Prince did so many other things so well that this important aspect hardly ever gets the attention it deserves. In the Studio, Prince did a lot more than people like Dre, Neptunes, Rick Rubin, even Phil Spector. He also did more than just play with samples. When listening to his countless classics--his drum sounds, his vocal overdubs, his note placement, his solos on various instruments-- its easy to forget how flawless he made sure each production sounded and how superior to 99.9 percent of everything else out there, on or offline. He delivered unforgettable classics for his own albums, until the very end, and also side projects like The Time, The Family, Sheila E., Vanity 6, and more.

[Edited 5/17/16 7:11am]

[Edited 5/17/16 7:13am]

I think lots of people may disagree.

Doubtless he was great, but I think many would have liked to hear him work with other producers.

Much of his 90s and onwards material had a formulaic vibe, and didn't capture the energy of his live performances.

he also didn't have much success really producing other artists. No one that went big and lasted, other than The Time maybe.

james said:

I think lots of people may disagree.

Doubtless he was great, but I think many would have liked to hear him work with other producers.

Much of his 90s and onwards material had a formulaic vibe, and didn't capture the energy of his live performances.

he also didn't have much success really producing other artists. No one that went big and lasted, other than The Time maybe.

James, I definitely see your point and agree... his work with Monae was compelling and she said she handled production... more outside producers would have been nice... providing he also kept his toe in the water... as for the 90s stuff, right again... but some works from that era, as I know you know were awesome production-wise (the glut of keyboard on Shoo Be Doo for instance). Thanks for writing!

Certainly I became obsessed because of his knack for production that interested and entertained me, from Irresistible Bitch to U Know, incredible levels of depth and contrast and surprise and effects and technique. Certainly in the 90's and onwards it seemed like he was putting out material online and in stores and other means at a pace that didn't alllow him to spend a ton of time on some tracks, but that was always another part of his vibe since Dirty Mind... the demo as the product.

But really, I think he was an incredible producer, and I think people are confused by him trying to keep a Prince brand sound with him being limited. He didn't have many limits, but he did try to maintain a certain Prince vibe on his mixes. Femi Jiya went into detail about this in his Q&A session in 2002.

The writer Nelson George once said that when you go to work with Prince, you know you're getting a Prince production. It's not going to sound like you, it's going to sound like Prince. And while Prince music is always great to have, it does seem limiting when working with other artists. I think of Mavis, and how while some of that stuff was cool and all, it was no different than The Family or Jill Jones, in that it was them singing to a Prince song. Bonnie Raitt had a similar experience with Prince, and the project was aborted.

.

Prince was good at producing Prince, and Prince music. He knew the boards, and all that other jazz. Even one-off Prince songs for other artists (like The Bangles) - the production often stuck out as "Oh, that's the Prince song". Stuff on Patti, Nona Hendryx, Bangles, Sheena - etc, all those albums were nice. Then there's the Prince song stuck in there. Not a sore thumb - but noticeable. Chaka Khan's album was kind of a side note to that. Come 2 My House is something you can tell she had her own input on, a lot. But then you get to Graham Central Station, which had great, funky albums back in the day, and you put up GCS2000 next to that, and it's just boring.

.

A good producer not only knows the technical stuff, but knows how to get the best of an artist out of them. Not just singing, but playing, writing, etc. If you hear the early cuts of Def Leppard's stuff that ended up on Hysteria, it was kinda boring, and drawn out. Robert John 'Mutt' Lange condensed those hooks and made an incredible album with the band. Same goes for Shania Twain. Doesn't sound a bit like Def Leppard, but she had a slew of hits.

.

To me, it was the one limit with Prince - not really listening to other people's music anymore, and not being able to just produce someone as themselves, instead of "________ featuring Prince on production".

TrivialPursuit said:

The writer Nelson George once said that when you go to work with Prince, you know you're getting a Prince production. It's not going to sound like you, it's going to sound like Prince. And while Prince music is always great to have, it does seem limiting when working with other artists. I think of Mavis, and how while some of that stuff was cool and all, it was no different than The Family or Jill Jones, in that it was them singing to a Prince song. Bonnie Raitt had a similar experience with Prince, and the project was aborted.

.

