According to Time Magazine he released 39 Studio Albums before his death:

For You

Prince

Dirty Mind

Controversy

1999

Purple Rain

Around the World In A Day

Parade

Sign O The Times

Lovesexy

Batman

Graffity Bridge

Diamonds & Pearls

Love Symbol

Come

The Black Album

The Gold Experience

Chaos and Disorder

Emancipation

Crystal Ball

Newpower Soul (this one is credited to NPG)

The Vault - Old Friends 4 Sale

Rave un2 the Joy Fantastic

The Rainbow Children

One Nite Alone

Xpectation

N.E.W.S

Musicology

The Chocolate Invasion

The Slaughterhouse

3121

Planet Earth

Lotusflow3r

MPL Sound

20ten

Plectrumelectrum

Art Official Age

Hitnrun Phase One

Hitnrun Phase Two

Are they right? Should we consider Newpower Soul a Prince album?

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[Edited 2/3/20 13:36pm]

fabriziovenerandi said:

IMHO is missing The Truth. Crystal Ball is a 3cd album, The Truth is another one. Like Lotusflow3r and MPLSound. Rave In2 is missing too.

I agree. The count is 39 with The Truth and without NPS (NPS being or not being a Prince album being an endless debate that I strongly suggest we don't start over here because it's also an endless loop, the topic has been the subject of numerous threads over the years and it leads nowhere since both sides of the debate will never agree).

Rave In2 is just an alternate version/special edition of Rave Un2 so it really has no business being counted either.

There was, in fact, a 40th studio album credited to Prince, The Undertaker, but since it was only released as a video album it's usually not included in his canon discography, which should be billed "audio format studio albums" to be 100% accurate.

TKO said:

According to Time Magazine he released 39 Studio Albums before his death:

Wikipedia breaks it down like this:

And no, NewPowerSoul isn't a Prince album. it's clearly labeled as a New Power Generation album. Even Prince said that to Mel B.

The above list is missing a few elements, as noted by Fabriziovenerandi. The Truth, MPLSound are both separate albums included in a larger set. That would bring albums to 41. But Rave In2 is a remix album and could qualify as a special edition. Either way, it deserves its own designation count. It's odd that Girl 6 is listed as a compilation (and it is in most regards) when it's really a soundtrack. Either way, it's a lot. Even in those years he didn't release an album, he released so many before that he makes up for it and averages over an album a year. Pretty amazing.

It isn't that controversial to consider NPS a Prince album, regardless of what Prince said to anyone (which is a laughable source), given he performed 99.9% of the instruments and vocals on it and is on the album cover. The other 2 albums? Completely different scenario.

fabriziovenerandi said:

IMHO is missing The Truth. Crystal Ball is a 3cd album, The Truth is another one. Like Lotusflow3r and MPLSound. Rave In2 is missing too.

Rave In2 is an alternate/remix version of Rave Un2.

The Truth was released as bonus disk from Crystal Ball.

I counted Lotusflow3r and MPLSound as two different releases.

Newpower Soul appers on Prince's official website as part of his discography. It was also listed on Time's Magazine as one of his 39 studio albums.

TKO said:

fabriziovenerandi said:

IMHO is missing The Truth. Crystal Ball is a 3cd album, The Truth is another one. Like Lotusflow3r and MPLSound. Rave In2 is missing too.

Rave In2 is an alternate/remix version of Rave Un2.

The Truth was released as bonus disk from Crystal Ball.

I counted Lotusflow3r and MPLSound as two different releases.

Newpower Soul appers on Prince's official website as part of his discography. It was also listed on Time's Magazine as one of his 39 studio albums.

The Truth and Kamasutra are still separate albums from Crystal Ball. They were just tossed in to the package for whatever arbitrary reasons (likely that he knew he'd struggle to release 4 individual albums in one year).

If N.E.W.S. counts then does C-NOTE count? It's all very confusing and arbitrary. The man made a LOT of music.

renfield said:

If N.E.W.S. counts then does C-NOTE count? It's all very confusing and arbitrary. The man made a LOT of music.

Yeah of course. But CNOTE's runtime dictates it is an EP, I believe.

LoveGalore said:

renfield said:

If N.E.W.S. counts then does C-NOTE count? It's all very confusing and arbitrary. The man made a LOT of music.

Yeah of course. But CNOTE's runtime dictates it is an EP, I believe.

Then Dirty Mind is an EP, since it's shorter than C-Note. And I don't think anyone will agree to file DM as an EP. There is no absolute rule to differentiate an album from an EP anyway (same with maxi-singles and EP's, it's a very blurry line in some cases).

