darkroman said:

The Truth - I suppose it is hard to overrate an album that isn't even on the scale!!!

Batman is totally overrated. Some good tunes but collectively not that great.

In contrast 20Ten is massively underrated!

I ALWAYS think about what would have happened with that album if the deal with WBR would have went through when Prince(r.i.p.) originally offered 20T3N Deluxe to them.

WhisperingDandelions said:

Darshy said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

I hear his music all the time when I go into places playing 80s stations, particularly when they just hook up their cells to iHeartRadio's 80s station. A lot of his songwriting stuff like "The Glamourous Life" and "Manic Monday' makes it in constant rotation, too. And I think someone just mentioned Purple Rain is playing twice on MTV this weekend..... I mean I think the guy is ultimately super underrated too, but the most underrated artist? Probably not in 2019....

But Prince was much more than just about the 80's

I'm well aware, but you stated he's not played on the radio which is incorrect. Honestly no contemporary music stations play any artists more than 10 years older than their teenage listening demographics anyway... and have you actually listened to those contemporary music stations lately? I mean, I know everyone seems to want a modern day Top 40 hit in 2019. Put on one of those Top 40 stations sometime... I kind of think we probably don't want him sandwiched in between the likes of what they're pushing these days, but you tell me.

[Edited 10/10/19 21:17pm]

Darshy said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

I hear his music all the time when I go into places playing 80s stations, particularly when they just hook up their cells to iHeartRadio's 80s station. A lot of his songwriting stuff like "The Glamourous Life" and "Manic Monday' makes it in constant rotation, too. And I think someone just mentioned Purple Rain is playing twice on MTV this weekend..... I mean I think the guy is ultimately super underrated too, but the most underrated artist? Probably not in 2019....

But Prince was much more than just about the 80's

And Paul McCartney is more than just the Beatles but you're kidding yourself if people are jumping to listen to Flaming Pie en masse. He's not underrated though.

Commercially I'd have to say Diamonds and Pearls which, for my money, only has one really banging track on it (Gett Off) and a whole lot of "yeah, he's really good at 'x,y'z' sort of songs that are sort of by the book and rote. Of all his biggest selling records, I listen to this one the least. I like "LIve 4 Love" more than most.

Artistically? It's close between Around the World in a Day, Lovesexy and Parade but I'll go with ATWIAD.

People seem to worship this album in retrospect and view it through rose colored glasses that to this day escape me. I liked the record well enough when it came out and understood the backlash it recieved for not being PR2. I appreciated the mindful lane change he tried to pull off and the way the album challenged me in ways but his psychedelia seemed manufactured and artificial - almost too deliberate, derivative and forced - to where it was distracting and, as a fan and true believer, I almost felt like I was making excuses for it and adding a star on my review simply because I'd made up my mind that I already liked him and his music.

I don't go back to it much and the best song by far from the period was relegated to a b-side. There's not one song on it that I'd put in a best of compilation, including Raspberry Beret.

...

Parade is weird because I like it and appreciate it a lot - feels like what ATWIAD should have been only where this time Prince realized his OWN brand of psychadelia without mimicking the 60's influences so obviously and filtered the lessons of that sound through his own eyes, but I still don't revisit it much and sometimes it feels...too..."noisy" or something. There's some cool shit on it and I have fond memories but I don't worship it like some.

Same with Lovesexy, which is a wild, uniqely personal, genuine artistic statement that's hard to ignore or argue with but some of it feels like an artist trying too hard to be taken seriously with a message that's SO personal and a philosophy SO self made that it can be impenetrable unless you've surrundered to his church. Like Parade, I have to be in the mood for it and, also like Parade, it has some stunning arrangements and production that really reward a late night headphone listen from time to time. It's so...dense....layered....and uniquely tied to whatever the hell Prince's vision was at any particular time that sometimes it's hard to forget that many of the hits from it aren't all that catchy or memorable. But then you hear Anna Stesia, the beauty and simplicity of I Wish U Heaven or the basic message of Positivity and realize his pure genius.

