[Edited 10/6/16 20:43pm]

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When I asked myself the question;

"Would I like 'For You' better if it was less produced, like the albums 'Prince', 'Dirty Mind', 'Controversy' and '1999'?"

The answer is YES.

I am sure I would like 'For You' better if it less produced.

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[Edited 8/13/16 13:47pm]

No. In fact, it fits quite well into the AM-Gold-Yacht-Rock genre of the day, actually. You can pepper those songs in between stuff like Christopher Cross, Ambrosia, Ace, Steely Dan, and Player, and it fits quite well. Prince is when the production changed a bit. It's a transitional album, of sorts, for me, before the more defined way of doing things on DM, Controversy, and 1999.

I've always said it was much better produced than his next few albums but that it wasn't as good as far as songs. But the sound is damn good, Prince has said he's proud of the fact that it's perfect but that he was tired all the time when he was working on it and I think the project took six months and went way overbudget, I heard 800,000 which explains the pop music of his second album, he had to make some money.

No. What makes you think it was overproduced? Prince did all the production himself, played all the instruments. There aren't excessive layers of tracks.

3121 maybe.

Prince pretty much said it was overproduced, so if he said that, I'm not going to disagree with him.

If you compare the album version of Baby to the Moonsound version - I am inclined to say yes. Otherwise, I think the album is just poorly mixed. It's mssing a lot of space in the stereo.

FunkiestOne said:

Prince pretty much said it was overproduced, so if he said that, I'm not going to disagree with him.

i think you're putting words in his mouth, he said it was perfect, if that's the quote you're talking about. if he said it was overproduced, i'd have to have a source to believe that.

NorthC said:

Dunno. You'd have to explain what an "overproduce album" is first.

I think of it more as an "atop a brioche" album, I don't think it does well as a salad topping.

EnDoRpHn said:

NorthC said:

Dunno. You'd have to explain what an "overproduce album" is first.

I think of it more as an "atop a brioche" album, I don't think it does well as a salad topping.

overproduced generally means too much arrangement and too many instruments cluttering up the song. It's very easy to do, i'll tell you as a songwriter, that you get a million ideas when you do it and i had to learn to pick and choose and not throw too much in, problem is, it gets in the way of the song. I'd think that overproduced is also defined as too perfect and too slick. I'll take the imperfect sun sessions over 99.9% of anything done today.

In this 1981 interview, Prince says that he was supposed to get some guidance in the studio and was hoping that someone would show him how to "cut corners" but he ended up having to do it all on his own in the end. "It took a long time to make [...] It was a perfect record, almost too scientific."

https://www.mixcloud.com/...rdam-1981/

CherryMoon57 said:

In this 1981 interview, Prince says that he was supposed to get some guidance in the studio and was hoping that someone would show him how to "cut corners" but he ended up having to do it all on his own in the end. "It took a long time to make [...] It was a perfect record, almost too scientific."

https://www.mixcloud.com/...rdam-1981/

he also said he was proud of it. at any rate, i think we can all agree that it's phenomenal for a kid to come with that.

PeteSilas said:

Pgeishirt said:

oh ,no, i was just making a point, i'd rather listen to the sun sessions over anything else today. No, prince did not do any sun sessions to my knowledge. i did once read an article which referred to dirty mind as a one man sun sessions. Prince loved rockabilly though, delirious, jack you off, sound like punk rockabilly.

HuMpThAnG said:

[Edited 8/12/16 17:29pm]

Could probably get a neural modelling funk data set to spontaneously generate it using only Sylenth i suppose

for me, the biggest weakness was that the songs weren't catchy to me. but still it's mind boggling how good it is, show me another person that age coming up with stuff like that, for all intents and purposes, alone. mj had quincy to fill stuff in, prince was able to come up with the things a producer does, all alone. and they all sound first rate, if not catchy in my mind.

NorthC said:

Dunno. You'd have to explain what an "overproduce album" is first.

It means they sold it on the shelf over the produce. Oranges and bananas and such.

PeteSilas said:

for me, the biggest weakness was that the songs weren't catchy to me. but still it's mind boggling how good it is, show me another person that age coming up with stuff like that, for all intents and purposes, alone. mj had quincy to fill stuff in, prince was able to come up with the things a producer does, all alone. and they all sound first rate, if not catchy in my mind.

To reiterate, if For You is an overproduced album, what does that make 3121? Hell, even Lovesexy was criticised by Eric Leeds for having way too heavy a mix.

Just because a record has a thick sound though doesn't mean it's too much. Damn wagner! can you tone down the double bass?

I'd say that was a well-done album for a 19 year old to do by himself, actually. Usually you have to go to chool for a long while for sound engineering and crap.

Chas said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

To reiterate, if For You is an overproduced album, what does that make 3121? Hell, even Lovesexy was criticised by Eric Leeds for having way too heavy a mix.

Just because a record has a thick sound though doesn't mean it's too much. Damn wagner! can you tone down the double bass?

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Lovesexy is over produced in my opinion.

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fortuneandserendipity said:

No. What makes you think it was overproduced? Prince did all the production himself, played all the instruments. There aren't excessive layers of tracks.

3121 maybe.

For You was overproduced. They spent alot more time on it than Prince would spend on anything he ever did later. To many instruments and layers, kinda "messed" up some of the songs. And it sounds a bit too clean in a way.
3121 sounds overproduced because Prince was so trained in music that he almost automatically sounded overproduced after probably just one take. It's quite possible Pro Tools and engineers helped make the music sound a bit more sterile too. Cause there's nothing sterile about Prince.

Replica said:

fortuneandserendipity said:

No. What makes you think it was overproduced? Prince did all the production himself, played all the instruments. There aren't excessive layers of tracks.

3121 maybe.

For You was overproduced. They spent alot more time on it than Prince would spend on anything he ever did later. To many instruments and layers, kinda "messed" up some of the songs. And it sounds a bit too clean in a way.
3121 sounds overproduced because Prince was so trained in music that he almost automatically sounded overproduced after probably just one take. It's quite possible Pro Tools and engineers helped make the music sound a bit more sterile too. Cause there's nothing sterile about Prince.

lovesexy was overproduced, for you? I don't know, I never thought that was the problem. Dave Hill, I think, did say the whole album seemed more preoccupied with letting the listener know how good a musician he was rather than trying to make a great album. It's almost like that scene in Amadeus where the King tells amadeus that he was trying to impress beyond his years and that he was putting in "too many notes" now, the king didn't know what the fuck he was talking about in the movie, but in the case of For You, there is too much musicality and not enough focus on songwriting.