Every now and then I come across songs that remind me of Prince songs; songs that sounds similar in mood or have elements in common. Two examples of songs I think were definate sources of inspiration for our favorite skinny motherfucker with the high voice:

April Fools by Burt Bacharach (Venus de Milo)
Midsummer Madness by Kid Creole (Question of U)
Til Tomorrow by Marvin Gaye (Insatiable)

Am I wrong?

There should be a lot more examples of this. Can't think of any at the moment, but I'd like to hear your suggestions!

The other way round happens a lot of course (D'Angelo). A funny, unexpected example is Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five's 1984 Minneapolis-rippoff We Don't Work For Free.

Bohemian Rhapsody...3 chains of gold

Here's one where you could swear that Prince ripped the entire guitar solo (not just a portion, like one of the solos in Peach that is taken from ZZ Top).

Search out The Muffin Man (no, not our lovable co-.orger!) by Frank Zappa. The initial part of the tune does not soudn like anything Prince has done and is funny as fuck. But, it then just lets loose in to some of the most amazing guitar soloing ever heard and it is...Joy In Repetition. I mean, its sooo close that you have to think that, if Prince hasn't just ripped it directly, then he certainly listened to this a lot!

We all evolve from the coo of a baby to a beautiful word spoken, in between the lines, are the threads of becoming...

Respectfully Given,
SingMia

the words you speak are the "songs you sing too".

Eh...?!?

TipN4U said:

The guitar solo Prince did on "just my imgination"(on the small club show cd) is note for note almost the exact same solo from Carlos Santana's "song of the wind".
[This message was edited Mon Apr 14 9:03:33 PDT 2003 by UnsymmetricalySymmetrical]

Serious said:

Horrible aint it?

Yeah, someone else I know swears Empty Room is like war of the worlds . . . anyone agree with that?

Man...3 Chains started out SO promsingly, and then promptly ascended up its own arse.

Only Queen could get away with that type of overblown, bombastic rock and get away with it - sorry, but Prince couldnt pull it off without me laughing or cueing up the next track asap.

As 4 Empty Room sounding like War of The Worlds - what the...???

Gett Off uses a sample of Shack Up pt1 by Banbarra.

Good Love sounds identical to Absolute / Absolutley by Scritti Politti - i'm not saying either are rips as i think that date pretty close to each other.

Cream is a BLATANT rip off of Get It On by T.Rex. (you guys should buy yourself a copy of their greatest hits. it's far played down, but if your looking for many MANY prince influences, they are all on there. Marc Bolan sings with EXACTLY the same drawl that P does on his rock tunes. too many other similarities, so just go an get yourself a CD)

Raspberry Beret is very Beatles, but not one song in particular.

Zanalee (sp) is pretty pointless as it's just Eric Clapton / Cream (the group). P doesn't really do anything his own to 'that sound', which is a shame as he can when he wants to.

Arm of Orion alway make me think of that tune in American Tale by linda ronstant and Love's Lift us Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker

Let's Work steals the same groove from 'It's Alright' by Larry Graham, he just dirty's it up a tad.

U got the Look heavily borrows from Maddona's Lika A Vigin. in fact if you listen to the sonics on the offbeat riff on L.A.V you can hear it's used in various P tunes, Baby Knows is one that instantly comes to mind.

But that all makes sense if you think that Like A Virgin is very inspired by Marc Bolan and T.Rex.

i can't remeber others, but there's a few. don't get me wrong i love P's shit. but it's not all original

I agree with u NME with what u said about the P/Marc Bolan influence - I always thought it funny no-one ever seemed 2 mention it - I now see I wasnt the only one!

I used 2 see it an awful lot in His showmanship - He could definatly put across a Marc vibe at times, and that aint a bad thang by ANY means...

hey, nobody's picked up on an obvious one: dinner with delores. he must've been listening to the pretenders' "up the neck" from their first album. almost exact chord progressions.

bananacologne said:

very true. he did a lot of his 'camp looks to camera' stuff that p does now. a lot of Marc's flower power ethos and colourful lyrics are again, prominent throughout P's work

NME said:

The end of Cream sounds exactly like 96 Tears to me.