TheBig3

If you're on these boards and can only name 2 songs from either artist, I'd wonder what you're doing here.

Prince is great, IMO. But he suffers from a few things.

1. He was so ubiquitous that you can almost tell it's a Prince song by listening, even if he didn't record it. Manic Monday sounds like Prince. Nothing Compares 2 U sounds like Prince.

2. The name/sound change was a bad time. I blame WB because they went in and messes up a hot streak.

3. When I listen to Prince now, I definitely think he's a product of his era. Funk isn't a genre with substantial appeal. And some of the new arrangements of his older stuff are much better (Check the Prince thread). Songs like Housequake were innovative for their time. But innovation gets old fast. And since the emphasis was on revolutionary stuff, it doesn't hold up.

Even the lyrics on thins like "Sign o' the Times" where he sings "In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name." - That was understood during the AIDS epidemic. No one inherently knows what it means now. I still love that song, but it's clearly dated.

His newer stuff vacillates between jazz masturbation and electronic boringness. I grew up in the 90s and everyone seemed to think "Electronic music is the music of the future." What they didn't tell us is that if a computer makes some new sound, everyone will just go back to the origins of songcraft and write "Mary had a little lamb" - esque melodies. And you can see that on things like "Black Sweat." A good song, but is it something that sounds like either:

A. Prince
B. Anything novel?

No. It sounds a bit generic. Here, you decide.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG-e00c6uT0

And yeah, I'm aware I'm hitting for not being inventive after I said he was too inventive. It's clear to me what the distinction is, so if that doesn't make sense, feel free to push back.

But the sexy/funky/edgy schtick lost its appeal quick once everyone was doing it, the culture decided to get depressed with Grunge, and the Right was losing the culture war. Writing "Darling Nikki" in 1983 when The Moral Majority gave you free press was easy. When you Cream the Clinton Administration could say "it's interesting" with a wink and people didn't freak out, that's harder.

To add a bit more to the innovation thing, when Prince isn't innovating, that is, when he's playing a stripped-down version of his songs and you can see the bones of them, you can see he's amazing. "I could never take the place of your man" on the album, I think, sucks. When he played it Acoustically, on Musicology, I was like "JFC this is a jam."

He gets in his own way a lot.

Well since you read it, why don't you answer. Is Doves Cry the only song he's heard?

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Exo

I enjoy Prince way more than I enjoy Prince music. That dude was a character.

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TheBig3

Right but the transfer there wasn't sound, it was skill, no? In order to make those sounds in the '80s, you needed to know how to play the piano. Now you don't, is how I see it.

People on the cutting edge of new music knew about it, but I don't think it was mainstream. Based on the direction they tried to take it (NIN, chinese democracy, anything in the Nu-metal covers New Wave genre) it seems like they meant "rock will be electronic-infused" not necessarily "everyone will be listening to House music."

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Trollheart

Yes but let's be fair here. People would - and have done - kick the **** out of me verbally if I said "what's the appeal with [insert artist here]"? they asked me how many songs I had heard and I said one. Come on. You can't form an opinion based on one frigging song. Especially not with Prince, who had such a variety in his music. That kind of opinion isn't qualified. OP might not like WDC but might love SOTT. Got to give the guy a chance. If you hate four out of four tracks, fine, you're probably not going to be a fan. But one song???

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SGR

I'm just sad we never got a Prince/Fall collaboration song.

Dig if you will the picture-aahh
Of you and I engaged in a kiss-aahh

TheBig3

Yeah but you're discounting the knowledge something like that takes. When I was in high school our editing studio finally got digital editing software and the information it required (this was like 2000) to use it was not trivial.

More people can create the same thing with less, today.

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Plankton

I had no idea James Hetfield was in the Fall.

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ribbons

^ good one

"This is what it sounds like
When Dukes die."

(I couldn't resist. )

Norg

his prince music similar to Jamaquai ..????


TBO ive never heard much of princes music


but i like Jamaquai ... IDK it seems like they play similar music

TheBig3

Where'd you get that from? Curious, not accusatory.

The artist that feels most Prince-like to me in the modern era is Jamie Lidell. You could try him and see if you like it.

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