I reckon most of us have been listening the shit out of his catalog..how has your list changed?

MINEs..........................................

1. Sign O The Times

2. LoveSexy

3. 1999

4. Purple Rain

5. Parade

6. Dirty Mind

7. Love Symbol

8. 3121

9. Around The World In A Day

10. The Gold Experience

11. Controversy

12. The Black Album

13. Planet Earth

14. Batman

15. Art Official Age

16. Come

17. Prince

18. Chaos And Disorder

19. MPLSound

20. Hit N Run Phase 1

21. Lotisflow3r

22. Graffiti Bridge

23. Hit N' Run Phase 2

24. Diamonds & Pearls

25. Newpowersoul

26. Emancipation

27. For You

28. Musicology

29. 20Ten

30. The Rainbow Children

31. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic

32. Chocolate Invasion

33. Slaughterhouse

34. PlectrumElectrum

_______________________________________________

I am not interested in the Jazz albums so they are not included.

[Edited 5/18/16 19:05pm]

What about Come?

My personal rankings:

1. Parade - Especially Foeur's expanded edition. This record is so full of verve, variety and technical prowess. The baroque-funk sound has yet to resurface by any artist.
2. Purple Rain - Once again, the fan-made expanded versions outdo the original, as they edited the bass back in, pushing a near-perfect album over that line. I've overlistened to Purple Rain, so my spins tend to be months apart.
3. Sign 'O' the Times - Earthy, clever, perfectly cohesive but still unpredictable when I hear it time and time again. Thank the fates or WB or whoever that Crystal Ball never made it to shelves in Sign's place.
4. Dirty Mind - Prince's only real dance record. For such a dinosaur, this album moves better than the overproduced pop-house monstrosities all over the airwaves.
5. ... - Zany, murky and mean-spirited but layered. Songs like Bob George and Dead On it are secretly some of the funkiest tracks Prince ever put out.
6. Around the World in a Day - It was a crime to relegate Hello, She's Always in my Hair and Girl to B-Sides. The released version is colorful and satisfying but feels unfocused from the lack of setpiece pop hits.
7. Controversy - A victim of overlisteneing. Controversy would be in my top five if it wasn't so familiar to my car stereo.
8. Batman - Simple, heavy, gloomy, fun. A sonic counterpoint to Lovesexy.
9. Lovesexy - Music needs some conflict to it just like the narrative arts and Lovesexy is so bright and fluffy that it can feel like a decent Rugrats episode.
10. Prince - My least played of P's heyday albums. Tracks like Bambi and Sexy Dancer save this from being a better-than-average disco album.
11. The 90's. The rest of Prince's albums range from pretty good to terrible. P should have waited a couple years and combined Graffiti Bridge, Diamonds & Pearls and into a simple 12-track album. The Gold Experience, Come and Chaos & Disorder should have been mashed into a double-album and the rest of the 90's stuff is pretty corny and forgettable.
12. The 2000's. 3121 was good, a few scattered songs like FUNK, Dreamer and U're Gonna C Me are great but the rest is too mild, contrived or generic to be interesting.
13. The 2010's. Prince's worst decade musically. AOA is equal to 3121 in quality, but the rest is downright bad. Beginning with the unlistenable 20Ten and ending in the cringe-worthy HITNRUN duo, Prince's final years of recording were dwarfed by his fully-fledged mastery over audiences in concert.

[Edited 5/19/16 19:29pm]

1. Parade

2. SOTT

3. TRC

4. 1999

5. Purple Rain

6. Dirty Mind

7. ATWIAD

8. The Black Album

9. The War (This was credited as an album, right?)

10. Controversy.

11. ONA

12. Lotusflower

13. Come

14. Lovesexy

15. 3121

I'm not 100% on some of these rankings, ranking any more and I'd be ranking for ranking's sake.

