TrivialPursuit said:

paraded said:

The only one that still fits this bill for me is Around the World in a Day. Always leaves me cold.

Try an expanded playlist:

ATWIAD

Paisley Park

Condition of the Heart

She's Always In My Hair

Hello

4 The Tears In Your Eyes

Raspberry Beret

Girl

Tamborine

America

Pop Life

The Ladder

Temptation*

* I use my own edit of this one. It's slightly sped up, and that talking-to-God ending is gone.

I happen to love 4 the Tears in Your Eyes (the version on The Hits). None of the others, with the exception of Raspberry Beret and sometimes Condition of the Heart, have ever grabbed me for some reason. Still haven't figured out why.

paisleyparkgirl said:

paraded said:

The only one that still fits this bill for me is Around the World in a Day. Always leaves me cold.

Was it acclaimed though ?

It certainly has passionate defenders out there. I know at the time of release it was not highly acclaimed compared to what came before, but in all the discussion on Prince, it is usually grouped in the category of "the insane run he had from 1980 to 1988" (give or take a year or two on either end depending on whose talking). Very few take the time to go "but in that run, ATWIAD was not so good"

ShellyMcG said:

Lovesexy. I've seen people on here and elsewhere talk about Lovesexy like it's this great masterpiece but it's just not my kind of thing. It starts off ok with Eye No but it goes downhill quickly from there. Also, it's got the 6 words I fear the most in all of Prince's catalogue. "Cat, we need you to rap". No Prince. No we didn't. We didn't need that at all.

co-sign.

It's kind of unique in that it's both corny and boring, yet cluttered/busy all at the same time.

And it's got "Anna Stesia". It's like how to me Bad isn't just the worst MJ album, but one of the worst albums period, yet still has "Liberian Girl".

Also the cover is his masterpiece.

paisleyparkgirl said:

Musicology.

This one is less acclaimed than 'Around the World in a Day'.

The tour was acclaimed. Over time, 'Musicology' began to imply the album the album was a hit, and then "Musicology" began to imply the single was a hit, when I assure you neither was the case in the moment, as someone who was in high school for the 'Musicology' era.

And 'Musicology' The Tour was only a hit in the first place because it was the first time he'd played the hits in awhile, and was heavily advertised as his "goodbye" to the hits (lolz).

Literally 'Musicology' was a hit because it caused reflection over his back catalogue because it was a "hits retirement tour". Like the 80s stations would do throwback Prince playlists when he came to town to play dates on the tour, nobody was playing his new stuff like reading about the era now implies, not until '3121' era anyway.

The album was given away with tickets and people gave their copies unopened with the shrinkwrap.

[Edited 5/28/24 1:43am]

TrivialPursuit said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

Was it acclaimed though ?

By who? Who's doing all this acclaiming? Critics? Fans? Some intern making up a list at Rolling Stone or Apple Music? Some TikTok yokel who sits around and yammers about shit? Who, exactly? And why does their opinion count more than anyone else's?

All those and more, I guess. When you average everyone's opinion, you start to see trends. Fans and critics like "Purple Rain" and "Sign 'O' The Times" more than "Plectrumelectrum". Sites such as Metacritic can show some of those trends.

Should that influence your enjoyment of a given album? Certainly not.

For me, it's Come. I'm not sure what the critics think of it, but many fans seem to think it's great. It does nothing for me.

olb99 said:

TrivialPursuit said:

By who? Who's doing all this acclaiming? Critics? Fans? Some intern making up a list at Rolling Stone or Apple Music? Some TikTok yokel who sits around and yammers about shit? Who, exactly? And why does their opinion count more than anyone else's?

All those and more, I guess. When you average everyone's opinion, you start to see trends. Fans and critics like "Purple Rain" and "Sign 'O' The Times" more than "Plectrumelectrum". Sites such as Metacritic can show some of those trends.

Should that influence your enjoyment of a given album? Certainly not.

Agreed.

WhisperingDandelions said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

Musicology.

This one is less acclaimed than 'Around the World in a Day'.

The tour was acclaimed. Over time, 'Musicology' began to imply the album the album was a hit, and then "Musicology" began to imply the single was a hit, when I assure you neither was the case in the moment, as someone who was in high school for the 'Musicology' era.

And 'Musicology' The Tour was only a hit in the first place because it was the first time he'd played the hits in awhile, and was heavily advertised as his "goodbye" to the hits (lolz).

Literally 'Musicology' was a hit because it caused reflection over his back catalogue because it was a "hits retirement tour". Like the 80s stations would do throwback Prince playlists when he came to town to play dates on the tour, nobody was playing his new stuff like reading about the era now implies, not until '3121' era anyway.

The album was given away with tickets and people gave their copies unopened with the shrinkwrap.

