Whenever a non-fan asks me what my favorite Prince songs are, I rattle off a list that includes very few songs they recognize (in other words, my favorites don't include many of his big commerical hits from the '80s). I often fell a bit defensive about that and make the following points:

A.) I am not one of those fans who think I'm too cool to enjoy his commercial stuff.
B.) I am not one of those fans who believes I prove my hardcore credentials by only listening to obscure stuff.

So why then do so few of his classic radio hits make my personal Top 10 or Top 20 list? There are two things at play:

1.) I certainly recognize the brilliance of many of those songs, but personally I'm sick of them. I played them obsessively in my youth to the point that I could easily live without ever hearing them again.

2.) If you ask a non-fan to name all of the Prince songs they know off the top of their heads, they can probably automatically list 5 or 6. (I'm talking about people generally familiar with '80s music. If you ask a modern teenager they'll list 0 or 1.) If you prompt non-fans by naming some of Prince's lesser hits they'll likely remember a handful more (for example, Me: "What about I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man"? Them: "Oh yeah, I forgot about that one). Perhaps you can get a non-fan up to 10 or 12 Prince songs they know.

According to PrinceVault (and the folders on my hard drive), Prince has about 1,000 unique songs (including bootlegs). So those dozen hit songs a non-fan can list literally represent only 1.0% of Prince's catalogue. Statistically speaking, what are the chance that many of my personal favorite songs would come from a narrow 1% slice of his catalogue?

So the lack of his hits in my Top 10 isn't about me being too cool; it's a statisticaly result of his being so darn prolific.

Anyone else have similar thoughts?

i DO think i'm too cool to enjoy his commercial stuff

nah, just kidding, but if i'm listening and a megahit pops on there's always that thought in the back of my mind that's like "woah this one's fucking huge" and i wouldn't say it detracts from the listening experience since they're all great, but it just reminds me how much i've heard them and how much society at large has heard them.

thank you for validating my thoughts, i thought i was dumb and alone.

to answer your actual question about top 20? no there aren't any hits in mine, and not because the quality of songwriting isn't there to deserve such placement, but just because they're in a seperate league of their own when it comes to me thinking about his catalog in general.

[Edited 8/26/20 19:17pm]

lurker316 said:

1.) I certainly recognize the brilliance of many of those songs, but personally I'm sick of them. I played them obsessively in my youth to the point that I could easily live without ever hearing them again.

According to PrinceVault (and the folders on my hard drive), Prince has about 1,000 unique songs (including bootlegs). So those dozen hit songs a non-fan can list literally represent only 1.0% of Prince's catalogue. Statistically speaking, what are the chance that many of my personal favorite songs would come from a narrow 1% slice of his catalogue?
Anyone else have similar thoughts?

I believe it was Matt Pinfield once say he was tired of hearing [insert artist I can't remember]'s "[insert song I can't remember]." He said, "I've heard it a million times. I can go the rest of my life and not hear it again."

I feel that way sometimes. It goes for a few artists that saturated the market in their day. I'd rather hear Madonna's "Into The Groove" than "Lucky Star." I'd rather hear "Who Is It?" or "Give Into Me" from Michael Jackson than "Billie Jean" or "Man In the Mirror" one more datdayum time. I'd rather hear "Trust A Try" or "You Can Be Mine" by Janet than "Escapade" or "Nasty."

With Prince, it sorta comes and goes. When he died, I was sick of not only hearing "Purple Rain," but hearing covers of it. Just sick of it for a while there. I get a little tired of "Kiss," and "Uptown," "Dirty Mind," a host of things. I think as Prince fans, we have the luxury of a lot of bootleg material, and now more and more vault material that's official. It's not just that the catalog is being remastered or whatever, but it's expanding on our end as listeners. So we can dismiss some songs sometimes, let them go for a while and spend time in another era or period of his career. I personally love the mid-90s (TGE, Come, C&D, Exodus, et al) and can easily get lost in that while not giving one of thought to "When Doves Cry" or "Little Red Corvette."