Prince was good at producing Prince, and Prince music. He knew the boards, and all that other jazz. Even one-off Prince songs for other artists (like The Bangles) - the production often stuck out as "Oh, that's the Prince song". Stuff on Patti, Nona Hendryx, Bangles, Sheena - etc, all those albums were nice. Then there's the Prince song stuck in there. Not a sore thumb - but noticeable. Chaka Khan's album was kind of a side note to that. Come 2 My House is something you can tell she had her own input on, a lot. But then you get to Graham Central Station, which had great, funky albums back in the day, and you put up GCS2000 next to that, and it's just boring.

.

A good producer not only knows the technical stuff, but knows how to get the best of an artist out of them. Not just singing, but playing, writing, etc. If you hear the early cuts of Def Leppard's stuff that ended up on Hysteria, it was kinda boring, and drawn out. Robert John 'Mutt' Lange condensed those hooks and made an incredible album with the band. Same goes for Shania Twain. Doesn't sound a bit like Def Leppard, but she had a slew of hits.

.

To me, it was the one limit with Prince - not really listening to other people's music anymore, and not being able to just produce someone as themselves, instead of "________ featuring Prince on production".

he did a fantastic job producing Judith Hill just last year

P producer in the 80s was a fantastic, original, inspired, ecletic producer, ahead of trends.

From D&P he became more normal and predictable, sometimes even weak.

alandail said:

he did a fantastic job producing Judith Hill just last year

I'll give ya that one. But that's one. And I think Judith is so musical in her own right, that Prince just smoothed the rough edges for her. Girl is talented as hell.

I NEVER wanted to hear Prince with any producer other than Prince. He is one of the greatest producers of all time.

TrevorAyer said:

Whomever mixed and produced parade is an absolute production genius ... Whomever produced lovesexy is completely deaf .. Must be a gemini thing .. Compare the piano on sometimes it snows in april to the piano on anna stesia and witness the very moment prince lost his production ear

Whatever...Trevor.

Who all is on the credits for "Sugar Walls"? 80's masterpiece arrangement. Same with "Glamourous Life"

Cut to "Digital Garden"... incredible and completely different in my opinion.

Cut to "U Know" (yes I know it is based on a looped sample). Incredible contemporary style production.

Cut to the the retro sound of "People Pleaser". Incredible eidting on that one, in my opinion.

I learn from listening to these.

I think the npg club releases like Supercute, High, When Will We Get Paid... is all incredibly produced.

And people hate on his new stuff, but I think something like "Shut this Down" is incredibly fun and well produced. My jaw dropped when the bass goes funky. It's like he makes mini movies and that was the chase scene.

And okay, yes, "Lovesexy" threw me for a loop after SOTT and The Black Album. It seemed like it had no discipline or style or sense of taste, all cluttered up and uncool with it's unmatching textures and elements... until you realize that... THAT.... is the point of the idea of the "Lovesexy" energy.

ufoclub said:

I think the npg club releases like Supercute, High, When Will We Get Paid... is all incredibly produced.

And that original "The Dance." Also: Let's Go Crazy alone would earn him the title. lol

[Edited 5/17/16 9:46am]

I think Prince was a great producer . . . for himself and his own interests/side projects.

One of his major drawbacks was that everything he produced sounded like him. The individual artist seemed to become secondary to Prince's sound.

I think this was less true in later years than in the 80s/90s, but it was still there a bit in Andy Allo and Judith Hill. Although, these 2 are probably the best examples of him maybe trying to break out of that mold.

TrivialPursuit said:

alandail said:

he did a fantastic job producing Judith Hill just last year

I'll give ya that one. But that's one. And I think Judith is so musical in her own right, that Prince just smoothed the rough edges for her. Girl is talented as hell.

You are basing that assumption on the fact that she is talented?

I was just listening to HNR2 over good bose speakers yesterday and I was actually commenting to myself how GOOD it sounds production wise. The horn arrangements, the drums, the guitar, bass, vocal effects.. like literally everything seemed to be just perfectly put in place regardless of the quality of the actual songs. I actually found myself liking tracks I didn't care for before because I could hear the detail he put into them.

alandail said:

TrivialPursuit said:

The writer Nelson George once said that when you go to work with Prince, you know you're getting a Prince production. It's not going to sound like you, it's going to sound like Prince. And while Prince music is always great to have, it does seem limiting when working with other artists. I think of Mavis, and how while some of that stuff was cool and all, it was no different than The Family or Jill Jones, in that it was them singing to a Prince song. Bonnie Raitt had a similar experience with Prince, and the project was aborted.

