Besides double albums (1999, SOTT) , until the 90's most Prince albums had an hour or less of material. Many of his songs ended up on albums by other artists (side projects etc.). I love his music in the 80's, but I think some of Prince's best work/songs came out after 1988.

However, alot of his "lesser" songs (which in the 80's would have gone to others or been b-sides)ended up on his albums (see Newpowersoul).

If PRINCE had edited himself more and been picky about how many songs he put on each album from 1989-now, would you view after '88 as being as brilliant as pre '88?

Firstly Prince's B-sides are so so far from "lesser" material and i don't think this sould be discussed

Prince's Side projects from the 80s are alot better than side projects in the 90s (I can't think of one embarassing one in the 80s)

Thinking of Newpowersoul I think his "lesser" material from that year would have to be on Come to my House and GCS and still Newpowersoul isn't very good. Newpowersoul is the best of that year. In 1999 again his best material(which was really bad) was released. {although i do personally think that no good music came out of the late nineties for anyone}

Again Prince's side projects from 1990-1992 are very embarassing:
Ingrid Chavez, Martika, Elisa Fiorillo, Camen Electra, Times Squared, Pandemonium(the one execption)

If you think that this is apparent because albums increased from 30 mins to 60 mins; i think this didn't help prince's body of work(graffiti bridge should have been two separate vinyls, with Prince on one and related artists on the other). But still, if you add Prince's B-sides (which is good material) to his 80s albums than the length is very similiar to the lenghth of his 90's albums.
I believe from 90-96 Prince released just about the same minutes of music per year on albums, side projects, etc. as he did in the 80s. From 97 till now he has slowed down which i think was a very good idea because he might have been assasinated (i do hope he starts releasing alot more since rainbow children). It wasn't that he was releasing too much material so the "qulaity material" wasn't recognized. The fact is that in the 80 Prince has had so so so little embarrasing material, even unrealesed.

I think prince has had definite dry spells. In these periods keeping his released music all quality wouldn't be possible unless he realesed no albums {which i wouldn't prefer}.

Thus said. releasing less in the 90s could only have helped prince's carrea but it's only a sign that things are bad.

monte said:

sorry gotta dissagree bout ingrids album, fantastic imo

Depends what he would've released.

yeah and I like some of the work he did with martika.

I think the loss of B-sides, which seemed to get overtaken by wanky remix after wanky remix, was a real shame. Still, put new power soul (the song from the album of the same name) on a b-side of a decent song, it'd just be shown up for what it is. A family-sized pack o' poo.

TheFrog said:

Definitely you have made a valid point. Personally I generally hate cd's over an hour long. Most artists do not have that much quality material. And yes I think that if Prince had released less we wouldn't think his 90's stuff was so bad. BUT, I think that his judgement is so bad when it comes to what to release and what not to release that if his 90's albums were shorter he probably would have shelved many great songs in favour of lesser ones. And I don't think anyone will argue that his outtakes from the 80's are much better than his outtakes from the 90's. But to answer your question I think that Prince's 90's albums would have benefitted from being shorter but they would still fall short of the 80's albums. Maybe it would be fun to delete songs from 90's albums and include some great outtakes to see if you could come up with some killer 90's releases?

No, less songs wouldn't change my view of his material. Nobody can compete with themselves in their prime. Prince in 87 or 88 SOTT/Lovesexy/Black Album was at his best. He had become a great musician, performer, producer and songwriter while writing inspired songs. Before that he was even more inspired but wasn't as good a songwriter or musician. After that he became a better musician but the inspiration and production fell off a bit, hitting a low with NPS. You could pick 15 tracks of his from the 90's and put them up against any other artist's, but he's not measured against any other artist. He's being compared to himself and he can't win.

TRC seems to have been a resurrection of sorts-- it's the only album that he's done that can stand up to the Purple Rains and Sign O' the Times. The difference is that in his heyday the individual songs were great and the albums were a sum of their parts. The songs on TRC aren't necessarily as good individually but the album is more cohesive and thus is more than a sum of its parts.

whodknee said:

I totally agree with this point, and I think Prince does too. His only competition is his past self. That is why I cannot understand why people get their undies in a bunch when the newest album isn't "Sign O The Times". If you want 1987 Prince then go listen to 1987 Prince-it's the same guy. Muhammed Ali in his 30's isn't what he was when he beat Sonny Liston, but he still had enough to lay out Foreman-that's how I view Prince.