So C-Note is definitely an album but a live album so sort of off topic here.

More complicated is the credit.

C-Note was originally released without an explicit artist credit on NPGMC in 2004, making it a Prince album by default, but the individual files had previously been released as "Prince And The New Power Generation" a year or so earlier, and when appearing on NPGMC's discography (in the "Vault III" room), it was again credited as "Prince And The NPG". When the original artwork (as planned for the shelved Chocolate Invasion boxset that was planned between the original files and the 2004 album release) was finally shown on Tidal in 2015, however, it showed a credit only to "The New Power Generation" despite the record being filed as a "Prince" record on Tidal

So I personally filed it on my drive as a NPG album since it appears from the artwork that it was P's original intention when all is said and done (the TCI boxset also contained The War, another record labeled as "The NPG"), but I guess Prince made it so complicated that it's up to anyone to decide what the correct credit is when it comes to that one.

LoveGalore said:

TKO said:

Rave In2 is an alternate/remix version of Rave Un2.

The Truth was released as bonus disk from Crystal Ball.

I counted Lotusflow3r and MPLSound as two different releases.

Newpower Soul appers on Prince's official website as part of his discography. It was also listed on Time's Magazine as one of his 39 studio albums.

The Truth and Kamasutra are still separate albums from Crystal Ball. They were just tossed in to the package for whatever arbitrary reasons (likely that he knew he'd struggle to release 4 individual albums in one year).

You can say that, but it's not true. I can't say it about Kamasutra but The Truth, especially, was meant to be part of the Crystal Ball package. It's even included in the liner notes.

TheBigBang said:

LoveGalore said:

The Truth and Kamasutra are still separate albums from Crystal Ball. They were just tossed in to the package for whatever arbitrary reasons (likely that he knew he'd struggle to release 4 individual albums in one year).

You can say that, but it's not true. I can't say it about Kamasutra but The Truth, especially, was meant to be part of the Crystal Ball package. It's even included in the liner notes.

If you purchase Crystal Ball digitally, The Truth is not inlcuded so it's a separate album.

My criteria is, if Prince is the chief architect of an album and does the main vocals on an album, I consider it as a Prince album. So yeah, I tend to just classify everything as Prince albums ....I understand why people would like to keep the distinctions though, especially if Prince purposely labeled the album creators with a specific name.

TheBigBang said:

PurpleColossus said:

My criteria is, if Prince is the chief architect of an album and does the main vocals on an album, I consider it as a Prince album. So yeah, I tend to just classify everything as Prince albums ....I understand why people would like to keep the distinctions though, especially if Prince purposely labeled the album creators with a specific name.

Vocals is just another instrument. I know albums by artists where they have another singer do all the vocals. It would be like saying NEWS and Xpectation are Eric Leeds and Candy Dulfer albums respectively because they play the lead sax:

databank said:

LoveGalore said:

It isn't that controversial to consider NPS a Prince album, regardless of what Prince said to anyone (which is a laughable source), given he performed 99.9% of the instruments and vocals on it and is on the album cover. The other 2 albums? Completely different scenario.

Yes, exactly!

It IS a Prince album, but released under a different name.

In fact the list includes the albums released as so those shouldn't be included in a 'Prince' list either!

In fact a correct list would number the releases per band name and then totalled - that would give newbies a better understanding of his output:

Prince

Prince and the Revolution
Prince and the New Power Generation

The New Power Generation

Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL
Madhouse

NPG Orchestra

etc...

[Edited 1/30/20 3:25am]

RODSERLING said:

Exodus is definitely a Prince album for me. Prince and NPG, but definitely Prince.

I would agree but I think NPS is more a Prince record because no one else is even singing, and in a lot of cases no one else is playing.On Exodus most of that lineup was playing, Sonny and Michael and Morris Hayes were all over the place. On NPS not so much at all for that lineup.

https://www.musicmagpie.c...st-albums/

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Merzbow has released…wait for it… 418 albums since 1980. That’s a release every month for 35 years!

That includes a phenomenal 279 studio albums and 74 live albums.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/...te_Namlook

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As of August 2005, Namlook and company had released 135 albums

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LoveGalore said:

databank said:

Then Dirty Mind is an EP, since it's shorter than C-Note. And I don't think anyone will agree to file DM as an EP. There is no absolute rule to differentiate an album from an EP anyway (same with maxi-singles and EP's, it's a very blurry line in some cases).

So C-Note is definitely an album but a live album so sort of off topic here.

