Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Yeah, some of his songs sound very much of that era, like 1999 whereas other songs like When Doves Cry fit in a little more with Lady Gaga and Kanye West because those artists are obviously heavily influenced by the 80s.

I'm in my 20s and didn't grow up listening to Prince. Yeah, some of it does sound dated, and yet, for some reason the music still sounds cutting edge in a way. The minimalism of Dirty Mind, like that song "When you were mine" is really good.

Of course people in the 90s mocked the 80s because it wasn't there era but they were aware of it enough to parody it or poke fun of it. But for the next generation who's rediscovering it, it sounds new and fresh.

Me myself, I grew up listening to Nirvana, 2pac, Bone Thugz N Harmony, Aaliyah, stuff like that. But now I'mf finding out about Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Tears for Fears, etc. Really good music.

And Michael Vs Prince because they have alot of similarities. Black, flamboyant, effeminate, and very successful at the time.
Cyndi Lauper vs Madonna, mostly because they had the same look starting out and were very successful too, although that changed later.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

That is true. Albums like Dirty Mind and Controversy's influence on electronic music and also crossing r&b and synth music was pretty much uncharted territory at that point. A lot of r&b, electronic and pop artists are still influenced by those albums. For 1980-1981 that stuff was well ahead of their time.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

I wonder if Prince can make another hit record with at least 2-3 songs in the billboard top 10 like the old days or maybe getting off the Warner label hurt him?

I think Diamonds & Pearls was his last hit commercial album with Gett off, Cream, Diamonds & Pearls, & Money Don't Matter 2 Tonight all hit songs on the billboard charts.

Probably that was his last album before he tamed his act and became a Jehovah's witness.


http://www.vinylsurrender.com/Graphi...d%20Pearls.jpg

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

He released a song after that called "Sexy Motherfucker", so I doubt it.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Sexy Motherfucker is from the Love Symbol Album, which is as good as anything he did in the 80's (as long as you ignore the interstitials with Kirstie Alley).

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

O+> was a decent album with good music, but I preferred when he would just make albums with songs, and not concept albums where he tried to write Broadway show numbers, or makeshift concertos. D&P was also the last album he simply made as "Prince", before he lost his fucking mind and spiraled into his identity crisis. Maybe that was the reason for all the weird music.

And yes, I realize O+> was credited as Prince and the New Power Generation, but if you've seen the "Three Chains of Gold" video, you know that by the end he made it clear he wasn't "Prince" anymore.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

He's 53 now so I doubt it. US radio is very ageist... even Madonna, Whitney and Janet can't score hit after hit off their albums now.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

I think Emancipation is an excellent album. As is 3121.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Yep I totally agree suprmallet, Emancipation was his last great album.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Have any of you heard 20ten? The songs on youtube are great but it's never been released in the US.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Yeah and he released this in 1994, an Album called "Come".
http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/p/p...album-come.jpg

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7o...te-video_music

It also featured tracks called "Loose!" and "Orgasm".

Shortly after this when The Most Beautiful Girl In The World came out, that's when I think he started to clean up some. With that said, His work from 94-2003 I'm not too familiar with with the exceptions of the singles he released in that period.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Yeah, unfortunately Prince doesn't want to work with the current way of releasing material in the states. Target paid him a lot of money upfront for his last album and I'm not sure how well it did. All I know is, less than a year after it was released I got it for .99 cents on the clearance rack. Awesome deal, as the album has a few solid tracks. I guess everyone looked at the Target deal and said no thanks to his demands for this album.

He also refuses to release any material on sites like Itunes, he wants upfront money. That's not the way it works, you get paid when you sell.

20Ten is actually an awesome record, I really dig the 80's vibe with the tracks. You can pick up a copy on ebay pretty cheap. I got mine a few weeks ago for around 10 bucks shipped. Be careful though, the ones selling from china for .99 cents are probably bootlegs. Only by from Euro sellers (or US imports) as that is the only place it was ever released.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Pussy Control was on the same album as TMBGITW, so... :)

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

HAHAHAHA! Your right, I completely forgot about that. I guess you could consider "Black Sweat" a dirty song as well. Seems old prince is still around every now and then in small doses.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Yeah, I was a bit leery with the eBay route just because of how many were out there at the time it had that European Magazine release.

