My vote is Symbol with Come closely behind...

Why not TGE... Although there are some amazing songs on that album like Shhh, I Hate U etc... The album as a WHOLE as not aged well at all. The segues are so corny, some songs are just really not good, and that whole rapping stuff just hasn't aged well...

For me it's Come. But enough about my personal life. But seriously, it's Come. After the really commercial Diamonds and Pearls and the kinda commercial Symbol album (both of which I still love), he returned to his weird funky dirty Princely ways with Come. He was like, "Fuck it. I gotta be me." The dark humor on the cover, the sleigh bells and horns in the title song...and Space is the jam. Anyhoo, then WB also finally offically dropped The Black Album later that same year. What?? Nice.

1994 was a good year.

You know, I'll go out on a limb and say

.

The Truth. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned, not even in a list of 90s albums.

.

Graffiti Bridge - tied to a movie that was garbage. Great Prince songs, OK associated artist songs, but the one great Prince tune was recorded years earlier. Worst title track for a Prince album ever, barely beating out Planet Earth if you ask me.

.

D&P - Great commercial pop album, and more of a comeback album than Musicology ever way. Still, hard to overcome Jughead.

.

Symbol - I like it, but have to agree it's so over indulgent. Nah.

.

The Hits / B Sides - doesn't count

.

The Black Album - doesn't qualify as a 90s album in my book.

.

Come - Great album that turned into too much of an obligation. Imagine the album had Prince been excited about it. By the time it was out, he had moved on even more than he usually has when an album surfaces.

.

The Gold Experience - I love it. This would be my second choice for the best 90s effort.

.

Chaos and Disorder - I rate this higher than Come, actually, for another Prince "obligation" album.

.

Emancipation - Some great work and some very average work, and it all suffers from a very flat production sound to me. Hasn't aged well overall.

.

Crystal Ball - too much of a compilation (and a mess) to be his best album of the 90s

.

The Truth - Gets my vote. Such a unique entry into his catalogue. A departure, despite it not being the acoustic album we may have all wanted. But, excellent stuff all around, with the exception of the Vegetarian Experience known as Animal Kingdom.

.

The Vault - more of a compilation than an album. I enjoy parts of it and other parts never make it into my rotation.

.

Rave - Bottom 5 all-time Prince album to me, but there are a couple gems as usual (Tangerine, anyone?). The lows are just reeeeeally low for me. Not a good effort for what was supposed to be "the year of Prince, 1999". Worst intepretation of a Sheryl Crow song. Ever.

.

The NPG albums - Goldnigga / Exodus / NPS - Exodus is the best to me, but there are too many segues. NPS falls somewhere between Graffiti Bridge and Emancipation to me.

[Edited 6/8/15 17:03pm]

Doozer said:

1. Gold Experience

2. Symbol

3. Graffiti Bridge

4. Diamonds and Pearls

5. Chaos and Disorder

KingSausage said:

Doozer said:

You know, I'll go out on a limb and say

.

The Truth. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned, not even in a list of 90s albums.

.

Graffiti Bridge - tied to a movie that was garbage. Great Prince songs, OK associated artist songs, but the one great Prince tune was recorded years earlier. Worst title track for a Prince album ever, barely beating out Planet Earth if you ask me.

.

D&P - Great commercial pop album, and more of a comeback album than Musicology ever way. Still, hard to overcome Jughead.

.

Symbol - I like it, but have to agree it's so over indulgent. Nah.

.

The Hits / B Sides - doesn't count

.

The Black Album - doesn't qualify as a 90s album in my book.

.

Come - Great album that turned into too much of an obligation. Imagine the album had Prince been excited about it. By the time it was out, he had moved on even more than he usually has when an album surfaces.

.

The Gold Experience - I love it. This would be my second choice for the best 90s effort.

.

Chaos and Disorder - I rate this higher than Come, actually, for another Prince "obligation" album.

.

Emancipation - Some great work and some very average work, and it all suffers from a very flat production sound to me. Hasn't aged well overall.

.

Crystal Ball - too much of a compilation (and a mess) to be his best album of the 90s

.

The Truth - Gets my vote. Such a unique entry into his catalogue. A departure, despite it not being the acoustic album we may have all wanted. But, excellent stuff all around, with the exception of the Vegetarian Experience known as Animal Kingdom.

.

The Vault - more of a compilation than an album. I enjoy parts of it and other parts never make it into my rotation.

.

Rave - Bottom 5 all-time Prince album to me, but there are a couple gems as usual (Tangerine, anyone?). The lows are just reeeeeally low for me. Not a good effort for what was supposed to be "the year of Prince, 1999". Worst intepretation of a Sheryl Crow song. Ever.

.

The NPG albums - Goldnigga / Exodus / NPS - Exodus is the best to me, but there are too many segues. NPS falls somewhere between Graffiti Bridge and Emancipation to me.

[Edited 6/8/15 17:03pm]

Interesting choice. I've been meaning to start a thread about how The Truth is the most sadly ignored Prince album, even by hardcore fans. Can't we ignore Planet Earth instead?