1. Sign O The Times

2. Purple Rain

3. Parade

4. LoveSexy

5. 1999

6. Dirty Mind

7. Love Symbol

8. Controversy

9. The Gold Experience

10. Around the World in a Day

11. Art Official Age

12. The Rainbow Children

13. The Black Album

14. Batman

15. Come

16. LotusFlow3r

17. Black Album

18. 3121

19. Hit N Run Phase 1 & 2

20. Emancipation

21. Graffiti Bridge

22. Diamonds & Pearls

23. The Vault

24. The Truth

25. PlectrumElectrum

26. Prince

27. 20Ten

28. NewPowerSoul

29. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic

30. Musicology

31. MPLSound

32. One Nite Alone

33. Planet Earth

34. Chaos and Disorder

35. For You

36. Xpectation

37. Chocolate Invasion

38. Slaughterhouse

39. NEWS

40. For You

[Edited 5/18/16 17:47pm]

Not really a ranking but more like gradings:

For You - B

Prince - B+

Dirty Mind - A+

Controversy - A-

1999 - A

Purple Rain - A

ATWIAD - B

Parade - A

SOTT - A

Black Album - A

Lovesexy - A-

Batman - B-

Graffiti Bridge - C+

Diamonds and Pearls - B

Love Symbol - B

Come - B+

The Gold Experience - B+

Chaos & Disorder - B

Emancipation - B

CB + The Truth - B

The Vault - B

Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic - C

The Rainbow Chldren - C

One Nite Alone - B+

NEWS - A

Musicology - B+

3121 - B+

Planet Earth - B

Lotusflow3r/MPLSound - B

20Ten - B

Plectrum Electrum - B

Art Official Age - A

HNR Phase 1 - B

HNR Phase 2 - A-

My list from my excel list. Due to separate disc ranking, I have had to cut and paste here and there.

.

Emancipation 66 B-

.

Marks are for officialalbums I have heard only, no live, no hits sets except new tracks and no NPGMC/Proteges.

Lovesymbol and Gold Experience have not had segues orNPG operators rated as single tracks as these would bring marks down, same with AOA, no ranking of affirmations.

.

Before you ask, my album marks are from ranking each track out of 10 and dividing the sum into the whole number of tracks on a disc and using rounding to get a 2 digit number.

I use a much more generous NZ based grading system with the following, and this is different from the USA system were marks are squeezed together and D is a pass, here it is a failure.

.

A= Distinction pass/Exceptional 80 -100 - Excellence

B= Credit Pass/Very Good/solid 65 - 79 - Merit

C= Pass/Average Mediocre, adequate 50 -64 - Achieved

D= Failure /Poor 40 -49 - Not Achieved

E = Bad Failure/Dreadful under 39

.

Other albums Marks

94 East (6 songs only) 35 E

Ultimate Prince Disc 1 - 96 A+

Ultimate Prince Disc 2 - 77 B+

The Hits 1 - 92 A+

The Hits 2 - 90 A+

Very best of - 92 A+ (Scores are high as songs are big hits and to be expected, I regard them lower than albums with high marks, as these albums are cherry picking of the best songs (Mostly) where as studio albums are natural length and context items from one period), so naturally a hits collection should get a very high mark anyway. Anything under 80 is a bad greatest hits album.

ONA Disc 1 - 57 C

ONA Disc 2 - 69 B-

ONA Piano - 54 C-

Indigo Nights - 29 E- Unlistenable tosh

Rave in2 the year 2000 - 52 C-

Kamasutra NA but low, can't really rank instrumental music

[Edited 5/18/16 18:09pm]

[Edited 5/18/16 18:11pm]

Adorecream said:

My list from my excel list. Due to separate disc ranking, I have had to cut and paste here and there.

.