[Edited 5/28/24 1:43am]

It still makes it more "acclaimed" than around the world in a day. I obviously wasn't around for ATWIAD but it's considered a flop and only liked by hardcore fans.

bozojones said:

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols

from Prince....none

gandorb said:

3121. It got some of his best reviews of the 2000s and I really wanted to embrace it. I just couldn't connect with it.

Definately a difficult album for me too.

None -

I think as far as his acclaimed albums, I'm right there with most of the reviewers. When is output started to not be as acclaimed (or acclaimed at all), most people were feeling the same vibe.

For me, the start of the decine was C&D and Emancipation . . . ending an era of arguable masterpieces.

Around the World in a Day is the one that I could never get on with - but is it that acclaimed?

Otherwise, I would say Lovesexy.

McD said:

bozojones said:

1999. A lot of the songs on that album are incredible at their core, but most of them honestly go on way longer than they need to. It also has "Free" which is hands down one of the worst songs Prince recorded in the 80s, so that knocks it down a few pegs for me

Couldn’t agree more. I finally gave up and ‘fixed it’ on my iPod. I replaced everything after track 3 with the available 7” edits from the Super Deluxe and removed Free and International Lover altogether. I chucked on Moonbeam Levels at the end, what the hell. International Lover is far too close (for me at least) to Ain’t No Pleasing You by Chas and bloody Dave from the previous year. And Free was the worst track Prince had ever released to that point.

Yeah this is why I flat out refuse to ever put '1999' in any Top 10 list.

Amazing, innovative ideas and textures... that the dude wrings out like a used dishrag for all their worth on like every track.

Every track gives me like MJ pop hit record vibes where it's like they're just so overplayed I have zero interest... Album cuts! Even great ones like "Lady Cab Driver".

paisleyparkgirl said:

It still makes it more "acclaimed" than around the world in a day. I obviously wasn't around for ATWIAD but it's considered a flop and only liked by hardcore fans.

At least people spent their own money specifically on ATWIAD and assumedly put it on at least once of their own free will and voliton.

'Musicology' is only "acclaimed" because people were forced to buy it, and there's zero evidence any of the fans who came back for some hits ever even cracked the shrinkwrap.

Its "acclaim" literally materalized out of thin air like a game of telephone when one Prince fan misinterpreted other Prince fans hyping up a tour.

[Edited 5/29/24 19:17pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Musicology is princes version of the u2 album that was preloaded on people's phones. Just as bad if canny a sales idea. Ugh.

It kind of had lasting impact, though.

Prince fans swear up and down now the album was an acclaimed comeback record that brought him back to mainstream prominence. When, really, him openly advertising he was breaking out the Hits after years of notoriously giving paying audiences only new tracks and album cuts was what sparked the "comeback".

Also him false advertising that he was never going to play "Purple Rain" again, etc. People had to show up to that tour, dude was all over American TV implying every 80s kids fav tracks were getting retired in 2004.

[Edited 5/30/24 3:29am]

In terms of "acclaimed" I think I always saw PRINCE reviews (later ones especially) all over the map. Also once he was not in his "heyday" its tough to call any later albums "acclaimed" also I think I was into all the Prince albums its more or less what did I come back to and what do I feel about now. "Emancipation" for me doesn't hold up, its got some amazing songs but its production and many tracks that should have been cut away clog this record up. "Diamonds and Pearls" again a huge record with hit singles but its an album of his "commercially" that I rarely come back too.

sahara said:

I'm not sure which of his non-80's albums are considered acclaimed. If I had to pick one that seems to get a lot of love from Prince fans that never clicked with me, I would say The Gold Experience. To my ears, it's not a very good album. I like a few tracks - Gold (the last track) is probably my ultimate Prince guilty pleasure. I always wished that Endorphinmachine sounded more guitar driven, like when he played it live on some VH1 awards show (I think before the album was released). The album version of TMBGITW is annoying. And I have never ever liked P Contol. Lastly, the between song segues were, as they say, cringe. From Graffiti Bridge through Musicology, I bought every Prince album on release day. I wanted to love them all. But I just couldn't convince myself to enjoy TGE.

That's similar to how I feel about TGE. I Hate U and Shhh! are the only real standouts for me. Endorphinemachine, Dolphin, 319, Shy, Billy Jack Bitch and Gold are cool songs. I too can't stand the album version of TMBGITW. Pussy Control, We March and Now are cringe-worthy. Overall this might've be the most overrated Prince album outside of Around The World in A Day which I think is better than this one.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Critics were pretty generous to him after he left warners. Often surprisingly so. Its usually what happens though once an artist has clocked up enough decades. But i think it was also goodwill based on his history.

This.

When Prince died, a buddy of mine (who didn't know much Prince music, but knew that I was a huge fan) wanted to dive into Prince's music. He wanted to hear all of it and kinda asked me "is it all awesome?"

