Parade will always be my fave actually. Sorry PR/SOTT heads.

Absolutely love Parade, listen to tracks off it every week, easily my favorite album of his from start to finish. Would love a Parade SDE with a bunch of unreleased stuff by Prince and Clare Fischer. I was lucky enough to attend the Parade concert in Detroit Michigan back in the day and would love to see many more proshot concert videos from that period. Just a lot of fun overall.

Quite possibly my desert island Prince album. IMHO, from top to bottom, the most cohesive and atmospheric Prince album. Talk about an album that just takes you away.

SDE Puh-leez already

Probably the 80s album I return to the most when I *just want to play an album* It's probably between Parade & Dirty Mind. Both are just great cohesive albums that I can listen to in their entirity without skipping.

An SDE would be amazing, but we'll probably be dust by the time the estate can be arsed to release it.

tomds said:

tomds said:

I never really liked the abrupt ending of life can be so nice followed by an instrumental. A better ending of LCBSN followed directly by Love or Money would have been much better.

Oh no, the abrupt transitions are a big reason why the album is so fun to play straight through.

PJMcGee said:

erik319 said:

PJMcGee said:

Oh no, the abrupt transitions are a big reason why the album is so fun to play straight through.

And the abrupt ending of that specific track is clearly a very deliberate artistic choice in order to mirror what actually happens in the film.

I think of the music as a separate thing. It almost never reminds me of the film. I don't even remember what happens. Is he in the car?

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Parade from the start up to the end of venus de milo is the greatest sequence of any of his albums [Edited 7/7/24 5:41am]

Yep

PJMcGee said:

tomds said:

I never really liked the abrupt ending of life can be so nice followed by an instrumental. A better ending of LCBSN followed directly by Love or Money would have been much better.

Oh no, the abrupt transitions are a big reason why the album is so fun to play straight through.

This

LukeCold said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Parade from the start up to the end of venus de milo is the greatest sequence of any of his albums [Edited 7/7/24 5:41am]

Yep

It's perfection to my ears...

My first Prince album, so Parade always holds a special place, but it really is one of his strangest albums. The first side segues smoothly together, but I rarely seek out indidividual songas e.g New Position to play in isolation. Side 2 is more conventional and Mountains, Do U Lie & Anotherlover...are high on my top Prince songs list.

This thread ties nicely into paisleyparkgirl's thread on his "acquired taste" vocals from 85-87 to the extent the threads should be merged.

Casuals are all about vocals, to the extent everything around the vocals is barely consequential. Even within the fandom, 9/10 Prince fans avoid songs he "gave away" like the bubonic plague because they lack their fav sanger over the beats. 9/10 MJ fans argue MJ's always gonna be superior because of vox. 9/10 people say they don't care for Dylan cause of vox. Vox, vox, vox, the first and foremost thing that's going to appeal to n00bs, and the number one thing that's going to repel a potential new fan.

Likewise, Prince fans kinda are kinda sorta always foisting "intermediate level" works on the normies to be honest. I go on reddit and everyone recommends SOTT. That one felt so "flat" until I knew the entire 80s catalogue and then it clicked as the GOAT record it is. 'Purple Rain' is very played out, but it's literally the definitive "intro-to" an artists for damn good reason.

noice, noice, CASE in point right here:

happyshopper said:

Parade is a classic, but not the album to give someone as a first introduction to Prince. Better to let them hear Purple Rain or SOTT first. Then maybe 1999, Controversy or Dirty Mind. Kiss, Girls & Boys, Mountains, Anotherlover…, are all great songs, but the rest is a little “conceptual” for a first time listener.

Nah, SOTT's a terrible intro. I would argue any Double LP from any artist is gonna overwhelm any "new" fan, but SOTT in particular with the one man band thing. New fans need to get acclimated to that first otherwise it's going to put them to sleep.

It's his greatest album, sure, but that couldn't be less apparent to a brand new fan.

It's funny how Prince himself was so down on Parade. Maybe he struggled to separate it from the failure of the movie, or the trauma of ending the Revolution?

Personally, I think it is a kiiiinda weak album overall, but I still love it. It's interesting how rarely those 12 songs featured in his live shows since the Parade era, except the hits. I always loved his vocal performance on "Do U Lie?".

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Parade from the start up to the end of venus de milo is the greatest sequence of any of his albums

For us old-heads, we call that Side A.

I like the album a lot more today than when it was released. At the time, with songs like "Venus de Milo", "Do U Lie?" and "Sometimes It Snows In April", I found it too artsy and very unfunky. I preferred the much more conventional Minneapolis albums by Jesse Johnson and Mazarati that came out that same year. For a short time Jesse even challenged Prince as my top artist. But now, Parade is my favorite album by anyone.

TheBigBang said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Parade from the start up to the end of venus de milo is the greatest sequence of any of his albums

For us old-heads, we call that Side A.

.

btw if you turn the LP you may discover the second greatest sequence of any of his albums

RODSERLING said:

Parade is a good album, but not great. Songs taken separately are not that incredible besides the "hits", that is to say the last few songs. It could have sold a lot more had they been released Sometimes... As a single just after Kiss.

.

I think Parade is working as cohesive-weird experimental album more than most of his works. But after almost forty years I don't have this great desire to convince anyone of his greatness. If you like it, enjoy it, if you think it's a secondary album skip it, life is too short to change people's aesthetic taste.

Parade is excellent, but probably not an album to introduce Prince to the noobs. I listen to it more often than PR or 1999.

I made the mistake of playing ATWIAD for a noob fan once. She didn't get it. Best to stick with the "popular" albums at first.