Sign o the Times	97	A++
Purple Rain	96	A++
Parade	94	A+
Lovesexy	92	A+
1999,	91	A+
Dirty Mind	90	A+
The Gold Experience	89	A/A+
HitnRun Phase 2	89	A
Around the World in a day	86	A
The Bsides	86	A
Controversy	83	A-

3121 Album	81	A-
Art Official Age	81	A-
Crystal Ball	80	A-
20Ten	79	B+

Black Album	76	B+
Come	75	B+
Lotusflow3r	75	B+
Love Symbol	73	B

Prince	72	B
Diamonds and Pearls	71	B
The Vault, old friends 4 sale	71	B
Chaos and Disorder	70	B
Planet Earth	70	B
The Hits/B sides 4 new tracks	68	B-
MPLsOUND	68	B-
Musicology	67	B-
Plectrum Electrum	67	B-
Graffiti Bridge	66	B-

Emancipation 66 B-

Rave un2 the Joy Fantastic

64

C+

For You

62

C+

HitnRun Phase 1	61	C+
Batman	60	C+
The Truth	48	D+
New Power Soul	47	D+
The Rainbow Children	42	D
N.E.W.S	38	E+

.

Marks are for officialalbums I have heard only, no live, no hits sets except new tracks and no NPGMC/Proteges.

.

Befire you ask, my album marks are from ranking each track out of 10 and dividing the sum into the whole number of tracks on a disc and using rounding to get a 2 digit number.

I use a much more generous NZ based grading system with the following

.

A= Distinction pass/Exceptional

B= Credit Pass/Very Good/solid

C= Pass/Average Mediocre, adequate

D= Failure /Poor

E = Bad Failure/Dreadful

[Edited 5/18/16 17:53pm]

My grading scale is more like this

A (8.5-10)- Great album I would definitely recommend to everyone

B (7-8.5) - Good album despite some flaws

C (6-7) - Decent Album that mostly doesn't showcase the performer's strengths

D (3.5-6) - Mediocre Album that fails to showcase the performer's ability to handle a musical project

F (0-3.5) - Atrocious album I would avoid and never acknowledge again.

214 said:

What about Come?

Fixed...where is your list bruh

I try to be as fair as possible with my marks, but there are always going to be biases.

.

1. Albums with only 8, 9 or 10 songs will be unfairly penalised if 2 or 3 songs are very substandard and these will drag down the marks. Whereas albums with 13 or more songs will be more likely to bear the brunt.

2. I rank songs from 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest mark, mostly I give decent songs at least a 6, good songs an 8 and many get 10s. Very few get 1's, most bad songs or songs I don't like at all will get a 4 or a 5.

3. My breakdown of song scores out of 463 ranked tracks.

.

Classic songs 10/10 - 83/463

Excellent songs 9/10 - 82/463

Very Good songs 8/10 - 89/463 - 254/463 songs or some 57% of his album tracks are 8/10 or better!

Good songs 7/10 - 74/463

Satisfactory songs 6/10 - 45/463

Fair songs 5/10 - 39/463

Mediocre songs 4/10 - 23/463

Poor songs 3/10 - 19/463

Bad songs 2/10 - 8/463

Terrible songs 1/10 - 4/63 -less than 1%

There are no 0/10 songs, just the fact he bothered to make a song and put it on the album is worth a mark, afterall a 1/10 Prince song is still better than anything I could come up with.

.

So as you can see, very few songs are under 4. But still one or two 3/10 and 4/10 tracks weigh an album down, and being an artist like Prince, many albums have plenty of 8/10 or even better jams, but usually 1 or 2 seriously flawed (4 or less jams too) and most of the songs are likely to be 7, 8 or 9 and thus why my avearge mark for most of his lesser albums is 66 to 76 and hisclassics are all over 85 as they have no filler and plenty of 9/10 and 10/10 tracks.

.

1/10 songs - The Plan, Da da da, Face Down, Boytrouble

2/10 songs - Arms of Orion, Lemon Crush, Jughead, The otherside of the pillow, fascination, comeback, Muse 2 the Pharoah, Family name.

So you guys can see the low marked songs are crap.

.