More complicated is the credit.

C-Note was originally released without an explicit artist credit on NPGMC in 2004, making it a Prince album by default, but the individual files had previously been released as "Prince And The New Power Generation" a year or so earlier, and when appearing on NPGMC's discography (in the "Vault III" room), it was again credited as "Prince And The NPG". When the original artwork (as planned for the shelved Chocolate Invasion boxset that was planned between the original files and the 2004 album release) was finally shown on Tidal in 2015, however, it showed a credit only to "The New Power Generation" despite the record being filed as a "Prince" record on Tidal

So I personally filed it on my drive as a NPG album since it appears from the artwork that it was P's original intention when all is said and done (the TCI boxset also contained The War, another record labeled as "The NPG"), but I guess Prince made it so complicated that it's up to anyone to decide what the correct credit is when it comes to that one.

No, Dirty Mind wouldn't be an EP. It has too many tracks. CNOTE fits squarely within the EP structure from runtime to number of tracks. Easy.

Yeah but then NEWS, albeit being longer, has only 4 tracks. There is no definitive, authoritative, universal definition of what an EP is (https://en.wikipedia.org/...ended_play), so I guess in the end it's up to anyone's judgement or, when the artist explicitely stated it, to the artist themselves. I for one consider The War an album and based on Prince's various official online discographies, it seems even he couldn't decide whether it was an album or a single (it was filed as both at different times). Some people also consider long maxi-singles with only remixes as EP, while I consider them maxi-singles. It's all very arbitrary.

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Either way, C-Note qualifies as an album according to RIAA, the Grammy and UK charts (but that doesn't mean anything since each have their own system):

"In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America, the organization that declares releases "gold" or "platinum" based on numbers of sales, defines an EP as containing three to five songs or under 30 minutes.^[16] On the other hand, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that any release with five or more different songs and a running time of over 15 minutes is considered an album, with no mention of EPs.^[17]

In the United Kingdom, any record with more than four distinct tracks or with a playing time of more than 25 minutes is classified as an album for sales-chart purposes. If priced as a single, they will not qualify for the main album chart but can appear in the separate Budget Albums chart."

BartVanHemelen said:

https://www.musicmagpie.c...st-albums/

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Merzbow has released…wait for it… 418 albums since 1980. That’s a release every month for 35 years!

That includes a phenomenal 279 studio albums and 74 live albums.

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/...te_Namlook

.

As of August 2005, Namlook and company had released 135 albums

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Yes, and they could also have named John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Chick Corea, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Steve Roach, etc. Not to mention Haruomi Hosono who didn't release so many albums per se, but composed so many songs for others that his discography is a 1000+ pages word file (!).

Prince's discography, if you are to include the side-projects and live albums would be about 80 albums I think, impressive but far from being the biggest discography out there.

Now if he had done it like some of the artists in that article or the names I added and he had released just about everything he had recorded as he recorded it, it would be another story altogether, but the choice to leave so much in the vault made his discography much thinner than that of some others.

RJOrion said:

i wish somebody else loved Kamasutra the way i do...when it comes to that album (especially the title song), i feel so lonely...why cant anybody else hear it the way i hear it?... im sorry, off topic...carry on

If it can warm u a little, I loved it madly when I first got it in 98.

Later on I saw flaws in it that I didn't see at first because I wasn't yet aware of the contemporary music scene, but I used to love it.

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[Edited 2/3/20 13:37pm]

databank said:

PurpleColossus said:

My criteria is, if Prince is the chief architect of an album and does the main vocals on an album, I consider it as a Prince album. So yeah, I tend to just classify everything as Prince albums ....I understand why people would like to keep the distinctions though, especially if Prince purposely labeled the album creators with a specific name.

Vocals is just another instrument. I know albums by artists where they have another singer do all the vocals. It would be like saying NEWS and Xpectation are Eric Leeds and Candy Dulfer albums respectively because they play the lead sax:

Oh I know what you mean, but I mention Prince doing the main vocals because he is also the chief architect of his protege albums. Even though he's not doing any of the singing, we don't consider protege albums as Prince albums. I'd always consider any instrumental albums to be Prince albums if he's a participant and the chief archiect.

There are certain releases which make it difficult to distinguish an exact number. 'New Power Soul' is a good example. I consider it to be a straight up Prince album, but I can accept that many people would consider it an associate artist album. To me, it's an NPG album in name only. It depends how strict you criteria for an 'official album' is. 'Exodus' on the other hand was a genuine group effort so I wouldn't consider it to be a solo Prince album. To an extend I consider 'The Family' album and even ''Jill Jones' to be Prince albums. Yes, he may not be singing but we all know who's supplying the magic.