Many of the songs on these 3 albums that I enjoy and appreciate the most probably wouldn't wind up on most people's list (I Wonder U, Positivity, Venus DeMilo, Dance On, Around the World In a Day, I Wish U Heaven) and here we start with the nature of almost every Prince album being somewhat divisive and "less consistent" than crowd pleasers like SoTT, PR and 1999 where everyone agrees on what the worst song is.

Sometimes, he was just above us all (musically at least) and waited for our ears (or minds if you believe him) to catch up to his sheer prolific and singular artistic drive. Others, he was somewhat behind and seemed to be forcing us to realize why something was great and asking us to buy in just because he was who he was and Had Something to Say. He wrote a new song almost every day. Sometimes more than one and that's just astonishing all by itself so, to my mind, he's earned a million days of forgiveness for the simple crime of creating things that didn't always land for me. As the saying goes, "they can't all be jams" but almost all of them were good. And it's far easier to criticize than to create.

So don't get me wrong. Any of these albums I spoke on are collections that your average good to great musician would KILL to write or release evene ONCE and I enjoy them all to varying degrees.

TrivialPursuit said:

It's curiously obtuse to say Purple Rain is overrated (maybe overexposed), and is "very ordinary 80s music." In fact, it's absolutely ridiculous.

Co-sign

It's only "overrated" and played out because it's so over played and totally tied into his legacy/persona.

When "When Doves Cry" hit the airwaves, the opening riff and the beat fucking tore the radio in half in a way that made everyone stop and listen. Same with the opening chords of "Let's Go Crazy". It's hard to explain for people not old enough to have lived through it in a time where music wasn't so easy to come by - where almost everything we were exposed to and heard was delivered to us through radio stations - but that fucking album hit like a god damned thunderclap to the point where even the metalheads and disco freaks at least took notice and radio stations were playing his fucking b-sides on the radio because no one could get enough.


PR is a damned near perfect record and I won't argue with anyone who says it's Prince's best, even though I think 1999 and SoTT are better overall and I play them more. If the worst song on your whole album is Darling Nikki or Take Me With U, you are in the proverbial wheelhouse.

I don't listen to it much because, to me, it's Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin 4, Let it Bleed and Thriller levels of just being completely beaten to death and I don't care if I ever hear the title track again but there's a reason that's the case.

Gold Experience

I don't know how other fans rate the Love Symbol but it's not an album I've been fond of

"Sign O' The Times"

Always sounded like songs thrown together that didn't fit otherwise. And while it has some great songs it also has some songs that are just barely average for me.

Now....saying that...I've only had it on tape and CD so the sound quality is severely lacking. Perhaps a vinyl or remstered disc might make me see otherwise.

sro100 said:

LOVESEXY IS WAAAAAYYYYYY OVERATED! Crazy to think the year before he released SOTT and was touring Europe with that masterpiece and he didn't tour the US and then he put out that dud of an album and gave us that half assed Lovesexy tour.

I think Emancipation. It was a big publicity around that album as I recalled and plus Prince was leaving Warners Bros and plus he lost his child and his marriage to Mayte so 1996 was one of his post-PR publicized years I also believed that benefit the album getting some attention. Prince said that wasn't his best input and I agree. He did it just to fulfilled his contract but over the years I appreciated CD an Emancipation. The media acted like the album was the second thing coming since SOTT lol.

macaylasdad said:

LOVESEXY IS WAAAAAYYYYYY OVERATED! Crazy to think the year before he released SOTT and was touring Europe with that masterpiece and he didn't tour the US and then he put out that dud of an album and gave us that half assed Lovesexy tour.

Are U kidding? The LoveSexy tour was ran like a broadway play. It was a tour extravaganza and his best visual tour besides SOTT & the Leroy Bennett lighting of the 1999 & Purple Rain tours..

ChocolateBox3121 said:

macaylasdad said:

LOVESEXY IS WAAAAAYYYYYY OVERATED! Crazy to think the year before he released SOTT and was touring Europe with that masterpiece and he didn't tour the US and then he put out that dud of an album and gave us that half assed Lovesexy tour.

