Yeah in the 20~ years since Right The Wrong there sure has been a lot of contenders for most hated Prince song.

terrig said:

I think dropping his name was the the biggest WTF moment.....

Prince also was one of the first to see the potential of monetizing on the internet however the tech was too open-ended for it to work for him the way he envisioned, but he did have the vision a long long time ago.

Zappa predicted internet sales before the internet. He envisioned people paying for music and "downloading" it digitally as 1s and 0s through the phone lines via a fax modem. He died thinking that was a failure of a prediction, but it turned out to be exactly the way things work now. He didn't foresee wireless internet, but he was right on for the dial-up modem internet.

NouveauDance said:

Prince is a genius. I can have another perception of songs he did so many years earlier and still discover some meanings I didn't on the first times.

Prince is a genius.

Some in the harem say he's a medium ?