The main song, not the Houstyle version.

Cabaret Metro 93 is a good one. Funky intro...

antonb said:

Ndorphinmachina said:

Along with Kiss, Cream, and Peach. This is a song that (for me) has never really worked live.

I'm not sure "Peach" has been bad live. It's a straight rocker.

I do agree with "Cream" and "Kiss." "Kiss"'s problem is obvious. That damn gated hi-hat is hard to replicate live, consistently. He's done some funkier arrangements with it (during the NewPowerSoul days I think, or shortly after, cuz Graham was around, but before Musicology).

I've said plenty of times that "Cream" has no middle and just sounds empty. That eight-note organ hook is cute on record, and has a subtly to it that helps build the song later on the chorus. But live, it's practically non-existent. I remember hearing it on Arsenio and thinking... is this a demo? Bad rehearsal? Did half the board cut out?

"Gett Off," like "Cream," needs something thicker on the bottom side to carry it. He was always telling people to play something else with their left hand or not duplicate the bass part. But frankly, something needed to duplicate the bass part, or play along with it for stuff like "Cream" and "Gett Off."

Indeed live this song is a difficult one.

I'm thinking about the Earls Court London version of 1992, kind of a lame version,

(you can find it on yt), where it sounds like a speed-up reggae version (to me).

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But Prince was nevertheless pretty inventive with new arrangements for these kind of studio songs.

Think about ''Kiss'' for example.

All the different arrangements he invented for ''Kiss'' over the decades are truly amazing (to me).

He could not pull that off with ''Cream'' (I believe), and with ''Peach''.

Yes sometimes tracks like ''Gett Off'' and ''Kiss'' sounded too light live, and indeed difficult to live up to the studio version,

For ''Kiss''', that had more to do with the falsetto funky way of singing imho.

Although it always remained a public's live favourite, he kept playing till the end.

And true, some songs played live don't have the same live impact as others.

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[Edited 10/4/23 9:18am]

Marco81 said:

The main song, not the Houstyle version.

Cabaret Metro 93 is a good one. Funky intro...

I checked this one and it´s real cool, but I agree with somebody who said it´s one of the songs that didn´t work live. Im the album version, it has such a powerful bass/drums groove that was never reproduced live.

am I the only one that likes the MTV Awards version the best?

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Its too sparse, not enough musical meat on it. Same with kiss and alphabet st too maybe, unless were talking the totally diff hoedown style version. That approach is good for records, bad for live shows.

Wouldn't say the D&P tour version is sparse. Sonny and Michael's full sound, record scratching and sound effects, Rosie & Tony, P's guitar sounds loud and good, live horns

[Edited 10/6/23 0:48am]

DotsofU said:

am I the only one that likes the MTV Awards version the best?