The thing about Prince that I love is the timelessness of his material. I lot of Prince material sounds undated....ie u can play songs from any of his albus and they still sound fresh. From Soft & Wet to the lastest song from the last celebration, Prince had the ability 2 make songs that went beyond the timeframe that it was made. I'm not talking about the instruments as instruments come & go.

Am I tripping?

You're not tripping at all.

Some songs are neatly sitting in their year or decade. But I tend to believe that the "timeless" nature of great music is that it really was ahead of its time. The songs had production, arrangements, whatever that noone else was doing. So it's already 5 years ahead of where it should be, so it never gets locked into "oh, that's an early 80s song" or "Wow, that is so 1987, isn't it?"

Things like "When Doves Cry," with it's echoey reverby sound was much more a 1988 sound where singers like Taylor Dayne were overproduced by people like Ric Wake. It'd have not been as big 4 years later, perhaps. The same argument can be made for many artists considered having timeless music.

So for two decades, Prince's music was mostly ahead of anything we were hearing on the radio. That keeps it timeless.

TrivialPursuit said:

Some songs are neatly sitting in their year or decade. But I tend to believe that the "timeless" nature of great music is that it really was ahead of its time. The songs had production, arrangements, whatever that noone else was doing. So it's already 5 years ahead of where it should be, so it never gets locked into "oh, that's an early 80s song" or "Wow, that is so 1987, isn't it?"

Things like "When Doves Cry," with it's echoey reverby sound was much more a 1988 sound where singers like Taylor Dayne were overproduced by people like Ric Wake. It'd have not been as big 4 years later, perhaps. The same argument can be made for many artists considered having timeless music.

So for two decades, Prince's music was mostly ahead of anything we were hearing on the radio. That keeps it timeless.

I only find a handful of groups/artist that I put into that timeless category.

Pfunk, Mint Condition, Kraftwerk, Isley bros, George Duke, a small % of Stevie Wonder & Peter Gabriel, ........and that is about it.

Gooddoctor23 said:

The thing about Prince that I love is the timelessness of his material. I lot of Prince material sounds undated....ie u can play songs from any of his albus and they still sound fresh. From Soft & Wet to the lastest song from the last celebration, Prince had the ability 2 make songs that went beyond the timeframe that it was made. I'm not talking about the instruments as instruments come & go.

Am I tripping?

Agree to a certain extent, but wonder the reason why. Is it perhaps those songs have been with you (us) all the time since released? ...

I was recently going through the vault discs of both SOTT and 1999 and (particularly on the latter) and much of the material, as precious as it is for its historical reasons, sounds extremely dated to me. Just a thought.

I agree.

That's not to say none of his songs sound dated. But I think a majority of them do not, which is amazing.

To me, the songs that do sound dated tend to be the songs he gave to other people, including his proteges.

The songwriting itself is one thing, the production/arrangements themselves are very much right smack of the year he released or composed them, generally.

Not being acclimated to 80s styles before getting into Prince, that was definitely somewhat of a hurdle. Now I prefer 80s styles, but that in and of itself emphasizes how "80s" his prime is that it would be a gateway to further 80s artists...

The 90s stuff is of course very 90s, 00s very 00s, so on... "New Power Generation" was always derided for being too New Jack Swing before the famz decided they always liked it after "Bold Generation" came out, "Black Sweat" was designed to get in on that Neptunes chart action, etc. Prince lived very much "in the present" and that shows in a lot of his production/arrangement decisions at the moment of albums release.

This happened to me a few weeks ago. I was driving home from work, and When Doves Cry came on the radio (SiriusXM 80s on 8). It was the full intro version, with no interruptions.

I've heard the song thousands of times -- and, to be honest, at various times was sick of hearing it. But THIS time took me back to 1984 when I heard it for the first time, with the same level of excitement. I even mentioned it to my wife when I got home.

Not sure why, or how, that happened. I've even heard it since and it was "OK, WDC again".

Certain songs are going to always be regarded as timeless based on not only the song, but when it came out.

To counter your point - certain Prince songs DO sound dated, especially a lot of his work from the 1990s. But to be fair, everyone's music from that era sounds dated now. It wasn't a great time for music.

WhisperingDandelions said:

The songwriting itself is one thing, the production/arrangements themselves are very much right smack of the year he released or composed them, generally.

Not being acclimated to 80s styles before getting into Prince, that was definitely somewhat of a hurdle. Now I prefer 80s styles, but that in and of itself emphasizes how "80s" his prime is that it would be a gateway to further 80s artists...

The 90s stuff is of course very 90s, 00s very 00s, so on... "New Power Generation" was always derided for being too New Jack Swing before the famz decided they always liked it after "Bold Generation" came out, "Black Sweat" was designed to get in on that Neptunes chart action, etc. Prince lived very much "in the present" and that shows in a lot of his production/arrangement decisions at the moment of albums release.

yes, exactly.

prince rarely wanted to sound too out of step with the moment.

ofc on parade, there isnt much on side one that sounded typically 80s (in terms of huge gated drums and synths or big sax solos etc), and then on songs like slow love, its 'classic' (ie classic 60s/70s production values) so 'timeless', but for the most part, prince sounded very much of whatever period he was working in

even the retro stuff towards the end of his career, that was in tune with other retro artists like lianne la havas, alicia keys, bruno mars, etc etc

prince was not a guy to simply stick to one mode or sound and not bend to what else was happening

he was always trying to stay aware of what his peers, and younger, popular artists were doing

[Edited 7/20/23 6:45am]

Ndorphinmachina said:

The production dates a lot of the music. "Soft & Wet" is an odd example to choose. Something like "She's always in my hair" is IMO a better example. It wouldn't sound out of place on an indie music station today. When he brought it to the stage a lot of that disappeared. Some songs had inherently 80s sounds/riffs, "delirious" but for the most part...

I'd agree. "Soft and Wet" - and moreover For You and Prince - are firmly rooted in the easy listening/R&B (aka yacht rock) category for the late 80s. Things like "Crazy You," "Baby," "With You," "I Feel For You" are all in that category. He stretched his claws a bit with things like "Bambi" or "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad" for a Black artist at the time.

It was really Dirty Mind that shifted his sound a bit. People used to consider Controversy a segue album, but Dirty Mind is really that, instead. Doesn't make it a bad thing, but it's the clear shift in his musical approach in many ways - lyrically, production, aggression, forthrightness, etc.

Who knows if there'd be a "Jack U Off" had there not been "Sister" or "Head."

With regard to "Delirious," it's sort of a standout thing because his rockabilly sensibilities were already there. You could make an EP from those songs, really. "Horny Toad," "Delirious," "Jack U Off," "Broken," "If I Had A Harem," "Turn It Up," "maybe even "Let's Pretend We're Married" (live version), etc. I sorta like those little peppered things in that span of history. It's just him stretching any which way he can, almost just to see what becomes of it.

id say the first two albums are more in that 'classic' mode - mid/late 60s to 70s production values are kind of seen as 'timeless'

dirty mind also has a more classic sound, even if it is lofi and not that polished, just cos he was still basically using a pretty simple setup, instrumentation wise, adn well if you were into new wave or underground early 80s stuff, its familiar

starting with controversy, prince started to take more risks in how he sounded, it got messier, a bit weirder or just more unusual, whether its rough sounding mixes or whatever

this is when the 'prince mix' came into play i think, that slightly 'unfinished' sounding quality that a lot of his stuff had in the 80s

he wasnt into getting a uniform sound across an album, or a conventionally 'good sound' (think MJ's thriller, or a springsteen album like born in the usa) for his records