I kind of like the way "The Truth" is forgotten about in his catalogue, kind of makes it more special. In truth I'd rate "Gold" as his best of the 90's closely followed by "Love Symbol"

khelm9 said:

1. Gold Experience

2. Symbol

3. Graffiti Bridge

4. Diamonds and Pearls

5. Chaos and Disorder

My top-5:

1. The Gold Experience (the SOTT album of the 90s imo, so many styles and genres, superb)
2. Diamonds & Pearls (the big hit singles, I love those)
3. The Love Symbol Album (only 1 song "Blue Light" is a bit weak, the rest is lovely imo)
4. Come (excellent album, I love all of this - a pity "Lovesign" wasn't on this fine album)
5. Graffiti Bridge (the Prince songs are really great, "Shake!" and most of the other relates are awful though)

The Gold Experience by far, so many great songs on that album, Endorphinmachine, Gold, Dolphin, Beautiful Girl, 319, Shh! and I hate U. Just amazing stuff.

.

Next I would actually say Come, as apart from Solo and Orgasm, that album is tight, Letitgo, Come, Space and Dark are true classics.

.

Then Lovesymbol, yes there is some crap like Arrogance and the Flow, but it also has Love 2 the 9s and Morning Papers along with his very best track of the 90s - Damn U!

.

Diamonds and Pearls is right up there too, a lot of very catchy and commercially friendly tightly produced, funky pop songs like Cream, Gett Off, Daddy Pop, Willing and Able and of course Money don't matter 2nite.

.

Least favourite is NewPowerSoul, that album is just wrong.

.

My order

1. Gold Experience - 89/100

2. Come - 77/100

3. Lovesymbol - 75/100

4. Diamonds and Pearls 73/100

5. Crystal Ball 72/100 (Only 90s tracks, the 80s tracks are gold, but 90s a mixed bag)

6. Chaos and Disorder 70/100 - Some great rock numbers here, Sonny and Michael B with Prince, the new power trio.

7. Graffiti Bridge - 68/100, Ok but a lot of slipshod filler

8. Emancipation - 65/100 Some classics, but a lot of crap and average songs

9. Rave - 55/100 Ugghh!!!!Does have Beautiful Strange on 2000 version though, but thats a 2000s song.

10. The Truth - 50/100 - Yawn!

11. Newpowersoul - 42/100 I gave marks to the one and come on, rest is crap

12. Kamasutra - 2/100 - Not even an album, just crappy ballet type music.

.

Others

1. The Vault - fairly good album of outtakes - between Crystal Ball 90s trax and Emancipation depending on my mood for My little pill (About 65 -70/100)

2. Hitz/Bsides, theres only 3 new tracks here, Peach is pretty good, Pink Cashmere average (And from the 88/89 period) and Pope is terrible. So between Emancipation/rave (60/100?)

3. Goldnigga - Very poor and boring wannabe gangsta crap - A bit better than newpowersoul

4. Exodus, see above, some classic songs like Count the days, Goodlife and the classics get wild and cherry cherry ruined by stupid segues and rubbish trend cursing.

5. The War - Havent heard it

6. The Undertaker - Not really an album, but I like it (I had the videocassette), same level as Chaos and Disorder I guess.

[Edited 6/9/15 3:23am]

^ I like what you just wrote Adorecream..

great post (I agree with most of what you wrote)..

feeluupp said:

The Gold Experience/Come/Exodus

...all as one to me, such an amazing era musically!

KingSausage said:

Even on the Org, The Truth is ignored. We should start a thread.

I'm not sure it's ignored, necessarily. I suspect a lot of us (like yours truly) think of it as part of Crystal Ball.

funkaholic1972 said:

GB

D&P

Symbol album

The Black Album (not really 90's though, disqualified?)

Come

TGE

Emancipation

C&D

The Vault

Rave

Gold Nigga

Exodus

NPS

I think this was it, on top of my head?

My pick would be The Black Album, but as I have just disqualified that one my pick will be the Symbol album, that one has some really great songs on it. But if you ask me again tomorrow I might well mention another album. Although all Prince's albums in the 90's were spotty to me, there still is lots of great material to be found.

[Edited 6/8/15 13:54pm]

Yes, The Black Album is disquailified.

The Gold Experience is the best of the decade, closely followed by Come. Really unsure I would rank Love Symbol above it as others have, why not D&P then, since they are so similar.

Genesia said:

thedance said:

^ I like what you just wrote Adorecream..

great post (I agree with most of what you wrote)..

Thanks!!!

.

I just listened to the great tracks off Symbol last night, and they still sound great, even 3 chains of Gold. Damn U is still orgasmic!

I chose TGE,but Love Symbol would be a close second

i didnt realize people actually like his 90's output...i thought most were stuck in the 80's

Chaos And Disorder/The Gold Experience/Crystal Ball

The Gold Symbol Exodus Experience

luvsexy4all said:

i didnt realize people actually like his 90's output...i thought most were stuck in the 80's

Now if only Prince would realize that!!

Rebeljuice said:

The Gold Symbol Exodus Experience

Wise choice

It's interesting to look back and see how the Gold sound evolved from the Symbol album. I still love everything from Symbol / Come / Gold / Exodus / C&D. What an era, those were the days (of wild).

The strongest albums of the 90's:

1. LoveSymbol

2. Come

3. The Gold Experience

4. Crystal Ball

5. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic (although a little overrated)

Emancipation