NWF said:

This really isn't about YOU (b/c unfortunately a lot of people reduce his memory to that shit) but you can take the hit for it if you want I was growing up when Rick was @ the top of his game & Prince was still trying to figure his shit out. I think of great music when I hear his name, not sketches & bullshit (yes, it was a great sketch @ the time, now it's just tragic on many levels). If that's what Rick means to some there's nothing I can do about that, but it's a damn shame. Indeed, his demons ultimately got in the way but that's not the first or only thing I think about when I hear his name - I hear the first few notes of Mary Jane & fight the urge to put on my thigh-high boots

CalhounSq said:

I agree! I never cared one bit about the feud with Prince.

The feud with Prince was great. Look how much better both those guys' music was when they were feuding. If Rick had still been at the time of his game in 1985, Prince might have thought twice about changing his style and becoming all artsy/fartsy.

vainandy said:

You bring up an interesting point.In 1985 when Prince released ATWIAD,there were many R&B/funk fans who felt that he lost his mind That would have been the perfect time for Rick to come out with a truly funky,outrageous,jam-filled album but instead he released the good-but-not-great 'Glow' album A missed opportunity.

Exactly. Rick had the perfect opportunity to "kick Prince while he was down". Actually, I remember "Glow" coming out earlier in 1985 before "Around The World In A Day" was released. I think Rick had just naturally gotten weaker because, even after hearing "Around The World In A Day", he came out with an even weaker album in 1986 called "The Flag".
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[Edited 8/27/07 7:05am]

vainandy said:

Exactly. Rick James released "Street Songs" in 1981; Prince matched him with "1999" the following year. Prince assembled The Time and Vanity 6; Slick Rick came back with The Mary Jane Girls. Rick hit hard with "Cold Blooded;" Prince came back with "When Doves Cry" and the movie "Purple Rain."

What happened with Rick James and Prince is the best example of how competition can make great performers step up their creativity to come back with even greater material.

Exactly. And there were no physical fights and drive by shootings. They let out their anger in the studio.

vainandy said:

Of course, the reason why acts fight now is because it's not like they have the talent or acumen to make music.

They've got too much time on their hands. It doesn't take long to sit in a studio and push buttons on a computer. They also don't release a new album until every two or three years. Back in the 80s, artists released a new album every year....except for Michael Jackson.

vainandy said:

Yeah, I agree. You have bullshit artists like D'Angelo who is lauded for doing nothing innovative (like singing unremarkably over shit-hop tracks is new) and has released two albums in 12 years.

Najee said:

Whoa whoa! Time out! I'm not gonna let y'all bash a cool artist like D'Angelo. So he doesn't release albums consistently, so what? He's a very good singer/songwriter anyways. He was one of the first to bring forth what we know now as "Neo-Soul". Yeah, you can see that he's influenced by greats like Stevie, Marvin, and Prince, but he does take them and make them his own. And "Voodoo" was a pretty funky album. Shit Hop? Hardly. You can save that for 50 Cent and Young Jeezy, but not D'Angelo.

But of course I can understand y'alls sentiments. You guys are older and not fully in tune with younger generations of artists. You're still stuck with the music that you like (70's and 80's Soul/Funk in this case) since it has set a certain standard for you. Anything else is almost foreign to you. But that's just the way it goes with people and music.

vainandy said:

"Artsy-fartsy" my ass. I will defend to the death the importance of "Around the World in A Day" and say that it was a justified move. Yes, it was artsy, but not in a pretentious kind of way. It went to prove that Prince was a true artist that stayed true to himself. Prince and his mighty Revolution was inspired by different kinds of music and just taking their sound into different directions. It was still funky, but a new kind of funk. If Prince had kept on that Synth-Funk sound that made "1999" and "Purple Rain" great, he would've eventually sounded stale and trite. It would've also pigeonholed him, and that's the last thing Prince would want as an artist. Besides, by that point other cats were trying to pick up that sound too (Jesse Johnson, Ready For The World, Cameo, Midnight Star, etc.). While they made some good tunes Prince wanted to avoid being trapped in that box and be an individual.

Like I said before, Prince could give a shit about competing with someone like Rick James. He was busy trying to get "some of that Duran Duran money", as he once stated. But the point is he just wanted to make good music. Not just Funk or just Rock or just New Wave. Prince was just about making good music. And that's how I always viewed the man.