It doesn't mean any song isn't a great song, catchy, fun, interesting, or whatever. But yeah, I totally get sick of the Top 20 and Top 40 stuff.

And I think that's perfectly okay.

Because almost all of the music I've heard over the last several years is music I've chosen to hear as opposed to station playlists forced on me, I'm not tired of the hits like other fans are. There may be the few odd times I have heard "Kiss" or "Raspberry Beret" playing in the supermarket while I'm there, but that's honestly rare. If I play any of Prince's more popular albums now, the hit singles on them still sound fresh to me. That's why I never bothered posting in that recent thread about Prince songs I could go without hearing for the rest of my life. I couldn't relate.

My Prince top 20 is a balance of hits, album tracks and unreleased songs. Strangely no b-sides though. I recently made a playlist of them in reverse order and because it's my personal top 20, of course I think it sounds awesome:

20. Black Sweat

19. Bob George

18. Lovesexy

17. I Hate U

16. 7

15. Let's Work

14. Climax

13. Teacher, Teacher (1986)

12. Crucial

11. The Love We Make

10. Wonderful Ass (1984)

9. I Wanna Be Your Lover

8. Splash (1986)

7. Adore

6. Mountains

5. In A Large Room With No Light (1986)

4. Dirty Mind

3. Power Fantastic

2. Let's Go Crazy

1. 1999

I Wanna Be Your Lover

Raspberry Beret

Purple Rain

Little Red Corvette

Sign O The Times

For sure.

I am struggling if I am to include ICNTPOYM, Anotherloverholenyead, If I Was Your Girlfriend. Paisley Park. Although they were singles, were they commercial hits? If so, thrown those 4 in too

I think with a lot of people you get in to an artist through their most well known works, and if you become a fan you do so from delving deeper beyond that. It's not that you don't recognise the brilliance of say When Doves Cry or 1999, there's nothing to prove, you just have hundreds of songs to choose your favourites from rather than a 15 track best of like a casual fan might have.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the hits are usually commercial pop songs with a catchy chorus. As always there are exceptions, but it's rare for a big hit to be the most profound or complex composition on an album, and therefore it's less likely to reward repeated listening for years or decades.

short answer: yes.

my favourite song is when doves cry, his greatest hit.

hits: kiss, sign 'o' the times, purple rain, raspberry beret, gett off, controversy, the most beautiful girl in the world, girls & boys, alphabet st.,

singles/b-sides: i wish u heaven, days of wild, take me with u, dirty mind, she's always in my hair, if i was your girlfriend.

other: forever in my life, endorphinmachine

i can totally understand if someone says, his favourites are sometimes it snows in april, the cross, joy in repetition, power fantastic,...

or crystal ball, it, space, head, it's gonna be lonely,...

or breakdown, she loves me 4 me, wasted kisses, wonderful ass,...

because i love them all.

most played song since 2010 is fall in love 2nite.

Not really, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them.

I've always been fascinated with the post-Purple Rain run up until Lovesexy. The hits for this period were fantastic, but the album cuts and unreleased tracks were astounding. The quality of this period still amazes me.

When Doves Cry is my number 1

I guess I sorta judge the hits separately than the rest of the catlogue, because my relationship with them isn't as personal by nature. As hardcore fans, we share those songs with the casual listeners and that can make them less exciting for us. But when I'm in the mood and listen to "Let's Go Crazy" or "Little Red Corvette" on my own I love them and am as blown away by them as much as anything else in the discography. They're inherently good songs.

Part of what made him a respected legend was being able to score massive pop hits that were often complex and challenging. "When Doves Cry", "7", "Alphabet St.", "Thieves In The Temple", and "Sign 'O' The Times" were top ten singles that sounded like nothing else in their day. At his peak the mainstream came to him, not the other way around. Had he worked more at crafting obvious pop hits he likely would have been even bigger commercially than he was (as evidenced by attempts like the Diamonds & Pearls era).

That's a really great question. Good topic.