.

Prince was good at producing Prince, and Prince music. He knew the boards, and all that other jazz. Even one-off Prince songs for other artists (like The Bangles) - the production often stuck out as "Oh, that's the Prince song". Stuff on Patti, Nona Hendryx, Bangles, Sheena - etc, all those albums were nice. Then there's the Prince song stuck in there. Not a sore thumb - but noticeable. Chaka Khan's album was kind of a side note to that. Come 2 My House is something you can tell she had her own input on, a lot. But then you get to Graham Central Station, which had great, funky albums back in the day, and you put up GCS2000 next to that, and it's just boring.

.

A good producer not only knows the technical stuff, but knows how to get the best of an artist out of them. Not just singing, but playing, writing, etc. If you hear the early cuts of Def Leppard's stuff that ended up on Hysteria, it was kinda boring, and drawn out. Robert John 'Mutt' Lange condensed those hooks and made an incredible album with the band. Same goes for Shania Twain. Doesn't sound a bit like Def Leppard, but she had a slew of hits.

.

To me, it was the one limit with Prince - not really listening to other people's music anymore, and not being able to just produce someone as themselves, instead of "________ featuring Prince on production".

he did a fantastic job producing Judith Hill just last year

What about Andy Allo's album? I thought there were some great tracks on there that didn't necessarily sound like him.

BoraBora said:

rusty1 said:

BoraBora said:

P producer in the 80s was a fantastic, original, inspired, ecletic producer, ahead of trends.

From D&P he became more normal and predictable, sometimes even weak.

Agree 100%

I'd have to disagree, he has strong production and weak production on every album. I've noted that when I first got into it in the 80's. I think the only one that was consistently excellent through the entire album was The Black Album for me. That's why it's my favorite album as a whole.

ufoclub said:

rusty1 said:

BoraBora said: Agree 100%

I'd have to disagree, he has strong production and weak production on every album. I've noted that when I first got into it in the 80's. I think the only one that was consistently excellent through the entire album was The Black Album for me. That's why it's my favorite album as a whole.

Really why?

TrevorAyer said:

Whomever mixed and produced parade is an absolute production genius ... Whomever produced lovesexy is completely deaf .. Must be a gemini thing .. Compare the piano on sometimes it snows in april to the piano on anna stesia and witness the very moment prince lost his production ear

What's wrong with the piano in Anna?

"The piano in anna sound very cheap and artificial"....'best production came pre lovesexy"....I may have to agree with that. There was so much warmth on "S.O.T.T" compared to the "brightness" and treble on "Lovesexy"..(Maybe that was intentional?).....I also agree that the keyboards and synths were way upfront on "Lovesexy" too..The bass, drum beats-programming, some distortion effects.. sounds like it all came from the built in keyboard patches. That may have helped him record the record faster. But having said that, I still love that record.

SPYZFAN1 said:

"The piano in anna sound very cheap and artificial"....'best production came pre lovesexy"....I may have to agree with that. There was so much warmth on "S.O.T.T" compared to the "brightness" and treble on "Lovesexy"..(Maybe that was intentional?).....I also agree that the keyboards and synths were way upfront on "Lovesexy" too..The bass, drum beats-programming, some distortion effects.. sounds like it all came from the built in keyboard patches. That may have helped him record the record faster. But having said that, I still love that record.

Yeah, there is a glaring "dark" and "light" feel in the very production of those two albums. Lovesexy is a great band record, though. So much of SOTT was a one-man show, whereas Lovesexy had the band playing at their best. One of this best bands, and very short lived.

Well i don't know nothing about music and production, so i can only tell by what i like or don't like. To me Anna is a wonderful song and love the intro and ending piano.

I was listening to Le Grind recently and was just in awe over his skills as a producer/arranger.

The music is layered and dense and at the same time, spacious and of course so funky. He was a studio wizard of the highest level!