Are U kidding? The LoveSexy tour was ran like a broadway play. It was a tour extravaganza and his best visual tour besides SOTT & the Leroy Bennett lighting of the 1999 & Purple Rain tours..

Nope...not kidding... I know because I was there. Maybe that's the problem...a live music concert tour should not be a play. It's about the music.

TGE is a vibrant,brilliant album."I Hate U" is arguably his best single of the 90s.And then there's....

"319"

"Billy Jack Bitch"

"Now"

"TMBGITW"

"Shy"

"Gold"

"Dolphin"

seriously,how can you not enjoy a Prince album that has all those great songs?! overrated my ass!

macaylasdad said:

ChocolateBox3121 said:

Are U kidding? The LoveSexy tour was ran like a broadway play. It was a tour extravaganza and his best visual tour besides SOTT & the Leroy Bennett lighting of the 1999 & Purple Rain tours..

Nope...not kidding... I know because I was there. Maybe that's the problem...a live music concert tour should not be a play. It's about the music.

jdcxc said:

sro100 said:

"Sign O' The Times"

Always sounded like songs thrown together that didn't fit otherwise. And while it has some great songs it also has some songs that are just barely average for me.

Now....saying that...I've only had it on tape and CD so the sound quality is severely lacking. Perhaps a vinyl or remstered disc might make me see otherwise.

Sacrilegious

No, just honest.

"It" has to be the most generic thing he's done.

"Slow Love," ditto.

"Ballad of Dorothy Parker" eh.

"Play in the Sunshine" - clone of "Let's Go Crazy;" still good but not as good

"Forever in My LIfe" doesn't hold a candle to the "live" version in the movie

"U Got the Look" cool, but great?

"Sign O' The Times" song sounds dated

But, I feel the way you do when folks suggest "TGE" is over-rated.

sro100 said:

jdcxc said:

sro100 said: Sacrilegious

No, just honest.

"It" has to be the most generic thing he's done.

"Slow Love," ditto.

"Ballad of Dorothy Parker" eh.

"Play in the Sunshine" - clone of "Let's Go Crazy;" still good but not as good

"Forever in My LIfe" doesn't hold a candle to the "live" version in the movie

"U Got the Look" cool, but great?

"Sign O' The Times" song sounds dated

But, I feel the way you do when folks suggest "TGE" is over-rated.

This post makes me sad. Sign will forever be my favorite Prince album...to each their own I guess.

Poplife88 said:

sro100 said:

No, just honest.

"It" has to be the most generic thing he's done.

"Slow Love," ditto.

"Ballad of Dorothy Parker" eh.

"Play in the Sunshine" - clone of "Let's Go Crazy;" still good but not as good

"Forever in My LIfe" doesn't hold a candle to the "live" version in the movie

"U Got the Look" cool, but great?

"Sign O' The Times" song sounds dated

But, I feel the way you do when folks suggest "TGE" is over-rated.

This post makes me sad. Sign will forever be my favorite Prince album...to each their own I guess.

There does seem to a split over production in the Prince fandom. I'm firmly in the SOTT is way better than TGE camp but it crops up here and there. I also pretty much prefer the album versions of the SOTT tracks to the film versions for similar reasons, I prefer that sparse sound.

I'd argue TGE sounds at the very least just as "dated" as SOTT, maybe even more so since TGE just screams 1995 while SOTT actually stands out compared to a lot of the rest of pop in 1987 by not being covered in booming, gated reverb drums and the like.

[Edited 10/14/19 8:04am]

sro100 said:

"Ballad of Dorothy Parker" eh.

jaawwnn said:

macaylasdad said:

LOVESEXY IS WAAAAAYYYYYY OVERATED! Crazy to think the year before he released SOTT and was touring Europe with that masterpiece and he didn't tour the US and then he put out that dud of an album and gave us that half assed Lovesexy tour.

As much as I love the era, that is one from the golden era I say is overrated.
The concept even band members were saying they didn't get it.

