relistening to TGE today, im gonna say he started doing it here.

319, apparently dates back to the late 80s, but the diff here i think between this version of 319 and other times when he would revisit older unreleased tracks previously, is that it still sounds very 80s (those drums are totally 88/89). what i mean is when hed update old songs before, he would update them for the era. e.g. ICNTTPOYM (comparing the 87 version to the version on the SDE), he updated it for 87.

also, billy jack bitch. it sounds very like a song he might have done in the early/mid 80s. i think it actually works more as a time song than a prince song, but if you take the horns off, the basic track could be from the 1999 era or thereabouts.

obv later on, prince would start explicitly doing prince throwback songs like on the rave album and songs like 1+1+1=3, but im thinking this might be the first instance of him releasing songs in older styles of his.

Where's your source for "319, apparently dates back to the late 80s."?

The irony on the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack, when in the song New Power Generation he sings of "your old fashioned music, your old ideas" . . . when in fact that album is full of old early 80s songs that he dug out of the Vault and redressed for 1990.

The beauty of Prince being so prolific early on is that he could go back and mine the Vault for songs or even ideas. They're all still HIS. I think it's irrelevant that he would revisit old songs.

One example: one of his very last releases on TIDAL while he was alive was If Eye Could Get Ur Attention. That song was recorded in 1986 and released almost 30 years later. Still works.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

obv later on, prince would start explicitly doing prince throwback songs like on the rave album and songs like 1+1+1=3, but im thinking this might be the first instance of him releasing songs in older styles of his.

You answered your own question right here, even though i totally took it out of your intended context.

"Do Me Baby" on "Controversy" harks back to music from two albums previous.

"Lets Work" is a rewritten and reworked version of "The Rock" also for "Controversy".

i think we all know he often overhauled old songs of his for new releases/albums

what i meant was that to my ears at least, billy jack bitch sounded like old early 80s jamie starr-ish prince, which was an odd thing to be doing in 93/94 for someone who at that time was still talking about looking into the future and changing his name etc and playing only new material (then again, at the same time, he was playing plenty of old covers from other artists)

and 319, while i dont have proof its rooted in the late 80s, it def SOUNDS like its from that period. makes me think of electric chair, and other songs like that.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

i think we all know he often overhauled old songs of his for new releases/albums

what i meant was that to my ears at least, billy jack bitch sounded like old early 80s jamie starr-ish prince, which was an odd thing to be doing in 93/94 for someone who at that time was still talking about looking into the future and changing his name etc and playing only new material (then again, at the same time, he was playing plenty of old covers from other artists)

and 319, while i dont have proof its rooted in the late 80s, it def SOUNDS like its from that period. makes me think of electric chair, and other songs like that.

And that is the point - we all know that Prince often overhauled sounds or songs written from his past for new released or albums. This is nothing unique or different. As with virtually every songwriting musician, from their very first album, they have all being doing throwback songs and sounds that have been in development over many years. These are intermixed and/or melded with new songs and sounds.

I cannot see any distinction between BJB and 319 sounding like they came fom a prior period and "Do me baby" and "Let's work" sounding like they came from a prior period.

Was 1993/94 any different from 1980/81. Dirty Mind and Controversy were deliberate step changes looking to the future post Disco world and quintessential in creating his own unique sound and identities. Yet Controversy had two throwback songs.

actually, no,

michael jackson for example did not release songs on dangerous that sounded like thriller. madonna was not making music on bedtime stories that sounded like like a virgin.

i am talking production-wise.

so prince sounding like 89 or 83 in 95 was a somewhat unusual thing.

and lets work and do me baby dont sound like they were recorded in any year other than 81, even if do me baby was writtten earlier. throughout the 80s you couldnt really say anything he released sounded like it was from an earlier album, except maybe the controversy/1999 era, but i mean, they were only a year apart so thats normal.

next youre gonna say there was nothing unusual about the lin drum songs on the rave album, as that was just what he always did, when he hadnt used that sound in years by that point.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

actually, no,

michael jackson for example did not release songs on dangerous that sounded like thriller. madonna was not making music on bedtime stories that sounded like like a virgin.

i am talking production-wise.

so prince sounding like 89 or 83 in 95 was a somewhat unusual thing.

and lets work and do me baby dont sound like they were recorded in any year other than 81, even if do me baby was writtten earlier. throughout the 80s you couldnt really say anything he released sounded like it was from an earlier album, except maybe the controversy/1999 era, but i mean, they were only a year apart so thats normal.

next youre gonna say there was nothing unusual about the lin drum songs on the rave album, as that was just what he always did, when he hadnt used that sound in years by that point.