4. Also it is just my opinion, yours will be different and many non Prince fans would not rate his music so highly.

5. This system shows many of his albums score in the high 60s and 70s (15 albums), which is decent above average stuff but there is a large group of classic (89+) and poor (Under 64) albums.

6. I mark Princeand Michael Jackson stuff harder and consider an 8/10 Prince song a 9½/10 song by any other artist, but a 5/10 Prince song is the same as a 5/10 other artist song.

[Edited 5/18/16 19:09pm]

This has definitely shifted a little since his passing... wait he didnt really die, right? this is just a dream, right? i hope so... maybe? sometimes I still catch myself thinking it is a dream, its so weird...

oh yes, favorite albums...

definitely changed a bit since April 21... 1999 goes much higher.. maybe I just slept on it for a bit, maybe its when I just hear the moment when his music kind of moves from 2D to 3D - like, it all just seemed a 'greater' than before.. mainstream but not watered down and cheesey, polished but with a raw edge still...

My UNTOUCHABLES:

1. Parade

2. SOTT

3. 1999

4. Lovesexy

5. Purple Rain

6. Dirty Mind

7. Batman

8. Black Album

The ALMOST PERFECT's

9. Gold Experience

10. Phase 1 but ONLY as a 4 track EP (Ex's Face/1000 Hugs/Hardrocklover/June)

11. Emancipation (my own 18 track version)

12. Controversy

13. Love Symbol

14. Grafitti Bridge (minus a few klunkers like melody cool/ticktickbang/title track.. what puts this in 'almost perfect status' is that the tracks left are so killer: JOI/Elephants & Flowers/ ?ofU / etc

15. ATWIAD

STILL LOVE, more like Bronze than Platinum:

16. The Vault - I mean, There is Lonely & My Little Pill take on a whole new meaning now

17. Rainbow Children

18. LotusFlowr

19. Chaos & Disorder

20. AOA

21. The Truth

22. Come

PARTS of these Albums Kill Me but the overall vibe isn't my absolute favorite

23. Prince

24. Rave

25. 3121

26. D&P

27. Musicology

28. MPLS Sound

I Dont Really Care about these ones - sorry Prince ( are you still trolling this site?)

29. For You

30. Planet Earth

31. New Power Soul

32. NEWS

i need to give Phase 2 a real chance.. but to be honest. .i cant bring myself to listen to it.. i dont know why.. i think because I got the CD at the last concert and opening it means kind of breaking something 'holy'...

[Edited 5/18/16 19:41pm]

Moved UP in the rankings:

"Come"

"Lovesexy"

"Batman"
"Chocolate Invasion"

"Crystal Ball"

..

..

Moved DOWN in the Rankings:

"Sign O The Times"

"Emancipation"

"The Truth"

"3121"

"1999"

.

.

I still love/like the albums that moved down. It's just that with all my Prince listening this past month I've come to really like some other albums.

[Edited 5/18/16 19:40pm]

1. Lovesex, that's my jam!

2. Camile / Black

3. ATWIAD / 1999

4. SoTT

5. Batman / Purple Rain

6. The Dawn 3cd

7. Hitnrun phase 2

.

Moved down in the standings:

- 20Ten

- 3121

- LotusFlowr

.

But during this era his live appearances at Montreaux jazz & North Sea Jazz were just fantastic.

.

Been listinening to boots like that more than anything.

A quick top 10 as of right now:

.

1. Sign 'O' The Times
2. 1999
3. The Gold Experience
4. Parade
5. Controversy
6. Purple Rain
7. 
8. Come
9. Dirty Mind
10. Prince

.

Honorable mention: Graffiti Bridge (only Prince songs)

Bottom 5 (doesn't mean I hate them):

1. 3121
2. For You
3. The Rainbow Children
4. Planet Earth
5. 20Ten

1. Lovesexy

2. SOTT

3. Parade

4. ATWIAD

5. Dirty Mind

6. Controversy

7. 1999

8. Purple Rain

9. Prince

10. For You

11. The Black Album

12... now it gets hard! AOA!?