First off, as a hardcore fan, it's REALLY hard to narrow my faves down to 20 and they can change depending on my mood but just brainstorming, not many hits are on my immediate list.

Second, as much as I adore Little Red Corvette, Sign O the Times, Gett Off, 1999, Controversy, When Doves Cry and Seven, they're not really go to's for me since I've flat worn them out and find them so over played. SAme applies to acts like Bowie, Led Zep, the Stones, Hendrix...There's just so little excitment after the diminshing returns have set in. I usually find "hits" collections more useful for bands and acts that I have more of a second tier interest in and am less fanatical about.

Lastly, I never found MOST of the single releases on Prince's albums among the best tracks on them. Kiss, Theives in the Temple, Batdance, Raspberry Beret, Delirious, Alphabet Street, The Holy River, TMBGITW and U Got the Look are all all further down on my list of favorite songs from thier selective albums.

So I think my answer would have to be "no" based on all of it. If I had to really sit down and make a top 20, MAYBE Gett Off, LRC and SoTT would make the cut but I doubt it. Even as I'm writing this my head is filling up with what I think is a top 20 list. I always had a slight issue with Prince's choice of singles tbh.

Another way of looking at it is "what was the best single released from an individual album"? and then go from there. Like, was that single ever the best track on the record? I'd have to think on that one.

My favorite songs from some albums:

Dirty Mind : Head
Controversy: Let's Work
1999: Lady Cab Driver or DMSR
Purple Rain: When Doves Cry
ATWIAD: The Title Track
Parade: Anotherloverholeinyohead
SoTT: Forever in my Life
Lovesexy: Annastesia
Batman: Electric Chair
GB: Joy In Repetition

Couple hits/singles in there.

[Edited 8/27/20 14:03pm]

herb4 said:

That's a really great question. Good topic.

First off, as a hardcore fan, it's REALLY hard to narrow my faves down to 20 and they can change depending on my mood but just brainstorming, not many hits are on my immediate list.

Second, as much as I adore Little Red Corvette, Sign O the Times, Gett Off, 1999, Controversy, When Doves Cry and Seven, they're not really go to's for me since I've flat worn them out and find them so over played. SAme applies to acts like Bowie, Led Zep, the Stones, Hendrix...There's just so little excitment after the diminshing returns have set in. I usually find "hits" collections more useful for bands and acts that I have more of a second tier interest in and am less fanatical about.

Lastly, I never found MOST of the single releases on Prince's albums among the best tracks on them. Kiss, Theives in the Temple, Batdance, Raspberry Beret, Delirious, The Holy River, TMBGITW and U Got the Look are all all further down on my list of favorite songs from thier selective albums.

So I think my answer would have to be "no" based on all of it. If I had to really sit down and make a top 20, MAYBE Gett Off, LRC and SoTT would make the cut but I doubt it. Even as I'm writing this my head is filling up with what I think is a top 20 list. I always had a slight issue with Prince's cohoice of singles tbh.

Yup alluhdis.

In my top 20, of "commercial hits" only Pop Life, U Got the Look and Mountains make the list.

[Edited 8/27/20 19:00pm]

Forgot about Pop Life, one of the better tracks on that record.

Do b-sides count in this argument? Because SAIMH, Erotic City, Alexa De Paris and 17 Days are as good as any of the songs on the albums that birthed those singles/hits we're talking about IMO.

NouveauDance said:

I think with a lot of people you get in to an artist through their most well known works, and if you become a fan you do so from delving deeper beyond that. It's not that you don't recognise the brilliance of say When Doves Cry or 1999, there's nothing to prove, you just have hundreds of songs to choose your favourites from rather than a 15 track best of like a casual fan might have.

I agree

.

My top 20 list would include 4 commercial hits (Purple Rain, I Would Die 4 U, Little Red Corvette, When Doves Cry).