But since this thread is about Rick James I will say that Rick was funky too. But he should've stopped worrying about Prince's strategies in beating him and focused on his brand of funk.

Oh, I agree 100% with what you're saying. "Around The World In A Day" is a wonderful album and I love every single track on it. However, my only gripe is the timing of the album. There's an old saying that goes...."If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Prince could have continued on with his signature sound for as long as 1988 or 1989 before it started sounding stale. Many artists in the late 1980s were successful with his sound so you know Prince would have been successful with it himself. Much more successful than the artsy/fartsy albums that followed "Purple Rain".

Yeah, Prince is a risk taker but he ain't crazy. You notice he didn't change his sound until he had made tons of money with "Purple Rain" and had a ton of pop fans and even more diverse European fans. If he had changed his sound earlier when he was known in the R&B world only, he would have been committing musical suicide. Everyone I knew was sitting around with each new album waiting for "Old Prince" to return were getting more and more pissed with each album. Then I would be reading reviews on how the Europeans were just praising the albums. I liked the albums myself but I remember thinking....."Y'all need to shut the fuck up over there or The Old Prince will never return". Would I rather have had more of the "Old Prince" even if it would have jeopardized Prince being the well known "genius" that he's known as today? Hell yeah, Andy wants what Andy wants and that was more of the cold Minneapolis style funk and I never was concerned with Prince's future status. Hey, I gotta look out for my needs and wants just like Prince does.




It was cool in the early years because he was so pissed that he made great music. However, by the time the late 1980s had gotten here and he was so strung out on drugs, he got lazy and tried to follow Prince's route. He even started dressing like Prince. As a matter of fact, I think they buried him in a ruffled shirt.

vainandy said:

Wasn't that the same ruffled shirt that he wore when the BMI gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award? I remember when he wore that shirt and I was like "he's still trying to be Prince?"

NWF said:

"Neo-soul" is a nice way of saying "taking concepts that 1970s artists already explored, regurgitate them and then act like you're doing something new." I can't find one thing original about D'Angelo's music -- one minute, he sounds like a project version of Prince (and so did Maxwell, who did a better version of sounding like a Prince knockoff) or he's then sounding like a project version of Chuckii Booker (who also bore some Prince/James Brown similarities in some of his solo projects). That's a large reason (and an air of conceit) most of those artists go into oblivion after two albums.

It's not a matter of not appreciating music but shaking my head of what passes for music -- namely, cloning artists' concepts as if you're doing something innovative or pushing a button to sing over a weak drum pattern and calling that "making music."
[Edited 8/29/07 19:28pm]

Wzup guys, I'm new to this forum, but I am a HUGE RJ fan, even though I know all of you are Prince fanatics to say the least I'm glad you guys can show some love to the King of Funk. I know that he and Prince had their differences, that was 20+ years before Rick died; so I'm sure their 'hatred' or 'ill feelings', or whatever you want to call it, towards each other softened a little. Rick even went on record saying that he liked Prince, and its clear that Prince dug him too or else he wouldn't be singing GITMB in his shows. They were big influences on each other no matter how you slice it. But I don't think that Rick was copying Prince when it came to the ruffled shirt, he wore one in the Glow video back in '85, come on can a brother wear a ruffled shirt without speculation??? I'm just sayin'.

mrpunkfunk said:

Oh no it's all good, it was just funny to me because he and Prince were rivals at one point.

Timmy84 said:

Yeah I know, but a lot of good music came out of that rivalry. I just wish that the drugs didn't get the best of him because I honestly think he would have put it to Prince had he been clear headed.

My Top 5 Rick James songs:

"Mary Jane" (1978)
"Bustin Out" (1979)
"Ghetto Life" (1981)
"Super Freak" (1981)
"69 Times" (1982)

IF Y'ALL LOVE THE MUSIC.....GET THE BOOK!!!!! I HAVE IT!!!!!
A GUARANTEED CLASSIC!!!!!
BUFFALO, NY AKA "STONE CITY" 4 LIFE!!!!!
PASS THA JOINT!!!!!

[Edited 8/30/07 2:06am]

NWF said:

ATWIAD was the most expensive Frisbee I ever purchased

Don't get me wrong,I'm all for an artist doing something different and new,but that album puts me to sleep.

NWF said:

And what kind of funk would that be? Non-funk or un-funk? I don't recall ATWIAD being funky

vainandy said:

I totally agree.He was definitly equally talented.