13. Phase 2

14. Batman

15. Gold

16. Diamonds and Pearls

17. o(+>

18. One Nite Alone

... after that, it's just a mess with odd tracks I like. Hard to judge as albums !

Current top 10:

1. Purple Rain

2. 1999

3. SOTT

4. Gold Experience

5. Dirty Mind

6. Parade

7. AOA

8. Phase 2

9. Emancipation

10. Controversy

1. Purple Rain

2. Gold Experience

3. Sign O The Times

4. 1999

5. Lovesexy

6. Chaos and Disorder

7. Symbol

8. Parade

9. Diamonds and Pearls

10. Art Official Age

11. Dirty Mind

12. Batman

13. Hit N Run Phase 2

14. The Vault

15. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic

16. Around the World in a Day

17. Emancipation

18. Controversy

19. 3121

20. One Nite Alone

Bottom 5

MPLSound

Musicology

Planet Earth

20Ten

Plectrum Electrum

Lol..

thx185 said:

1. Lovesex, that's my jam!

1. Sign of the times
2. Parade
3. Purple Rain
4. Lovesexy
5. The Rainbow Children
6. The Black Album
7. 1999
8. Batman
9. The Gold Experience
10. Art Official Age

The Truth is at the top of my list right now. I keep lisenting to it over and over. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time it came out because it was included with Crystall Ball and I didn't got thru all the music. I heard of the Comeback song on here listened to it and fell in love with the whole album. TBH I don't think I've heard Prince that raw and stripped before.

At the moment my Top Ten: (it is always changing)

1. Purple Rain

2. Parade

3. 1999

4. Sign O' The Times

5. Emancipation

6. The Gold Experience

7. Dirty Mind

8. ATWIAD

9. Batman

10. 3121

My favorite Prince albums right now

1. Controversy

2. Batman

3. Dirty Mind

4. Love Symbol

5. 1999

6. The Gold Experience

7. Sign O' The Times

8. Parade

9. Purple Rain

10. Diamonds and Pearls

11. ATWIAD

12. 3121

- here goes on the awesome released catalogue:

.

1. Parade - 100/100 – joyful, bright, uplifting, cool and colourful, hard funk, even with off beat and emotional tracks its flows perfectly - yet new and different from the purple rain era - its #1 4 me and reminds me of a time in my youth when anything felt possible - it felt like musical enlightenment - Prince thank U

.

2. Sign O The Times – 97/100 – Play in the sunshine until you have a beautiful night ! SOT the movie is #1

.

3. 1999 – 96/100 – lady cab driver – say no more

.

4. Purple Rain – 96/100 – awesome

.

5. Hit N Run Phase ONE – I know its relatively new but I really like this ‘at the moment’– so a tentative 90/100

.

6. Dirty Mind – 90/100 – we don’t let society show us how its supposed to be !

.

7. Around the World in a Day – 90/100 – Lets all go and live in Paisley Park

.

8, For you – 85/100 – recorded at age 19 so definitely must be ranked and the intro ..!

.

9. Prince – 85/100 – I like it

.

10. The Rainbow Children – 85/100 – Last December is a special track

.

11. Controversy – 85/100 – Powerful funk that still kills all comers

.

12. Black Album – don’t listen to it much anymore but I did a lot years ago – its so damn dead on it - its got to be highly ranked

.

13. Art Official Age – smooth I like it

.

14. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic – Prince is just cool and so is this

.

15. LoveSexy – innovative and fearless and pure Prince

.

16. 3121 – love the track 3121

.

17. PlectrumElectrum – Another Love rocks!

.

18. Planet Earth – the best album you will ever receive free in a newspaper you don’t read!

.

19. HnR Phase 2 – I may grow to like this more but currently its 19.

.