Prince was an amazing artist that, when he got it right, he got it REALLY right; sometimes he had his finger on the pulse and/or was ahead of that pulse. Best examples are probably When Doves Cry, Alphabet St., Batdance and The Most Beautiful Girl In The World; two of those are rated high and feature a lot on my personal playlists, created to NEVER, ever having to listen to the title songs of Graffiti Bridge and Art Official Age, or The Sun, The Moon and Stars. Amongst others.

But Alphabet St and When Doves Cry are, besides hits, also amazing songs in between those 1000 songs mentioned and will always feature on my list of personal faves. So I think, 2 outa 20, that ain't bad. It's just that I like fringe Prince, freaky Prince and 'fuck, why didn't he release this song?'-Prince; so my personal 20 best songs are the ones radio fans don't know. But those are never the people I wanna talk to, when it comes to Prince music.

Among the mega-hits, just "1999" and "Sign o' the Times" made my top 20 last time I made a list. There were other singles in there ("Peach", "Controversy", "Mountains", "Automatic", "I Wish U Heaven"), but I don't think they are in the same league as far as hits go.

sexton said:

Because almost all of the music I've heard over the last several years is music I've chosen to hear as opposed to station playlists forced on me, I'm not tired of the hits like other fans are. There may be the few odd times I have heard "Kiss" or "Raspberry Beret" playing in the supermarket while I'm there, but that's honestly rare. If I play any of Prince's more popular albums now, the hit singles on them still sound fresh to me. That's why I never bothered posting in that recent thread about Prince songs I could go without hearing for the rest of my life. I couldn't relate.

My Prince top 20 is a balance of hits, album tracks and unreleased songs. Strangely no b-sides though. I recently made a playlist of them in reverse order and because it's my personal top 20, of course I think it sounds awesome:

20. Black Sweat

19. Bob George

18. Lovesexy

17. I Hate U

16. 7

15. Let's Work

14. Climax

13. Teacher, Teacher (1986)

12. Crucial

11. The Love We Make

10. Wonderful Ass (1984)

9. I Wanna Be Your Lover

8. Splash (1986)

7. Adore

6. Mountains

5. In A Large Room With No Light (1986)

4. Dirty Mind

3. Power Fantastic

2. Let's Go Crazy

1. 1999

Love your list, as always!

Moonbeam said:

sexton said:

Because almost all of the music I've heard over the last several years is music I've chosen to hear as opposed to station playlists forced on me, I'm not tired of the hits like other fans are. There may be the few odd times I have heard "Kiss" or "Raspberry Beret" playing in the supermarket while I'm there, but that's honestly rare. If I play any of Prince's more popular albums now, the hit singles on them still sound fresh to me. That's why I never bothered posting in that recent thread about Prince songs I could go without hearing for the rest of my life. I couldn't relate.

My Prince top 20 is a balance of hits, album tracks and unreleased songs. Strangely no b-sides though. I recently made a playlist of them in reverse order and because it's my personal top 20, of course I think it sounds awesome:

20. Black Sweat

19. Bob George

18. Lovesexy

17. I Hate U

16. 7

15. Let's Work

14. Climax

13. Teacher, Teacher (1986)

12. Crucial

11. The Love We Make

10. Wonderful Ass (1984)

9. I Wanna Be Your Lover

8. Splash (1986)

7. Adore

6. Mountains

5. In A Large Room With No Light (1986)

4. Dirty Mind

3. Power Fantastic

2. Let's Go Crazy

1. 1999

Love your list, as always!

Me too! I'd expected it to be more 'old skool', though! And am surprised to see Teacher, Teacher on there, tbh, but that's just one of my 'not-so-crazy-about'-songs...

Moonbeam said:

"1999" and "Sign o' the Times"

I love those too, as it comes to 'hits'. Same with Raspberry Beret; adore that song, espacially the extended. But the album version is sublime as well.
And indeed, Peach. Peach, literally, rocks. Wasn't too big of a hit, but plays well, on the list of faves.

I don't aver get tired of the hits, and yes some of them are, When Doves Cry SOTT and Purple Rain

Maybe half.

When Doves Cry is THAT good.

Raspeberry Beret, Pop Life, Uptown, Little Red Corvette, many great songs.