I think your premisee it wrong. Production-wise, the songs you listed don't sound like '80s songs. Not even close.

For example, Billy Jack Bitch has that "billl-ah" sample repeated ad nausum. Prince barely used samples in the '80s. BJB also has horns. Prince did start using horns in the late '80s / Lovesexy, but Eric and Altanta sounded nothing like the Horn Headz on BJB.

IMHO the first Prince album where Prince is pretending to be Prince instead create new music is Rave un2 The Joy Fantastic and - after - the Musicology/20ten era.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

actually, no,

michael jackson for example did not release songs on dangerous that sounded like thriller. madonna was not making music on bedtime stories that sounded like like a virgin.

i am talking production-wise.

so prince sounding like 89 or 83 in 95 was a somewhat unusual thing.

and lets work and do me baby dont sound like they were recorded in any year other than 81, even if do me baby was writtten earlier. throughout the 80s you couldnt really say anything he released sounded like it was from an earlier album, except maybe the controversy/1999 era, but i mean, they were only a year apart so thats normal.

next youre gonna say there was nothing unusual about the lin drum songs on the rave album, as that was just what he always did, when he hadnt used that sound in years by that point.

Actually, yes.

Prince no more sounded like he did in 1983 in 1995 than MJ did not seek to recover the thrill he lost once everything went bad on every subsequent album. Carefully selecting four albums to pretend MJ and Madonna don't also have some sounds that they go back to is simply not convincing. Having said that: BJB and 319 no more sound like they were recorded years before they were released than DMB or Let's Work sound like they were.

It is extremely common for professional artists to develop a sound or feel and, in this process, periodically come back to selective elements of this - Indeed it is the exception that an artist will never or only seldom do this. My point is that artists do it regularly - even from their first album because this is one that they have been working on all their life. You are trying to make some form of ill-defined distinction between the different times Prince did it imagining that ones that are somehow different in your eyes are not like all the other times he did it.

Please do not make up false assumptions about what you think I will say. Firsly I would never call an LM1 a "lin" - it is a "Linn". I understand that artists are not required to always use an instrument and that they can drop it for a while and later come back to it. This does not mean that Rave sounds like "Private Joy". This is because they are still developing their sound even if they return to older instruments.

Consider also that artists often publicly play their old songs and so use or replicate these older sounds anyway.

[Edited 4/29/23 14:50pm]

I think he always took older songs and 'revived' them, look at all the songs he gave away for instance. But to me it was always quite hidden and 'we' didn't generally know they we older songs re-hashed - I think when he remade The Dance, I thought that was a bit strange and then Extra Loveable and If I Could Get Ur Attention later on. He seemed to have finally decided it was ok to look back and revisit songs from the past - when previoulsy he had (on the whole) been against it and always wanted to look forward - I guess Crystal Ball was a massive step in that direction.

[Edited 4/28/23 14:46pm]

LOSTPASSWORDMAN said:

I think he always took older songs and 'revived' them, look at all the songs he gave away for instance. But to me it was always quite hidden and 'we' didn't generally know they we older songs re-hashed - I think when he remade The Dance, I thought that was a bit strange and then Extra Loveable and If I Could Get Ur Attention later on. He seemed to have finally decided it was ok to look back and revisit songs from the past - when previoulsy he had (on the whole) been against it and always wanted to look forward - I guess Crystal Ball was a massive step in that direction.

[Edited 4/28/23 14:46pm]

And in the other direction how some songs or at least sounds from The Dream Factory and Black Album survived those records' demise. This is despite the fact that this was when Prince killed these albums to make a step change.

I don't think he finally decided it was OK to look back and revisit songs from the past, I think your opening line is much more likely - He and virtually every songwriting musician do it all the time and we are only sometimes aware of it. Over time and because he knew we knew that some new songs were based on, updated from or reimagings of older songs, he sometimes just stopped hiding it.