That's where my unbiased fan-self came out, and I answered "no". I gave him the first run of albums that I myself consider awesome. I gave him 1979 through 1995, and even that run of albums had him losing interest toward the end.

What I consider good-great-awesome as a Prince fan is a little biased when it comes to ME, but when it comes to what I'd recommend for others to listen to, I'm pretty unbiased.

there is no artist for whom it is ALL awesome lol

unless they only had a few albums (eg hendrixs first three albums actually are pretty much fantastic, but even then, he had band of gypsies, which is half great, half okay)

most artists who get past 10 albums, there is no way its all superb

in princes case, id say everything from 78 to 89 is good or great

after that, it starts to get more subjective (but hey, obv here there are fans who dont like albums from that period even)

but id say there were more highs in that period than lows overall

within that 'classic period' timeframe though, i dont think controversy is a great ALBUM, mainly cos the sequencing is just weird, and i dont think its that consistent, but its got a lot of great songs on it regardless

for you, i love, but its more a cool album to get into once you know what he did later (and if you love 70s rnb). the second album again has a lot of songs that i wouldnt say are amazing, but i enjoy them as i like 70s soul ballads, and again, its just cool to hear prince at that early stage, and it has i wanna be your lover (with that amazing instrumental second half) and bambi.

prince is a weird 'album artist' overall, as he designed albums not necessarily cos he wanted to make a sequence of songs that all hang together, but just to show his range most of the time. or rather, he just cared about the songs, not how they might sound together, which is why his albums go all over the place. eg innervisions has a lot of range, but it all hangs together more cos of the production. prince didnt care about album cohesion, with a few exceptions.

The love symbol album. I know a lot of people love it, but its here where I fell out of being a fan for a bit. Outside of 7 & and God Created Woman, the thing never did it for me.

Does Welcome 2 America count? He didn't release it and I am not sure how acclaimed it was...but I've listened to it maybe 5 times all the way through and remember nothing from it.

i loved the symbol album at the time. but now i can barely listen to it. its a weird album that is overblown, but somehow also underdeveloped/underwritten. now i think it only makes sense as part of a bigger project, i.e if you watch the videos, follow the story, and see them as a musical/rock opera type of project. i also esp dislike 7 - it sounds leaden and flat to me.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

i loved the symbol album at the time. but now i can barely listen to it. its a weird album that is overblown, but somehow also underdeveloped/underwritten.

I don't think it's underwritten. If anything, it's heightened by the simple addition of " Wanna Melt With U" which, thankfully, made way to remove those Kirstie segues in bulk. I also get the oversimplitic nature of something like "My Name is Prince" or "The Continental"'s tag ending.

It is overblown. It's almost as thought with each successive album for a while, the knobs were turn up more and more, less tracks were taken out, etc. He's searching for a sound again.

is better, IMO, without Tony, and when I took him out of most of the songs, it was a new pleasure listening again. I'd always enjoyed the record, but man, it was muddled with him on it. I never realized it until he wasn't there and I thought - this is how it should've sounded! There are still gems on it. The whole second side is an album unto itself, really. Everything you could want is there, from a ballad, mid-tempo, operatic, funk, pop. (I took out "Arrogance" simply because it's the "Jughead" of the album aka trash.)

The first side is thick in a different way. (I make the same comparison with MJ's Dangerous. The whole second side from "Black or White" through the end is a complete album.)

Prince's braggadocio gets in the way of deeper lyrics, and there was a bit of bragging on ; which is where that "underwritten" part probably comes from. Plus Tony's childish lyrics.

WhisperingDandelions said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Musicology is princes version of the u2 album that was preloaded on people's phones. Just as bad if canny a sales idea. Ugh.

It kind of had lasting impact, though.

Prince fans swear up and down now the album was an acclaimed comeback record that brought him back to mainstream prominence. When, really, him openly advertising he was breaking out the Hits after years of notoriously giving paying audiences only new tracks and album cuts was what sparked the "comeback".

Also him false advertising that he was never going to play "Purple Rain" again, etc. People had to show up to that tour, dude was all over American TV implying every 80s kids fav tracks were getting retired in 2004.

[Edited 5/30/24 3:29am]

It was really only two tours, two years earlier and about a decade earlier, where he didn't really play the mainstream hits.

Not Prince. But The Miseducation of Lauren Hill. J'really adore Killing Me Softley from that other album (barring Wycleff/Pras' whittering). But #1 on Apple Music's best albums of all times? I don't think so. It feels it goes on forever.

Incidently, my wreckhead mate paid £££'s for a meet and greet with Lauren Hill. He was typically wrecked and fell over, taking her with him. He's dead now. Overdosed. RIP.

But really Apple...