Glad to hear that it's a great record though, the bits that were released were great but sometimes that's not the basis of the album.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

I'm certainly not well versed enough in guitar to know argue this point, but I will say I've seen some instances of more impressive guitar playing that was just technically ridiculous, but because the playing was so intricate it lost some feeling for me. It was like the guitar playing turned into a magic show, instead of emotion by way of sound. So, I'll take the dialed down, yet still aweosme, style of Prince showcased in the video.

Someone mentione Prince as an influence on Kanye, and I never really thought about it before, but that's incredibly apt. He's probably a bigger influence on Kanye than a lot of the bigger rappers from the 80s.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

I can only speak for myself, I just turned 30 in June, and Prince was pretty big to me, and definitely one of those artists I grew up on. He was always around while I was forming my musical tastes. I think that's just because his stuff go played long after other songs fell out of rotation. I can't think of a time when his singles weren't on the radio, even if they were 5 years old at the time. Couple that with Batman (which was HUUUUUUUUGE to me), along with his 90s output, and he's definitely an artist I claim.

But he was definitely more of my mother's and aunt's artist (they're both in their 50s), as they were able to go and see him in the last 70s/early 80s when he was breaking out. So she got to see him when he was still totally raw and on the come up, and then my generation took him in as more of a pop/top 40 guy, as his singles were played a lot on black radio back in the day. Not to mention Purple Rain was always on TV.

40s is probably the prime age to be a Prince fan, though, I agree.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Yeah, agree with this point. When I hear "Let's Go Crazy" all I know is that I love the guitar in that song. I don't think too much about the skill level. Just that it sounds good.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Agreed, I'm not that much older than you (I turn 32 in December) and Prince was one of those artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna who were pretty much constant presences through my developmental years right until around high school. Even though Purple Rain was by far his biggest moment, he continued to score frequent hits for a good decade after that era. If you were listening to music at all in the 80's/early 90's, you know Prince. There were a lot of artists who came in went during Prince's run as a pop star, but Prince was one of the few 80's superstars who was unscathed when grunge and gangsta rap hit, and his career only took a hit when he ran into troubles with Warner and changed his name, then a lot of people jumped off at that point.

But that post you're referring to was a "Prince is soooooo 80's" thing as if there's something wrong with being 80's. "The 80's sucks" mentality is soooo 90's.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

I wonder how much longer his run as pop royalty could have went, if not for the stuff with Warner? It feels like when he changed his name, and started to get pushed to the back burner, was about the time for a natural break for him. MJ started to fall out of favor at about the same time. Madonna made a more natural transition, but then she's more of a pop chameleon, making whatever type of music is popular at the time, so I don't find that surprising (and that isn't a knock on Madge -- I really like her 90s stuff).

Prince still had singles throughout the 90s, like Betcha By Golly Wow, Diamonds and Pearls, and Most Beautiful Girl in the World, but none of them felt like the HUGE songs he had in the 80s. He felt more like a regular pop artist, than the pop sex god he was in the 80s -- if that makes any sense.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

I always looked at Diamonds And Pearls as him taking a look at what was fresh and him trying his hand at it too, after Lovesexy and Graffiti Bridge (the Batman soundtrack was a smash because Batman was THE hot movie of 1989 more than it being a new Prince album) he was really in danger of fading into cult oblivion and that album bought him some renewed success in the 90's, although if you notice that album is never mentioned in the same breath with his best work amongst fans.

MJ and Madonna took hits in the 90's as well, but they were both still quite successful even though not a dent on the 80's fame. Michael had still done quite well for himself with "Dangerous", but those sex scandal allegations that came in mid-1993 are what I think destroyed his shots of ever being an A-list superstar again. Madonna had her big backlash because of the Sex book, but I think people were more forgiving when she made her image a bit less NC-17. I think Prince could've been a Madonna-type artist had he not gone O+> and started having issues with his label. "The Gold Experience" could've been a major hit for him, it was loaded with potential hit records and it could've been at least as big as Diamonds And Pearls.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

He lost me when he started putting out the new jack/hip-hoppy shit in the 90s.

Re: Prince, what's the big deal?
 

Hip-hoppy shit, like hip-hop sounding? If so, that's what I remember about him growing up, the songs in the 90s where it sounds like he's rapping.

I had no idea about his really good stuff till I heard When Doves Cry on the radio like in 2004.