[Edited 4/29/23 14:52pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Perhaps i should have worded it more basically. This is not about prince reupholstering old material. That is a separate topic. It is about sounds. 319 sounds very 80s with its gated drums and faster tempo. Also that choppy rhythm guitar. BJB also sounds very 80s with its drum sounds (almost more like zapp than prince hinself actually, but maybe he was listening to some g funk at the time, idk). The type of thing he was doing in the early/mid 80s. Not in the 90s. Yeah i know it has that fishbone sample which obv makes it a product of the 90s but thats a relatively minor or background part of the song. For an album supposedly about TAFKAP, not prince(esta murto), that was also surprising. That is all. [Edited 5/1/23 0:22am]

Perhaps you should have explained your opinion as just an opinion and not as a question . And not as a question for which you have no intention of ever accepting any answers that disagree with your opinion.

Not all Prince 80's songs are fast tempo any more that all Prince songs in the 1990s except 319 have slower tempos. That gated reverb became more rare in late 1980s and 1990s is just the ebb and flow of popular music trends. It has since become increasingly more popular again. This does not in my opinion mean that people using it today sound 1980s, nor does it mean that Prince sounded 1980s in the 1990s. The thing about virtually every Prince album, regardless of what he called himself or his band, is that he always explored different sounds and these sounds were often a mix of genres, sub genres and styles. These relied on sounds that are a mix of where he was pushing the envelope, doing his version of a current trend, or a throwback to the style of those who influenced him or one of his many previous styles - BUT always as a contemporary take of this at the time he released the new song.

As I and others have discussed, there is nothing new in Prince doing this in the Gold Experience. It is not the first time he was seeking to make a step change focuing on a new future and yet included a sound or even whole song that come from the past. To seek to distinguish a new song having a selective "throwback" element as if this is more surprising than using an updated whole old song in an album where Prince is making a major change is arse-about. Surely using whole songs from abandoned albums so they are included on their replacement step change albums is more surprising.

when you cite actual facts, rather than simply throwing out wooly, broad (and extremely long) generalisations, let me know. i wrote it as a question as im not laying it down as fact, im posting it as an idea.

the fact gated 80s production DID go out of favour, and then prince chose to use it again, in 95, indicates that it was out of step with popular trends in the era it was released.

prince redoing old songs over is not the same as taking old material and making it current for the era it was being released. prince would obv take old styles like rnr or rockabilly and make them modern with new technology (eg delirious), but looking back to reference his own past, i dont think he was doing that in earnest until the rave album, but im just arguing that he was doing it a bit, a few years earlier. which for someone who wasnt really looking back at his past for nearly all the warner years, makes it unusual.

[Edited 5/2/23 2:20am]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

when you cite actual facts, rather than simply throwing out wooly, broad (and extremely long) generalisations, let me know. i wrote it as a question as im not laying it down as fact, im posting it as an idea.

the fact gated 80s production DID go out of favour, and then prince chose to use it again, in 95, indicates that it was out of step with popular trends in the era it was released.

prince redoing old songs over is not the same as taking old material and making it current for the era it was being released. prince would obv take old styles like rnr or rockabilly and make them modern with new technology (eg delirious), but looking back to reference his own past, i dont think he was doing that in earnest until the rave album, but im just arguing that he was doing it a bit, a few years earlier. which for someone who wasnt really looking back at his past for nearly all the warner years, makes it unusual.

[Edited 5/2/23 2:20am]

Fact: You have rejected every other person's comments and every other place where Prince has reused techniques, instruments or whole songs as some how not as surprising as BJB and 319. If you want to post an idea for others to question, you need to be open to all the people that have said that it is bullshit.

I don't know how to give your more facts than I already have.

It is simply a fact that Prince and most other artists regularly throwback to sounds or instruments or styles or redoing whole old songs to establish their musical identities. However in doing this they may also update these sounds, the use of those instruments or styles or the whole song to make the sound more contemporary - Prince developed his musical identity, not just repeated the old songs. This is why BJB and 319 do NOT sound like Private Joy. The mere use of a Linn (note the correct spelling) or a drum style does not mean they sound the same or belong in the past.

Fact: Prince was never popular because he only did styles that were on trend and strictly in step with that year's top 40. Indeed he was known for doing the very opposite. Rather than being like MJ and just making bad and dangerous albums in failed attempts to find the thrill that he had lost, Prince released ATWIAD and Parade as the follow ups to 1999 and Purple Rain. It is simply not true that it was rare for Prince's WB albums to not have one or more sound, instrument, style, song that was a throwback to one of his previous styles or the style of an influence on him. It is wrong to say that these songs are unusual.

