Considdering the fact that Prince actually faught a long war to be free from contractual obligations, he gives me the impression that he released less than before.

Which is not true of course, cause there were the regular new tracks on the previous Ahdio Shows (+-20 trax) + a lot of live material. Some internet only albums, a live three CD boxset, 2 DVD's, The Rainbow Children & N.E.W.S. and then those 4 or 5 different CD singels and a collaboration single with Angie Stone as well as someon others albums. Even a few Xtra trax through the new NPGMC in 2003.. etc.

But my feel is that he is less prolific, or at least he gives somehow the intention to be less prolific.

Now how come? Does ithave anything to do with the internet? Less stuff in your hands to touch&feel, and more virtual music without sleeves and packages?
Is he getting older? Does he prefer private life and marriage more than his job/hobby/life full of music?
Isn't there no chalange anymore? Is he less creative than before? (which i doubt) Maybe his believes have something to do with it? Or maybe i'm just plain wrong.
But can someone help me off of this feeling?

Or is it that since he's in complete control, we have less access to unreleased material than before? There nearly hasn't been any new unreleased studio material through bootlegs since ages! )
But could it be that he actually cares less than before?

Or does it have anything to do with the people he works with these days? He's surrounded by technically fine musicians. But maybe it's just that! I don't know. I mean, back in the days, when he attracted new young musicians like Wendy, Sheila, Eric Leeds, etc.. he talked with those people about music. And indirectly Prince was influenced by there opninions and tastes.
Like Eric for Jazz etc, Sheila for Latinpop etc, Wendy & Lisa for melodies and soulmusic as well as more contemporary rock and singersongwriters music.

So maybe today as well Prince has a lot of influence through his newly surrounded musicians, which i'm sure of. But on what level? Jazz ok. Some older pop and soul through maceo and Larry. One can notice this through the choice of covers Prince plays to this day.
I think most of the jazz Prince plays these days comes by influence of John Blackwell, Renato Neto, Maceo Parker, Candy Dulfer, Eric Leeds etc.
Probaly the influence by the band is one of the reasons why he puts more effort into instrumental music..

So there's not that much contemporary influence anymore. Why? I don't know. Maybe Prince isn't that happy with the music being played over the radio these days. Could be. Or maybe he has the same feeling as ihave, like i heard it all before, and that there is somewhat of a crisis going on in songwriting and musical poverty due to too much output.
Maybe were getting old together!

I don't know. I mean, albums have over more than 15 songs these days. Rap albums over more than 20! And if not they throw in some remixes or underrated live material to fill it up. So that's one thing i like about Prince. If he releases some new music, he sticks to the feel of an 'album', rather then to fill up the empty space of a CD.

But besides that. WHat is it that makes Prince giving me the feel that he is less prolific? Can anyone help me out on this?

I agree.

Maybe I had a high expectation when Prince said just b4 Emancipation dropped, something to the effect of when he leaves Warners, he was going to deliver more than one Cd a year, and for the most part, that hasn't happened, Crystal Ball was compiled from the Vaults, ONAL was compiled from concerts, inbetween, there has been instrumental CD's to fill the voids. After Warners (excluding Vault releases or NPG releases) it was like Emancipation, Rave and TRC. The High CD would have been knocked off in no time, so even though there is steady releases, I do think he's slowing down instead of doing the year by year thing.

Although, to his credit, when he was at Warners, all he had to do was the music. Now there is no one to do the marketing, promotion, etc, etc but Prince himself. So with him slowing down could well do with the fact he has to devote more time to running his business.

DOROTHYPARK said:

You jumble together about three years of music, and much of it isn't new (a 3 cd live box set is a music industry invention to fill up the gaps between albums, BTW, an easy way to make cash). Plus: most of it is barely worth listening to once, let alone classic material. Now take a three year period from... ooh... the mid-1980s and realise that he did release far more, did more concerts, and all of it was far better quality wise than anything he's put out post-1995.

I've just heard some of the Austrialian concerts and they're BORING: exactly the same crap as before, and showing an artist completely clueless and utterly uninterested in music. Listen to the godawful version of SOTT from Melbourne, or the same stupid tricks all over the place.

A couple of years ago he used a press conference to publicly rat on Santana for daring to use a "yeah yeah yeah" chant that kinda sounded like something from a Larry Graham song, nowadays he's covering Alicia Keyes' "Fallin'" as if it's the greatest song ever written failing to notice that it's a complete rip-off of James Brown.

Prince hasn't only released less, it's of far lesser quality, it's far harder to come by (without any good reason), it's more expensive,... and a lot of it is just badly paced. That's something record labels are very good at: knowing when to release something and when not to, when to tour, choosing the next single,...

dnaplaya said:

Come on, he barely runs his business. Most of the time he just lets the highest (or more recently: only) bidder do the work, so he can blame them when it doesn't happen or when it goes terribly wrong: Infinity, EMI, Gage, MusicToday, that hip-hop label that re-released that single with additional crappy rap tracks, Universal (Vegas DVD), Arista,...

Prince could and should have set up an independent operation that set up steady business relationships with firms all over the world, instead he thought it would be a good idea to sell each new project to another party until he's finally left with BS firms. Now compare to Fugazi who've been doing their independent thing for 25 years or so, while selling far less copies of each release.

Why the fuck do Prince records have to be $25 imports and only available ina few stores, while Fugazi have been selling records at around $11 for more than two decades? Why is it so hard to buy a Prince record from 1998 while I can still easily order a Fugazi one from 1985?

BartVanHemelen said:

It's okay to jumble together three years of music, it only furthers to strengthen the argument that Prince is becoming less prolific. But we also need to define prolific, as there are some who consider volume of releases (including live), while others only look at studio releases. Now, given that, there could be a case that Prince is still very prolific, based on the output stated above.

However, the DVDs are live shows, the ONA box set is live, and many of the Ahdio tracks are live. In addition, When Will We Be Paid is a cover, which some would discount. So, in the time period 2001-2003, new Prince tracks ave included:
TRC
NEWS
One Night Alone
Xpectation
High
Various other tracks, like Reflection and the new What Do You Want Me to Do? (excellent, and thanks, by the way).
That's pretty good. Looking at that, maybe we're being a bit greedy wanting more.

To Bart's point, let's look at the years 1986 - 1988, when he recorded the following:
Parade
SOTT
Lovesexy
Black Album
Jill Jones
Madhouse 8
Madhouse 16
The Flesh Sessions
Plus tracks for:
the Sheila E. album
Sheena Easton
Patti Labelle
The Bangles
Dale
Taja Sevelle
Kenny Rogers (!)
Not to mention, a wealth of unreleased recordings we cherish on bootleg. Or the films Under the Cherry Moon and Sign of the Times. Or the B-Sides, and extended versions.

So, is he less prolific? Probably, but we don't know because we don't know if he's recording 'grooves and grooves' and just filing them away.

Sadly, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen and Kate Bush are less prolific these days too. Thank God for Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices - in that same 3 year span starting 2001, he's released at least 20 albums of new material, some on labels, but most independently. And most of it of very good quality.

It seems that way doesn't it.

I know less stuff is "escaping" PP these days to the hands of bootleggers, but it's clear that he is releasing a lot less music these days (I'm not saying this is good or bad).

I think he releases enough, Xpectation, NEWS this year - two albums (albiet both short, but still).

I'd like to say the quality has gone up as quantity has gone down, but I don't think it has, although TRC and Xpectation were two releases I hold in very high regard, everything else since Gold has been severely lacking IMO.