thebanishedone said:

Prince was a groundbreaking artist who took funk to the future. But after 1985 he become more of a traditionalist retro musician.every attempt of electronic music after late 80s sounded out of touch with the electronic relevant artists.what happend?

Prince said (something likef) once everyone started copying his Minneapolis Sound and using synths and drum machines, he got rid of his and went to live drums/horns/etc.

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To a certain extent, it's true. Yes, Prince started incorporating hip-hop into his sound around '89/90, but he also did it with live instruments...not something a lot were doing at the time. Another way Prince would go against trends even while using elements of them.

Did it?

thebanishedone said:

Prince was a groundbreaking artist who took funk to the future. But after 1985 he become more of a traditionalist retro musician.every attempt of electronic music after late 80s sounded out of touch with the electronic relevant artists.what happend?

1989 - Batdance. If my electro beats were lapping my contemporaries, I'd probably get bored of running that race and look for new challenges, myself.

And Prince kept cranking out tracks which in the 90s were called techno (but in the 80s were electrofunk or new NRG and today are called EDM): I Wanna Melt With U, Pheromone, Loose, P. Control, Billy Jack Bitch, etc. He released a three hour album of music oft criticised for having too many programmed beats.

mtlfan said:

1989 - Batdance. If my electro beats were lapping my contemporaries, I'd probably get bored of running that race and look for new challenges, myself.

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Except Batdance (which I think is rather fantastic) was him imitating the likes of Bomb The Bass and S'Express etc.

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And Prince kept cranking out tracks which in the 90s were called techno (but in the 80s were electrofunk or new NRG and today are called EDM): I Wanna Melt With U, Pheromone, Loose, P. Control,

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All pretty bad and derivative. Like your gramps making techno.

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Billy Jack Bitch, etc.

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Huh? BJB is nowhere near electro.

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He released a three hour album of music oft criticised for having too many programmed beats.

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No, it was criticized for sounding cheap and plastic, for lacking a diversity of ideas, for for being overlong, etc. It was him pathetically trying to get some of that R Kelly money. It's got nothing to do with electronic music, except for a few pathetic imitations.

Sorry, Bart's comments here read like gramps critiquing techno music, and the criticisms toward Emancipation that he and those of similar ilk report, I constantly laugh heartily at!

>

Prince enjoyed the interactions with musicians more than twiddling knobs, punching buttons, and patching synths. I couldn's say whether or not he ever lost touch with electronic music, though. I'd heard that he still liked dancing at the clubs.

>

mtlfan said:

1989 - Batdance. If my electro beats were lapping my contemporaries, I'd probably get bored of running that race and look for new challenges, myself.

.

Except Batdance (which I think is rather fantastic) was him imitating the likes of Bomb The Bass and S'Express etc.

.

And Prince kept cranking out tracks which in the 90s were called techno (but in the 80s were electrofunk or new NRG and today are called EDM): I Wanna Melt With U, Pheromone, Loose, P. Control,

.

All pretty bad and derivative. Like your gramps making techno.

.

Billy Jack Bitch, etc.

.

Huh? BJB is nowhere near electro.

.

He released a three hour album of music oft criticised for having too many programmed beats.

.

No, it was criticized for sounding cheap and plastic, for lacking a diversity of ideas, for for being overlong, etc. It was him pathetically trying to get some of that R Kelly money. It's got nothing to do with electronic music, except for a few pathetic imitations.

BartVanHemelen said:

mtlfan said:

1989 - Batdance. If my electro beats were lapping my contemporaries, I'd probably get bored of running that race and look for new challenges, myself.

.

Except Batdance (which I think is rather fantastic) was him imitating the likes of Bomb The Bass and S'Express etc.

.

.

Huh? BJB is nowhere near electro.

.

He released a three hour album of music oft criticised for having too many programmed beats.

.

No, it was criticized for sounding cheap and plastic, for lacking a diversity of ideas, for for being overlong, etc. It was him pathetically trying to get some of that R Kelly money. It's got nothing to do with electronic music, except for a few pathetic imitations.

I’m glad to see someone express this opinion. Yes, it’s derivative in some ways, but it always struck me as a potential new direction, one that he never fully pursued. It kind of stands apart. The techno inspired stuff that followed sounded like Prince chasing trends, but Batdance is still uniquely him.

I often wished that someone had turned Prince onto the stuff that was coming out of Warp in the 90s (assuming that he would have taken it seriously). For me, one of the defining characteristics of IDM and modern electronica is the malleability and plasticity of sound, and when you listen to Prince’s more experimental tracks with their weird synth sounds and intricate pitch-shifting techniques, it always seemed like it would have been a more natural progression to me. I'm not a fan of Prince's appropriation of Hip-Hop. Consider Windowlicker for example, plenty of funk in this:

Short answer: he was American and America-centered.

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Electronic music is un umbrella term that covers pretty much anything using machines, and hip-hop for example could be considered as electronic as EDM, but when it comes to what is now usually coined as "electronic music" (i.e. excluding hip-hop/R&B and synthpop/new wave), Europe was always the place where it happened, followed by Japan before the US. One notable exception is the Detroit and Chicago scene in the 80's but the house and techno genres soon migrated to Europe, where they developed more intensively in the 90's.

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My impression was always that Prince's musical world was mostly American, therefore rock/folk/country on one side and Black music on the other. The real electronic music revolution happened in the 90's, it was mostly a European thing, it was pretty hysterical and I'm pretty sure Prince missed 95% of it. Hell, the dude admitted he had no idea who Tricky was in a 1996 or 1997 interview, back when Tricky was the absolute hype!