And it is an album of material Prince didn't revisit outside of Alphabet St and Anna Stesia

I like the possible direction/concept, clearly the beginnings of New Power Generation. But after the that band broke up, NPG didn't have the same meaning

LOVESEXY is BRILLIANT for an album that was literally thrown together in a WEEK after the MUCH talked about scrapped Black album. What other artist could come up with something like that so quickly? NONE!

sro100 said:

jdcxc said:

sro100 said: Sacrilegious

No, just honest.

"It" has to be the most generic thing he's done.

"Slow Love," ditto.

"Ballad of Dorothy Parker" eh.

"Play in the Sunshine" - clone of "Let's Go Crazy;" still good but not as good

"Forever in My LIfe" doesn't hold a candle to the "live" version in the movie

"U Got the Look" cool, but great?

"Sign O' The Times" song sounds dated

But, I feel the way you do when folks suggest "TGE" is over-rated.

well, most of them plus different others came from just 1 song, Coco Boys. It was a snapshot of the moment, pushing out much better songs from earlier configurations.

Prince described Lovesexy as a "mind trip....like a psychedelic movie".Many people didn't "get" it and they didn't understand the concept.I think the album is brilliant.

jaawwnn said:

Poplife88 said:

This post makes me sad. Sign will forever be my favorite Prince album...to each their own I guess.

There does seem to a split over production in the Prince fandom. I'm firmly in the SOTT is way better than TGE camp but it crops up here and there. I also pretty much prefer the album versions of the SOTT tracks to the film versions for similar reasons, I prefer that sparse sound.

I'd argue TGE sounds at the very least just as "dated" as SOTT, maybe even more so since TGE just screams 1995 while SOTT actually stands out compared to a lot of the rest of pop in 1987 by not being covered in booming, gated reverb drums and the like.

[Edited 10/14/19 8:04am]

One thing I like about TGE over SoTT is how much more organic most of it sounds. I dig the whole "Prince up all night in the basement" approach to hundreds of his songs but also really dug hearing what sounded like actual instruments being played. The drum intro to "Shhh" for instance really grabbed me when I first heard it because usually Prince's drums were programed - or sounded like they were anyway. Same with the percussion and instrumentation on "Endorphine Machine"

Hard to hate on TGE for me - or Love Symbol for that matter - since they were offering something new and they revitalized my interst after Batman, GB and D&P. To me anyway. D&P was the first real start in this direction but was too slick and the song writing too...I dunno...mainstream? I just wish he'd have knocked it off with the segues and whatever story he was trying to tell on seemingly every other 90's + release.

It's all largely why I prefer the various incarnations of the NPG to the Revolution because, to me, it made his sound richer and more dense.

The Revolution sounded like what they were: good hired musicians put there to play exactly what Prince wrote the way he wrote it but nobody really stands out to me as one of those "holy shit" musicians despite thier talnet. I still love SoTT and 1999 where it's all a one man show but I like the other stuff too where it sounded like a fucking band was playing. Consider the drums on "Lady Cab Driver" for instance in the middle of a record driven entirely by a Linn sound and how much just that little shift helps not only break up, but also DRIVE the album.

It's refreshing and the record is better for it.

Sorry...rambling

herb4 said:

...

[Edited 10/14/19 17:35pm]

OldFriends4Sale said:

macaylasdad said:

LOVESEXY IS WAAAAAYYYYYY OVERATED! Crazy to think the year before he released SOTT and was touring Europe with that masterpiece and he didn't tour the US and then he put out that dud of an album and gave us that half assed Lovesexy tour.

As much as I love the era, that is one from the golden era I say is overrated.
The concept even band members were saying they didn't get it.

And it is an album of material Prince didn't revisit outside of Alphabet St and Anna Stesia

I like the possible direction/concept, clearly the beginnings of New Power Generation. But after the that band broke up, NPG didn't have the same meaning

It really wasn't a good album I would give it 2 1/2 to 3 stars. Musically it was all over the place and all the singles choices were not good either...