I do agree with others that after the early 90's or so--his productions did become much more slick, polished--and lost some of the other wordly magic.

FUNKYNESS said:

I NEVER wanted to hear Prince with any producer other than Prince. He is one of the greatest producers of all time.

I think in his latter years--he could have used the push (and the songwriting focus) that an outside producer may have given him. People like-->Daniel Lanois or Nigel Godrich or Rick Rubin. I really would have liked to hear that...

SPYZFAN1 said:

"The piano in anna sound very cheap and artificial"....'best production came pre lovesexy"....I may have to agree with that. There was so much warmth on "S.O.T.T" compared to the "brightness" and treble on "Lovesexy"..(Maybe that was intentional?).....I also agree that the keyboards and synths were way upfront on "Lovesexy" too..The bass, drum beats-programming, some distortion effects.. sounds like it all came from the built in keyboard patches. That may have helped him record the record faster. But having said that, I still love that record.

There's so much warmth to the analog snyths and the Linn Drum has a hypnotic feel to it that was so much part of the 80s. Oberheims and Linn anyday..

TrivialPursuit said:

The writer Nelson George once said that when you go to work with Prince, you know you're getting a Prince production. It's not going to sound like you, it's going to sound like Prince. And while Prince music is always great to have, it does seem limiting when working with other artists. I think of Mavis, and how while some of that stuff was cool and all, it was no different than The Family or Jill Jones, in that it was them singing to a Prince song. Bonnie Raitt had a similar experience with Prince, and the project was aborted.

.

Prince was good at producing Prince, and Prince music. He knew the boards, and all that other jazz. Even one-off Prince songs for other artists (like The Bangles) - the production often stuck out as "Oh, that's the Prince song". Stuff on Patti, Nona Hendryx, Bangles, Sheena - etc, all those albums were nice. Then there's the Prince song stuck in there. Not a sore thumb - but noticeable. Chaka Khan's album was kind of a side note to that. Come 2 My House is something you can tell she had her own input on, a lot. But then you get to Graham Central Station, which had great, funky albums back in the day, and you put up GCS2000 next to that, and it's just boring.

.

A good producer not only knows the technical stuff, but knows how to get the best of an artist out of them. Not just singing, but playing, writing, etc. If you hear the early cuts of Def Leppard's stuff that ended up on Hysteria, it was kinda boring, and drawn out. Robert John 'Mutt' Lange condensed those hooks and made an incredible album with the band. Same goes for Shania Twain. Doesn't sound a bit like Def Leppard, but she had a slew of hits.

.

To me, it was the one limit with Prince - not really listening to other people's music anymore, and not being able to just produce someone as themselves, instead of "________ featuring Prince on production".

I entirely agree, I didn't mind those Prince songs on other albums but yes, Prince didn't try to take another artist's sound to its best, which is what producers usually do: he just gave them his sound. And if it was a side project he'd just give it a specific Prince sound the way he'd give a specific Prince sound to any of his albums. With other artists he'd sometimes manage to fit in well (The Sex Of It was apparently composed with KC&TC in mind), but sometimes when he would just send songs he thought would do for such or such artist, said artist had to rerecord the track entirely to make it fit in. GCS2000 is a bad example in a way because Larry hadn't produced a remarkable album in nearly 20 years anyway, but Prince indeed turned Larry's compositions into his own (I like the result but yeah, it's more Prince than Larry).

Now something really significant happened those last few years. It began with Superconductor: some songs are really typically Prince but with some others he clearly tried to sound more "generic", less himself (People Pleaser or If I Was King, and the acoustic cuts). He pushed this much farther with Judith Hill's album: it hardly sounds like a Prince album at all, there are "princey" things here and there but it just sounds like your typical nu-soul record, something Prince would not have attempted in the past, and in that sense it becomes appealing for nu-soul listeners who may not like P's dinstinct sound palette. This can also be felt with that Rita Ora track that we got a snippet of in 2014. I personally wasn't excited by Back In Time, precisely because it sounds too generic for me, but I was very impressed at how Prince was capable to make his presence discreet and become a real producer (in the classic sense of the term) for the first time in his life. I wish we'd known how he would have developped this new direction in the future.