i.e. tie up with a major again and suddenly your record is great, and so much better than what you’ve done for 10 years (except ONALive)!

Don’t get me wrong (part 1) I am glad Musicology is fairing well, but it does p*ss me off that all the music from the last decade is dismissed by so many so called learned music credits – perpetuating this myth onto the general public that Prince has been crap for ages.

Don’t get me wrong (part 2), my favourite albums are 1999, Parade and SOTT, but there has been some great songs and better albums than anything on Musicology over the last decade. Albums: Gold Experience and Rave are better than Musicology. As are other songs not on those albums such as – ‘I like it there’, ‘One night alone’, ‘When the lights go down’, ‘Come on’, ‘Space’, ‘Mad sex’, ‘Dark (from CB)’, ‘Letitgo’, ‘Jam of the Year’, ‘Sleep around’, ‘The love we make’, ‘White Mansion’, ‘Into the light/I will’, ‘Chaos & Disorder’, Everywhere’, ‘The everlasting now’

As Prince has written, his only competition is himself in the past – every new album is up against what is one if not the best bar none back catalogues of popular music.

Few seem to respect Prince for going it alone or going up against the record majors - most want him to return to his old sounds but would never actually consider going backwards in their careers. Nor that touring like ONA were actually fantastic and meant to be in small venues. Or that for all it's faults the NPGMC (especially in the launch and ONA years) gave us so much in terms of downloads, Ahdio shows, sound checks, after parties, front row seats - what other bands do this or have down this during this period?

At least all the current lavish praise may mean music listeners take the opportunity to re-appraise his back catalogue and see the last decade for what it actually is.

Anyway rant over

Cheers
Matt

I see no conspiracy theory here, just a summary of the failings of the music press to evaluate P properly.

mattosgood said:

Well Ranted Matt!

I agree that it is asinine to write off the last 10 years of Prince's work. There are lots of great songs there and he has my eternal admiration for having the balls to take chances and do things his way. He's the man!

All the records and songs you mentioned belong beside his best work... except RAVE. Didn't care for that one myself.

But keep in mind that mainstream reviewers very much have a herd mentality. They write what their buddies write. I'm sure there have been independent critics working for smaller outlets that have given Prince good reviews in the last 10 years as well.

I know I was one!

I agree, Prince has made some great music in the past 10 years and has allowed fans (like myself) 2 B upclose and personal at his shows and he's given us access 2 his music. I like what he said 2 Sway about changing, we would b complaining if he was still doing the same sounding tunes he made in the 80's. So let's Shut already Damn!

krebsne said:

Well said. As far as Rave is concerned...I think Musicology is MUCH better than that.

SteamForest said:

I second that, but would go further to say that TRC is much better than Musicology (IMHO, though I reckon Musicology is a good album). So it's not just individual songs that have been passed by, but some entire albums.

MattUK said:

Well put. There's a narrow definition of success. You have to realize, that the record companies were threatened by his move to independence. Imagine if he sold millions of albums as an independent. How many other would follow. So they had to assassinate his character. Call him crazy and the mindless people accepted it.