[Edited 5/2/23 16:53pm]

You could make mention of MPLSound and 20Ten, which seemed to use his trademark Linn sound, seemingly as an attempt to recapture his "trademark" sound.

Those albums don't use it quite as seamlessly as when Prince was younger . . . not quite an "afterthought", just a bit more obvious than the 80s stuff.

Se7en said:

You could make mention of MPLSound and 20Ten, which seemed to use his trademark Linn sound, seemingly as an attempt to recapture his "trademark" sound.

Those albums don't use it quite as seamlessly as when Prince was younger . . . not quite an "afterthought", just a bit more obvious than the 80s stuff.

I used to play Prince on shuffle when driving and Ol' Skool Company was immediately followed by D.M.S.R. A perfect fit. Just like BJB and 319, the throwback does not sound the same because it is a calllout and it is performed for when it was released.

As I have been saying, there virtually is not a single album that does not have some form of throwback to the style or elements of a previous album. I named two throwbacks on Controversy above. There is nothing new, special or unusual about this. Not for Prince and not for virtually every other successful musician.

youd make a terrible historian

just imagining you working at the vault, youd be like 'well its all just one and the same, its all connected, who cares about chronology, or any differences in periods, there are similarities in every era', every SDE would have songs from every era in it cos you wouldnt be able to note any differences looooooooool

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

youd make a terrible historian

just imagining you working at the vault, youd be like 'well its all just one and the same, its all connected, who cares about chronology, or any differences in periods, there are similarities in every era', every SDE would have songs from every era in it cos you wouldnt be able to note any differences looooooooool

If you mean a historian who seeks to make controversial claims and presents them as questions so they don't have to defend them. Then that type of historian, when their position is ultimately challenged with facts that contradict the controversial claim, changes the parameters to fabricate differences and ultimately personally attacks those who don't just agree with the controversial claim, then guilty as charged.

I care about chronology: Hence I understand that Controversy, SOTT, LoveSexy etc are all before TGE. I understand differences: Hence I can see that BJB, 319 and Ol' Skool Company, Let's Work, Do Me Baby, etc., etc. etc. all have elements from the past but include elements from when they were released or of Prince's progressive developments in his sounds over the time between the throwback era and the new release. This is simply the natural process of where most artists initially create their own sound and develop this over time. This is not something that suddenly first appeared in an album 15 years after "For You".

how many times have i defended my point?!

if i defend it, you then tell me i should include some sort of disclaimer that it is MY PERSONAL OPINION rather than a question, as if that is not immediately obvious!

the question is rhetorical.

but i framed it as a question so as to invite DEBATE.

which in case you were not aware, means that i have my view, you have yours, we can go back and forth, and the result is that we are DEBATING.

not sure why this is so hard to accept.

it is actually what many historians of all backgrounds do regularly.

the reason you would make a bad historian is that you are unable to identify specifics. instead you are resorting to broadstrokes about how all artists make music that is in conversation with their past all the time, year in year out, etc etc. i mean, duh, artists are people, and their personality will be present in their work. i think this boils down to a difference in approach. you choose to see where there is repetition. i choose to see where there is difference.

and on that note, i am increasingly finding your replies on this thread quite unedifying, so i will leave you to enjoy your ol skool company/DMSR segues and so on. have fun!

IanRG said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

youd make a terrible historian

just imagining you working at the vault, youd be like 'well its all just one and the same, its all connected, who cares about chronology, or any differences in periods, there are similarities in every era', every SDE would have songs from every era in it cos you wouldnt be able to note any differences looooooooool

If you mean a historian who seeks to make controversial claims and presents them as questions so they don't have to defend them. Then that type of historian, when their position is ultimately challenged with facts that contradict the controversial claim, changes the parameters to fabricate differences and ultimately personally attacks those who don't just agree with the controversial claim, then guilty as charged.

I care about chronology: Hence I understand that Controversy, SOTT, LoveSexy etc are all before TGE. I understand differences: Hence I can see that BJB, 319 and Ol' Skool Company, Let's Work, Do Me Baby, etc., etc. etc. all have elements from the past but include elements from when they were released or of Prince's progressive developments in his sounds over the time between the throwback era and the new release. This is simply the natural process of where most artists initially create their own sound and develop this over time. This is not something that suddenly first appeared in an album 15 years after "For You".

Very well stated.