PurpleColossus said:

databank said:

Vocals is just another instrument. I know albums by artists where they have another singer do all the vocals. It would be like saying NEWS and Xpectation are Eric Leeds and Candy Dulfer albums respectively because they play the lead sax:

Oh I know what you mean, but I mention Prince doing the main vocals because he is also the chief architect of his protege albums. Even though he's not doing any of the singing, we don't consider protege albums as Prince albums. I'd always consider any instrumental albums to be Prince albums if he's a participant and the chief archiect.

That's why I didn't cross "chief architect". I consider the side-projects to be Prince albums too, same way I consider Material or Sacred System albums (among many other such projects) to be Bill Laswell albums, Tin Machine albums to be David Bowie albums, Graham Central Station albums to be Larry Graham albums, Doctor Rockit or Radio Boy to be Matthew Herbert albums, The Girls album to be an André Cymone album, Ta Mara And The Seen to be Jesse Johnson albums, The Day-Z's album to be a Morris Day album, or The Police albums to be part of Sting's discography, Japan's to be part of David Sylvian's, and I could go on all night...

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In the end if Prince composed, arranged, produced, performed most of the material and chose both tracklist and artwork, he's the artist isn't he? Even in the most collaborative cases where he didn't compose all the material (Andy or Judith) or gave a certain amount of freedom to someone else to complete the project (Times Squared), the albums could just as well have been credited as a collaboration between him and the other artist given the fact that he still was heavily involved in every aspect of these projects. Prince was mostly a prisoner of the pop tradition that calls for a single solo artist credit regardless of who composed, arranged or produced, all for marketing purposes, but had he evolved in the spheres of jazz or experimental music, he probably would have had a different approach to credits, acknowledging his role as a mastermind on some projects by sharing the credit, or even taking it all for himself regardless of who sang.

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We know Carmen admitted she had no idea why Prince chose to include certain songs and omit others in the final version of "her" record -he wouldn't even deign ask her for her opinion-, and we also know that Levi had the NPG record a track for Gold Nigga only for Prince to tell him that this track had no business ending-up on "his" record, and Levi and the band had no choice but to swallow their pride and give-up on the track. Tracks would also travel from Jill to someone else, or A6 to Sheila or The Bangles, without the artists having a say in which songs they'd get or lose. In some cases, such as Susannah hating Miss Understood, he would listen, but he would often just do it his way without caring much for what the people involved thought.

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But here we're talking about a mainstream magazine (Time) establishing a simple to understand "basic canon" Prince studio albums discography, not some sort of comprehensive thing for hardcore listeners, and in a way that's good too because throwing 80 records including side-projects not even credited to Prince at the average consumer's face would defeat the purpose of such an article.

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Certainly Prince himself considered all these side-projects to be integral to his body of work, but he also chose, for whatever obscure reason, to release the NPG albums as NPG albums (and by 1993 it didn't fool anyone anymore, unlike his early side-projects where people were not sure how involved he was if at all). TBH he could have released Gold Nigga and Exodus under his own name (or symbol) despite the proeminence of guest vocalists Tony and Sonny, it would just have been Prince albums with guest vocalists. But I guess he was in a playful mood and that's also why he chose to credit NPS, as well as The War and several stand alone singles, to the NPG not himself. And I believe a professional journalist aiming at establishing a basic Prince discography with Prince albums should respect his wishes to label such album as "his" and such other as a special project.

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So officially, there were 39 audio format studio albums credited to "Prince" (or "Prince And...", or " "). We know this is just about one half of his canon body of work, but that's how he chose to market it and I guess a mainstream magazine like Time should just happily stick to this. Same with the Estate's website BTW (they include NPS among the Prince albums but ironically, NPS was not included in the Sony Legacy deal, which so far failed to include any side project owned by NPG Records, including Elixer and Kamasutra despite both originally being part of a "Prince" boxset).

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But as I said at the beginning of the thread, this "Is NPS a Prince album" debate is some kind of a mouse trap that leads to endless debates where everyone agrees to some extent while at the same time never acknowledging the opposite side's position. No one will ever change their mind after pages and pages of discussion and it's been going on for 22 years. If I was a mod I'd probably ban the topic altogether because it never led anywhere, and will never lead anywhere I am a complete fool to even participate in this thread after having had this discussion dozens of time over the years, it's like being stuck in a time loop