I never grow tired of Little Red Corvette!!

smokin hot song! The best melody and so damn catchy. Not to mention the lyrics, wonderful wordplay. Its one of his dream/story-telling songs, and I believe this is the best one. Best story-telling, best arrangement

The definitive version (for me) is the 'Special Dance Mix'

Then I love the Piano & a Microphone version Prince released on TIDAL in 2016 (and pretty much the other performances of Little Red Corvette in that tour)

I love the 1999 tour version.... specifically the version from the 4DF's Soundboard Series bootleg set from the Detroit shows.. (so not the one thats on 1999 SDE, but obviously love that too since its basically the same thing, i just love the other performance better, vocal-wise)

and pretty much any other incarnation of the song

also one of my favorites of Prince's songs to play on piano!

i listen to it when I'm sad, i listen to it when i'm happy... its just one of his best songs ever.... and one of THE best songs ever.... if i'm compiling a 'Prince genius' playlist, this is definitely going on there!!

on any given day this could be #1 for me

But since we're talking about hits, my #1 fave is Controversy, for right now at least...

I think my top 20 would include many of his commerical hits.


The main reason being is that I love the Prince songs I've always loved, even from my youth.


It doesn't matter how many hundreds of times I've heard Pop Life or Erotic City or Soft and Wet or 1999 or She's Always In My Hair, I love them now as much as I ever did.


I can't really think of a Prince song that has made it to the love stage that I've later come back and said, "I overestimated that song."


As an FYI, I have come to really like some songs over time that I didn't care too much for when I heard them the first few times.


I guess a good question would be what's included as a commercial hit? We know songs that Prince played a lot and that were on the Hits compilation that probably weren't actually hits commercially, like Sometimes It Snows In April or Anotherloverholeinyourhead.

pdiddy2011 said:

I can't really think of a Prince song that has made it to the love stage that I've later come back and said, "I overestimated that song."

Interesting, because I can think of several, not all of which are the result of simply being overplayed. Alphabet Street, Kiss, Raspberry Beret, Batdance, Theives in the Temple, Cream, TMBGITW, U Got teh Look...I liked them all at the time but they've faded a little in retrospect and I think I overestimated several of them just because I like(d) Prince. And IMO none of them are the best tracks even on their respective albums.

Several still hold up though and I'm not saying any of them suck. My Name Is Prince, When Doves Cry, LRC, 1999, IWD4U, Paisey Park, Mountains, Girls and Boys, IIWYGF, Hot Thing, SoTT but not all of them. Not sure how much of that is due to over exposure or whatever we're on about here but, tbh, if I were to compile a TRUE "top 20 List" I have my doubts that anything on the hits compilations would make the cut.

Maybe, but I haven't set about doing it so I dunno.

SquirrelMeat76 said:

I Wanna Be Your Lover

Raspberry Beret

Purple Rain

Little Red Corvette

Sign O The Times

For sure.

I am struggling if I am to include ICNTPOYM, Anotherloverholenyead, If I Was Your Girlfriend. Paisley Park. Although they were singles, were they commercial hits? If so, thrown those 4 in too

ICNTTPOYM was definitely a hit in a way that the others that you questioned weren't. It made the TOP 10 in America and was on the charts for a long time. The others weren't anywhere close to even the top 30, at least in the main chart.

It is always difficult to truly rate the huge hits because of thei being played so much. They also don't have the extra excitement of being discovered in the black market as a bootleg by the megafan. Despite being bashed on the Org at times, can you image if Purple Rain was just a song we had never heard until we discovered it in a boot.

It is hard for me to firm up a Top 20, but I am certain these hits would be in it:

When Doves Cry (perhaps my favorite hit by anyone)

Purple Rain

Little Red Corvette (that intro still pulls me in like a lover)

There are some others that might be in there too, but I love so many of his songs that it is hard to know.

maybe I tend to think more in albums and no so much hits, in that sense the brilliance of the 80s albums compels to include a lot of his hits