So my daughter is in this dance company, ages range from 6-13 mostly girls. Dude that runs the place does great work, music he uses is all contemporary mostly uptempo. So i asked if he would let me commission a work feature only Prince music and to my suprise he agreed. Now what I need is a playlist....

Looking for about 15-20 songs, shows are usually 2 hrs long. These are kids and parents in the audience so we got to be respectful. Cool opportunity to showcase the Prince amazing catalogue to a young audience....

Suggestions? Can include any affiliated artist.

Hi, as a Lakers and Kobe fan your avatar spurred me to respond.

Some suggestions that I have highlighted, with some songs I have thought of in the process included too. I have tried to keep the age parameters in mind, but can't gurantee that I haven't missed something that the audience or dancers might deem questionable. Obviously I have erred on the side of conservatism as a courtesy to you. I hope this list helps a little.

I feel 4 u

The Bird
Cool
Mountains

Baby i'm a star

Anotherloverholenyohead

MPLS by Minneapolis

Love sign
Thieves in the temple

round and round

Black Sweat
Love
get your groove on

Starfish and Coffee
Get on the boat

play in the sunshine

courtin time

manic monday

gonna be a beautiful night

musicology

willing and able

sweet baby

She gave her angels

Dolphin

Into the light

I will

Strays of the world

When u were mine
A love bizarre

Take me with U

elephants and flowers

thunder

venus de milo

Nothing compares 2 U
Melody cool

[Edited 3/4/17 22:39pm]

[Edited 3/4/17 22:42pm]

I'm a teacher. I use music for transitions in my classroom. Starfish and Coffee is one of my favorites. I like songs that are under 3 minutes and are upbeat. I say all this to let you know I am very attuned to which Prince songs are kid appropriate. Here are my suggestions.

Totally kid appropriate:

*Starfish and Coffee

*Sweet Baby

*Betcha By Golly Wow

*Venus de Milo

*Mountains

*The Song of the Heart

Possibly PG-rated, but nothing too bad:

*Purple Rain

*I Would Die 4 U - as long as it's okay to use a religiouly themed song

*I Wonder U

*1999

*Do U Lie?

*Baby I'm a Star

*The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

*Diamonds and Pearls

*Te Amo Corazon

Appropriate if you use only parts of the songs:

*Willing and Able - The first 3:50 of the song is fine for kids.

*Batdance - Maybe use the first 2:30 to 2:40 of the song.

*When Doves Cry - about half of the album version of this song is instrumental. You could use the first 33 seconds and then cut to 2:50 and use the last chorus. The rest of the song after that is basically instrumental with a few "When Doves Cry" and vocalizations.

*Computer Blue - Similar principle here as with WDC. Use the portion of the song without lyrics. You could start at 1:12 in the song, and hear "Till I find the righteous 1, Computer Blue" 2x. Then after that, it's all instrumental except for the scream at the end. Now we all know what happens during the instrumental part in the movie, but we're talking about the song here.

*The Question of U - From 1:07 onward, it's fine. The guitar solo is beautiful. I've seen videos on YouTube of ballet dances to this song. Jason Brown also did a figure skating routine to this song back in 2013 I think.

[Edited 3/5/17 13:21pm]

popgodazipa said:

Looking for about 15-20 songs, shows are usually 2 hrs long. These are kids and parents in the audience so we got to be respectful. Cool opportunity to showcase the Prince amazing catalogue to a young audience....

Suggestions?

.

The Future

.

Electric Chair

.

Arms of Orion

.

Partyman

.

Vicki Waiting

.

Trust

.

Lemon Crush

.

Scandalous

.

Batdance

CAL3 said:

I'd probably go with Others Here with Us, Dance with the Devil or The Wedding Feast. Good luck!

popgodazipa said:

All excellent suggestions guys. Dance electric came to mind as a cool seegway from mountains. I am surprised that no one picked songs from Hit N Run I&II or Plectr..i think Lotus Flowers has a few tracks that could make the cut.

In 2012, at the second House of Blues aftershow in Chicago, Prince played a mash-up of Dance Electric and Mountains. It was so spectactular, I actually cried.

If you're looking for something from Lotusflow3r, $ would be great. Uptempo, talks about dancing, and totally G-rated. "The Morning After" would also be great. It has a trippy, Manic Monday sort of vibe to it.

From Lotus's counterpart, Mplsound, Dance 4 Me would be a fun choice.

popgodazipa said: