I was making a Prince compilation for a few friends to try and turn him to the good side. I was trying to show my other 19 year old friends that Prince is a genious, but i had to go and download the single edits of alot of his songs just because the version i have cd are sooo long. Don't get me wrong, i love i could never take the place of your man, but it works so much better as a shorter song. Same goes for Controversey. Alphabet street should have been cut before Cat's rap. Its a great song but sound dated due to the 'token rap'.

which brings me to my next point:
I guess all of Prince's songs sound dated. His early funk sounds dated, purple rain sounds dated, sign of the times, lovesexy etc. ALL of his 90s tracks sound dated, even alot of aspects from the Rainbow Children sound dated, just because of production techniques and some of the synth sounds he uses. Now don't get me wrong, i love Prince, but i can't think of any song he has that doesn't sound dated. It doesn't mean they're bad songs, but the only ones that dont sound dated are perhaps parts of the Truth album, sometimes it snows in april (although it still does in a way) and songs like controversey. I say controversey because you get alot of electroclash coming out now that really rips off old school Prince. But this is only because it's a trend and 80s retro will dissappear.

for the record, i'm not a new P fan, although i'm only 19, so it's not as if i heard most of his songs at the time whent they were first around.

estidog said:

Yeah - I know exactly how you feel. I've been trying to turn my friends on to some classical music, but when I listen back to some of the seminal works of Beethoven and Mozart - damn, do they sound so set in their time. I've tried compiling a CD-R of Mahler's symphonies - but they are so long - why Gustav went beyond 2 movements just escapes me, and even though I love those Rachmaninov concertos, why did he include long boring parts for solo keyboard too when he could have just had the band belt out the theme for a few bars, so we got the gist of the tune to whistle for the rest of the day? No wonder they never charted when they were first written.

Don't get me wrong, even though I've loved those cats all of my life, it isn't as if I was around when they were taking the European concert halls and salons by storm.

I know what you mean. I hear a song like Xemplify at at 56 seconds he plays that dated keyboard. Awful.

Beethoven was like that too. What was he thinking with the ninth symphony? It sounds like a rock song, but it's so old! He probably thought that in 2000 we'd all be dancing to it at three o'clock in the morning. Definitely in need of a re-write.

langebleu said:

:LOL: !!

Hmmm... When you guys mention "dated," are you mentioning it from a production standpoint or a composition standpoint? And is a timestamp a necessarily bad thing?
[This message was edited Sun Mar 23 6:50:17 PST 2003 by Lammastide]

langebleu said:

THANK YOU!

You know why people use the term "dated?"

Because they want to be cool, they want to be in with the latest fads. They don't care about a well-crafted song. They have no concept of melody, or arrangement, or anything musical. They don't care (or can't sense) when a song has emotion. I have never heard any musician, composer, songwriter use that term.

estidog, your signature sure makes sense!

The Come album to me doesn't sound dated at all. Neither does Around The World In A Day. Sure a lot of the others sound like they come from their era but those two for some reason transcend their time.

VinaBlue said:

You're making a huge generalisation with what you just said. If i really cared about appearing cool, i wouldn't be on a Prince message board. And by saying you've never heard any musician, composer or songwriter use the term 'dated', you're either:
a) lying
b) you've never met a musician, composer or songwriter.

also who said a song sounding dated is a bad thing? You're either saying Little Red Corvette has no emotion or it's not dated. Try to tell me that that song didn't come from the 80s!

and about my signature 'if it isn't making dollars, it isn't making sense' is from a Pedro The Lion song about how he got dropped from his label for being not commercial enough.

estidog said:

True, yet there must be some reason you only play your friends edits.

I was talking to a younger girlfriend of mine (who by coincidence has been invited to sit at Prince's table at a nightclub once, but the only one that talked to her was Morris Hayes), she's 25... and she commented on the sign o the times album:

adore :knew the lyrics, loved it

Ballad of dorothy parker: hilarious dated 80's sound, cute

sign o the times: "tiffany" politics and bubble gum mall beats , hate it. (I really don't understand this)

estidog said:

Are you kidding? One of the best bits in that song is the way it goes into that long funky breakdown, before finally the main guitar part comes triumphantly back in one last time at the end. I think it is one of the best moments in any prince song and that all gets lost in the edit version.

estidog said:

I like the longer songs. Sometimes you dont want a jam to end

VinaBlue said:

you've never heard a musician, composer, songwriter use the term dated? that's really odd VINA... it's not about wanting to be with the "in crowd". the term is used to describe music that you identify with a certain time period. you can definitely tell around the time when alot of music has been created. it's "dated" to that time. it's not a good thing or a bad thing. it just is.

PS: the ending of ICNTPYM is the *hit man!!

IAM said:

yeah, its good to see someone with sense here.

estidog said:

You're right. But it's my perception of what is going on.


True. Sad but true. (Meaning the world doesn't perceive Prince as cool anymore)



Wrong. Wrong. Duh, I'm always at the musicians forum and I write music. The only time I've ever heard this term is here. Maybe in some wacked out review in Rolling Stone.


It just comes across that way when people write it. Again my perception. It just seems people say "dated" when they don't like something. Only drawing from my experiences of course.

You're right. It's very 80's. I love the 80's. When people say something sounds 80's, to some some people that's good and to some people that's bad. So I guess maybe the term "dated" is like that too. I think there is good 80's and cheesy 80's. People tell me my music sounds very 80's, and I think they mean the good kind, lol.

Lammastide had a good point too. Is a timestamp a bad thing? I guess it's up to the individual. I can see how, from a production standpoint something can sound dated. But, like I mentioned in another thread on the musician's forum, when does it stop being dated and become classic?

I'm not getting on your case specifically estidog. I've just been bugged by this word "dated" and I finally had to say something about it. No biggie.

Little Red Corvette is one of my least favorite hits of his. It gets played too much. Radio, MTV, etc. acts as if he's only written 10 songs in his whole career! Maybe not even that many. That gets annoying to me.



And that is the same kind of thinking that stems from calling something dated, in my opinion.

Oh, and if you want to see a musician's discussion about the term, "dated", look here:
http://www.prince.org/msg...&tid=39959

I remember once someone said they didn't like the song "Elephants and Flowers" because it sounded so dated. But what other songs of that time period sound like it? This is just a general question, food for thought. How can something sound dated if it doesn't sound like anything else from that same time period?

How about this: The Doors. Dated, or timeless? Blah blah blah, I'm going on and on about this unimportant shit. Just feel like speaking my mind today I guess.

And how come you didn't respond to langbleu or sabaisabai? It seems to me they were mocking you. Or maybe that's my perception.

So did your friends become Prince fans?

IAM said:

Maybe if I did, they used the term with a certain understanding of music and the context was different. Maybe I just hang out with and pay more attention to like-minded musicians. Maybe I just ignore when my friends talk crazy like that. Who knows. Anything is possible.

Ooooh, capital letters. You're getting me excited.



Understood. Peace.

look Vinablue, i'm a musician. You have too many stupid generalised and unnecessary opinions, for me to listen to you.

estidog said:

I guess so, because I actually agreed with you on some points. You know, I thought about saying something like, "This is not aimed at you directly, just at the whole idea of calling things dated and how I perceive it."

Unnecessary opinions? That's rich. Stupid?

this is like arguing with a child.