20. Emancipation - technically imo this probably deserves to be higher but its just im not listening much to it these days

21.Crystal Ball - Last Heart is a fav - was dissapointed when i recieved it back in 98 in the post as i was hoping some of the original unreleased versions of various unreleased tracks i liked would be on there but werent - and didnt like some of the newer versions of the tracks that were on there...but hey its still got game

.

21. Xpectation

22. LotusFlow3r

23. The Gold Experience -

24. Graffiti Bridge – I much prefer the original version of joy in rep

25. The Vault – often wished there were more releases of unreleased tracks from the vault as Ive spent as much time over the years listening to the amazing unreleased tracks as the released tracks

26. NewPowerSoul – come on check it out

27. 20Ten

.

The albums I haven’t ranked Im not listening to much these days.

[Edited 5/19/16 17:46pm]

[Edited 5/19/16 17:50pm]

My top 20:

• Purple Rain
• SOTT
• 1999
• Dirty Mind
• Parade
• Love Symbol
• TGE
• Prince
• ATWIAD
• Batman
• D&P
• Emancipation
• AOA
• Rainbow Children
• 3121
• LotusFlow3r
• Controversy
• Come
• Lovesexy
• The Truth

I'm a teacher, and my Prince albums that make the Dean's List are as follows (along with grades):

.

1) Purple Rain -- 100% A+

Can't be beaten for consistency + energy + high quality + creativity. For one time only, Prince reigned in his 'rush-it-out' instincts and did some crafting. Go to the front of the class, Prince, and while you're at it be valedictorian!

2) Sign o' the Times -- 99% A+

Maybe 'It' isn't the world's greatest song, but the sheer quality and consistency overwhelms the listener. One of the greatest albums by anyone, ever. Prince is independent and continues to do excellent work.

.

3) Around the World in a Day -- 90% A+

I don't like the last song, but before that it's a near-perfect album of stunning breadth. 'Paisley Park' is one of the two or three most uplifting songs I've ever heard. Prince can teach the class today.

4) Small Club (bootleg) -- 90% A+

Not a real album, but if it had been (or, in future, is) issued, it's a stupendous listen. Prince's talent is the envy of his classmates.

5) Dirty Mind -- 84% A

Wonderfully inventive, sparse, perverted, tuneful, creative and tight record. (Only drawback is that Prince had to get his mouth washed out with soap and stand in the corner for his naughty lyrics.)

6) Lovesexy -- 84% A

Underrated (by mass public) gem is endlessly listenable, and throws up seemingly unlimited layers of sound (and tracks). Dense but also light and breezy. Weird. Prince took some stick from other kids for his nudie photo on the cover, though.

7) 1999 -- 82% A

Songs are a bit over-long, but the quality of them is undeniable, as are their unique qualities. A slightly 'cold' album, but a very rewarding one.

8) Diamonds & Pearls -- 80% A

Has not aged very gracefully, but there's no getting around the song-quality or the endlessly inventive and hummable melodies. (Note to Prince's parents: If Prince wants to stay on the Dean's List, however, he's advised to drop those hoodlum friends of his who rap. In fact, if he'd dropped his friends, his Graffiti Bridge might also have made the Dean's List.)

.

.

.

(Before anyone asks, no, Parade didn't make my Dean's List. I like it, but not nearly as much as most Prince fans do. The style and sound of it are great, but some of the compositions aren't quite up to snuff, I think.)

[Edited 5/19/16 22:36pm]

[Edited 5/31/16 22:38pm]

New to this site, but certainly not new to Prince. I have most of but not his entire collection, so I haven't rated his albums here. However, given that this is "updating" ratings, I just listened to ATWIAD for the first time in years, and absolutely loved it more than I thought I would. In retrospect, it was extremely bold for him to release this album following Purple Rain: Completely different, mostly uncommercial except for the singles (can you imagine Michael releasing something like this?), and refreshingly loose and trippy. The guy had balls!