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So to him it was just "unreal music by unreal musicians", because he didn't understand what was really going on in terms of how important an artistic movement it was and all.

databank said:

Short answer: he was American and America-centered.

.

Electronic music is un umbrella term that covers pretty much anything using machines, and hip-hop for example could be considered as electronic as EDM, but when it comes to what is now usually coined as "electronic music" (i.e. excluding hip-hop/R&B and synthpop/new wave), Europe was always the place where it happened, followed by Japan before the US. One notable exception is the Detroit and Chicago scene in the 80's but the house and techno genres soon migrated to Europe, where they developed more intensively in the 90's.

.

My impression was always that Prince's musical world was mostly American, therefore rock/folk/country on one side and Black music on the other. The real electronic music revolution happened in the 90's, it was mostly a European thing, it was pretty hysterical and I'm pretty sure Prince missed 95% of it. Hell, the dude admitted he had no idea who Tricky was in a 1996 or 1997 interview, back when Tricky was the absolute hype!

.

So to him it was just "unreal music by unreal musicians", because he didn't understand what was really going on in terms of how important an artistic movement it was and all.

[Edited 9/19/18 23:17pm]

Prince did use some electronic instruments in his later songs. "Rock N' Roll Love Affair" uses synths.

SoftSkarlettLovisa said:

Prince did use some electronic instruments in his later songs. "Rock N' Roll Love Affair" uses synths.

Using a synthesizer on a pop/rock song doesn't really equal Prince being in touch with electronic music IMO.

I was hugely into electronic music in the 90's and always hoped he would pair up with a credible electronic music producer and crank out an incredible album of out of this world avant-garde electronic dance funk or triphop. Never happened unfortunately...

databank said:

Short answer: he was American and America-centered.

.

Electronic music is un umbrella term that covers pretty much anything using machines, and hip-hop for example could be considered as electronic as EDM, but when it comes to what is now usually coined as "electronic music" (i.e. excluding hip-hop/R&B and synthpop/new wave), Europe was always the place where it happened, followed by Japan before the US. One notable exception is the Detroit and Chicago scene in the 80's but the house and techno genres soon migrated to Europe, where they developed more intensively in the 90's.

.

My impression was always that Prince's musical world was mostly American, therefore rock/folk/country on one side and Black music on the other. The real electronic music revolution happened in the 90's, it was mostly a European thing, it was pretty hysterical and I'm pretty sure Prince missed 95% of it. Hell, the dude admitted he had no idea who Tricky was in a 1996 or 1997 interview, back when Tricky was the absolute hype!

.

So to him it was just "unreal music by unreal musicians", because he didn't understand what was really going on in terms of how important an artistic movement it was and all.

Yes, I agree that the most interesting and truly visionary electronica came out of Europe (largely the UK in my view – my teens were dominated by 80s Prince, Parliament-Funkadelic and Aphex Twin/Autechre).

That said, as you say American artists such as Juan Atkins led the emergence of techno, which in turn fed into the IDM scene (hate the term, but it’s established now). Most of those Detroit artists cite Prince as a major influence via Charles Johnson/The Electrifying Mojo.

This is what I was getting at – it would have represented a more authentic, artistically valid and agreeably circular progression for Prince. It’s probably fair to single out 1999 as his most influential album in this regard, but for me his Camille stuff foreshadows many of the characteristics of the experimental scene that was to come (in spirit at least).

I remember the Tricky story – if I recall he asked the interviewer if she could pick up an album for him to listen to. I was already pretty disillusioned with Prince's work at that point, so I wasn't surprised.

funkaholic1972 said:

SoftSkarlettLovisa said:

Prince did use some electronic instruments in his later songs. "Rock N' Roll Love Affair" uses synths.

Using a synthesizer on a pop/rock song doesn't really equal Prince being in touch with electronic music IMO.

I was hugely into electronic music in the 90's and always hoped he would pair up with a credible electronic music producer and crank out an incredible album of out of this world avant-garde electronic dance funk or triphop. Never happened unfortunately...

Yeah, I think that Prince’s work would have benefited if he’d been open to genuine collaboration, especially in later years. At the very least, his films might have been better.

That’s one of the reasons why the Josh thing felt like such a curve-ball to me. No disrespect to Josh (I can’t put this any more politely), but of all of the people that he could have worked with over the years…

This subject reminds of an interview that Bjork gave:

"The majority of the beats on my records I do myself. Most people don’t realize that. As an exception I will get a collaborator, but 90 percent of my albums are very solitary. I’m editing away on the computer alone. I love collaborations, because then I can drop the ego. I don’t look at it as this neurotic clinging to others. I mean, everybody says about Prince, “Oh, he’s so amazing; he plays all the instruments himself.” I don’t think of that as a virtue. I’m not dissing Prince—I think he’s great—but the gorgeous thing about music is that it is such a great form of communication."

[Edited 9/20/18 15:51pm]

thebanishedone said:

Prince was a groundbreaking artist who took funk to the future. But after 1985 he become more of a traditionalist retro musician.every attempt of electronic music after late 80s sounded out of touch with the electronic relevant artists.what happend?

I don't know all the reasons but My own personal theory (which could be totally wrong) was that by the time he was a superstar, he had way more than enough leverage (as if he didn't have it before) to get the best, he no longer needed to fuss with equipement, he had the best musicians ready to kill themselves working for him, and if you don't believe that, the stories of him making his musicians not sleep like him are related in interviews.

also, he mentioned how depressing it was, around the dirty mind period, how hard it was getting everyone to work as a unit. as a musician, I guarantee you it's true. musicians are flaky and lazy and they have attitude, thousands of potentially great bands form and break up all the time, seen many in my neck of the woods, but so much ego, laziness, they almost always implode before they take off.