Way too early to be objective about this yet (and there's nothing objective about ranking albums anyway), but for the sake of fun and some argument:

In which order would you rank these albums, released 10 years apart:

1984: Purple Rain
1994: Come
2004: Musicology

Three very different albums each capturing the feel of a certain Prince era.

all 3, dead last and at the bottom...behind my all-time fave.

pr (the soundtrack only) annoys me since radio has worn it out, come i've never liked (save for the title track), and musicology is nice but it's too early yet to rate it.

purple rain
musicology
come

I'd have to wait a while before i could fairly compare Come and Musicology but PR beats both hands down, no question, i'm afraid.

I really love most of the tracks on Come, though, and i'm very impressed with Musicology so i dunno, we'll see.

You know, the year Purple Rain came out, I would not go to bed unless I knew I'd heard that album at least once during the day. As a result, I think it's fair to say I'm a bit burned out on that album for, oh, I don't know...THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!

Come, on the other hand, is one of those albums I listen to when I wanna listen to some Prince and don't know what to play. I'm always in the mood for it. I think one day this album's gonna get dug up and rediscovered by the music snob intelligentsia - I'm not saying I think it'll enjoy any kind of major resurgence - not at all - but I think it'll get some "mainstream" attention years down the road and a few folks will (re)visit it who otherwise wouldn'ta.

And Musicology - well, too soon to really settle it in with the oldies yet, but I think it's a breath of fresh air.