I was thinking about how people are going out and picking up things in Prince's back catalogue along with their copies of Musicology this week and how those discs are flying off the shelves as well.

Even though all of us are Prince freaks (or we wouldn't be here), many of us have a couple of holes in our Prince collections, even if it's just vinyl that never got placed by cd, or whatever.

If we consider that Prince really took off commercially and in the popular culture with 1999, I'm curious to know....

how would you rank Prince's pre-megastar album releases? You can help those of us with a few oldies to buy prioritize!

I myself need to buy "Prince," so I have the others...but rank these in order and explain...

FOR YOU
PRINCE
CONTROVERSY
DIRTY MIND

Keith/Kacey

I wish I could change the topic to the correct spelling of MEGASTAR, not "megasar" -- ha ha...

SORRY!!!

Even the English teacher makes a typo now and then.

Hopefully people will check this out out of curiosity, not knowing what the hell "megasar" is.

Again...MEGAS T AR

Oops.

Keith/Kacey

Hey There.

Quite simply, U should get all of these.

My first Prince album was 1999, and after hearing that, I went and got all of the albums before it (and after).

'Prince' and 'For You' are incredibly well recorded, and have some classics... "Sexy Dancer", "Soft and Wet", "Bambi", "For You", "Just As Long As We're Together", "So Blue", etc. Both albums have nearly all live instruments, including Prince's bongo playing in the disco/funk JAM, "Just As Long As We're Together".

'Dirty Mind' represents the first image of Prince that mainstream America saw with '1999', 'Purple Rain', etc. Also, the arrangements were stripped down, more raw, and he blended more Rock, Punk/New Wave, and Princely Funk together... he also started using more adventurous lyrics. Tunes like "Head", "Party Up", "Sister", "Do Me Baby", "Uptown", etc. make this also a 'must have'.

'Controversy' probably got more spins by me than any other Prince album through and including 'Purple Rain'. I couldn't get enough of this record. "Controversy", "Sexuality", "Let's Work", "Ronnie Talk To Russia", "Jack U Off"... This album is/was the perfect lead-in for '1999'.

So that's all I can say. I have every official vinyl release Prince has done, and I still play the records... until the day when someone remasters Prince's albums properly for CD.

Peace.

G.
[This message was edited Fri Apr 23 12:11:02 2004 by Giovanni777]
[This message was edited Fri Apr 23 12:11:26 2004 by Giovanni777]

Kacey725 said:[quote]

FOR YOU
PRINCE
CONTROVERSY
DIRTY MIND

This is exactley the correct order..... Just buy em all at once, they're all in mid price

No question...Dirty Mind

The correct chronological order is:

Prince
For You
Dirty Mind
Controversy

G.

I'm only missing "Prince." (I have it on cassette, anyway...but can't find it)

But I'm sure some of the newer fans are missing all of these or 3 of the 4.

Thanks!

Keith/Kacey

Giovanni777 said:

The correct chronological order is:

For You
Prince
Dirty Mind
Controversy

Pagey said:

Gotta agree. Dirty Mind is the cream of the crop of Prince's "pre-breakthrough" albums.

After I typed this I pulled out "For You" to take a break from my "all Musicology-all the time" week.

I had forgotten how cool this one is!

Still not sure how I'd order those four...

Keith/Kacey

Dirty Mind. Hands down.