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What happened to Prince?


Apollo

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His first couple albums were brilliant RnB type music. Controversy, I wanna be your lover, Uptown, Private Joy.

Then he went to more of a pop sound, and was on top of the world. Little Red Corvette, 1999, Let's Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain.

Then his sound matured a bit, and he was still kicking ass. Pop Life, Sign O The Times, Kiss, Alphabet St.

Since 1990 he has released 25 friggin albums. Sometimes releasing two albums in the same year. Every once in a while he'll have a new song that I like - but nothing really sticks.

How does an artist go from releasing really great music, across a variety of genres (or maybe sub-genres) for a decade........then just start putting out nothing of really any substance?

I know, some of you fans will say "No, you are wrong. The 2004 album is brilliant"........but if we are being honest, he hasn't done anything really relevant in the last 20 years. If you start putting his Greatest Hits album together (not YOUR PERSONAL favorite songs) but his 15 most popular songs, pretty much all of them are pre-1990.

Do you just run out of ideas? Get fat and lazy from all the cash? Lose the motivation to be great?

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Some artists continue to produce great albums such as Dylan, Young and Springsteen. Those three have produced some of their most significant masterpieces in their middle-old age, e.g. Time Out of Mind, Ragged Glory, The Rising, et al. Black Ice was also a decent return-to-form for DC. You can actually have those 'renaissance' albums. Maiden fans can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Brave New World was considered one of their greatest albums. Queen on Innuendo - It can be done. And of course, the blues artists like Muddy and Hooker produced all their greatest work in middle-old age!

But many bands just run out of ideas. The last truly decent Stones record for instance was 1981 and I am saying that as someone who likes the 1990s Stones albums (a lot hate them). It is as if the well has run dry and you rely on formulae and settle for a 'solid' second best. I think you can say a similar thing about Slash. Slash puts out perfectly decent rock records but there is not much that is going to make you pee your pants on there with one or two exceptions ('Anastasia'). It is solid 'fist in the air' type stuff. There is nothing obnoxiously bad on there but there is not a lot which is great either.

I cannot speak for Prince specifically but doesn't he genre hop? The genre hopper is always a pain in the arse (case in point, Axl). Bowie was a genre hopper, as were Queen and to a certain extent Jagger.

Jackson's music went on a downwards trajectory during the 1990's although I've since learnt to appreciate History.

Edited by DieselDaisy
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His first couple albums were brilliant RnB type music. Controversy, I wanna be your lover, Uptown, Private Joy.

Then he went to more of a pop sound, and was on top of the world. Little Red Corvette, 1999, Let's Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain.

Then his sound matured a bit, and he was still kicking ass. Pop Life, Sign O The Times, Kiss, Alphabet St.

Since 1990 he has released 25 friggin albums. Sometimes releasing two albums in the same year. Every once in a while he'll have a new song that I like - but nothing really sticks.

How does an artist go from releasing really great music, across a variety of genres (or maybe sub-genres) for a decade........then just start putting out nothing of really any substance?

I know, some of you fans will say "No, you are wrong. The 2004 album is brilliant"........but if we are being honest, he hasn't done anything really relevant in the last 20 years. If you start putting his Greatest Hits album together (not YOUR PERSONAL favorite songs) but his 15 most popular songs, pretty much all of them are pre-1990.

Do you just run out of ideas? Get fat and lazy from all the cash? Lose the motivation to be great?

I like a great deal of material he's released since 1990.

For me, music has always been about what I like, not whether or not the rest of the world does. So I'm totally fine with albums like Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic not being popular because they're great IMO.

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His first couple albums were brilliant RnB type music. Controversy, I wanna be your lover, Uptown, Private Joy.

Then he went to more of a pop sound, and was on top of the world. Little Red Corvette, 1999, Let's Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain.

Then his sound matured a bit, and he was still kicking ass. Pop Life, Sign O The Times, Kiss, Alphabet St.

Since 1990 he has released 25 friggin albums. Sometimes releasing two albums in the same year. Every once in a while he'll have a new song that I like - but nothing really sticks.

How does an artist go from releasing really great music, across a variety of genres (or maybe sub-genres) for a decade........then just start putting out nothing of really any substance?

I know, some of you fans will say "No, you are wrong. The 2004 album is brilliant"........but if we are being honest, he hasn't done anything really relevant in the last 20 years. If you start putting his Greatest Hits album together (not YOUR PERSONAL favorite songs) but his 15 most popular songs, pretty much all of them are pre-1990.

Do you just run out of ideas? Get fat and lazy from all the cash? Lose the motivation to be great?

I like a great deal of material he's released since 1990.

For me, music has always been about what I like, not whether or not the rest of the world does. So I'm totally fine with albums like Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic not being popular because they're great IMO.

I think Warrants Dog Eat Dog is one of the 10 best hair metal albums. But in terms of how successful the album was, the rest of the world disagrees with me.

I'm not asking for people's personal favorite. Oh Russ. I love you man. But you did exactly what I asked people not to do!!!

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The only Prince album I have, I got free with the Daily Mail of all things! Prince, he is a black(ish), fairly homosexual looking flamboyant chap and you combine that with the Daily Mail, ''migrants stealing wos jobs''! Strange mix! Decent album also. I have often thought of investigating his music further.

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I think Warrants Dog Eat Dog is one of the 10 best hair metal albums. But in terms of how successful the album was, the rest of the world disagrees with me.

I'm not asking for people's personal favorite. Oh Russ. I love you man. But you did exactly what I asked people not to do!!!

What I was doing was saying this: Nothing happened to Prince. Just because his albums don't sell tons of copies doesn't mean he's not putting out good material.

edit-

The rest of the world doesn't disagree with you on Dog Eat Dog, the rest of the world hasn't heard it. That doesn't make it any less of a good album. Same goes for Ultraphobic, Belly II Belly, etc etc.

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A clear case of releasing too many albums.

I think there's a pocket for each artist where that's what people want from the artist. Defined by that early success. It's a bit of a prison.

I think Prince seems to have just thought fuck it, it's too constraining and just not fun. The porn dwarf just wants to have fun. To be a zeitjest whore must be boring for artists.

It works for Dylan and Bruce the fans stay with it. They arent having hits but they arent jusged as pop artists.

But if you judge Prince by his pop success it might distort things. But that is the reality he made. If MJ had 25 more albums of g funk rap nobody would be interested. You may be an actor in a plot, it might be all that you got.

So I guess he's turning his nose up to that kind of analysis, he's not just a pop slave. Being more creatively free has it's advantages but it's hard to sell.

You could say that it's more creatively challenging to stay relevant. It's easy to just do anything and throw it out. But you get the feeling he could do pop albums and stay in the parameters of the industry but he's been there and done that, so he's just searching and exploring, entertaining himself. Reached a state called vertigo?

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He's still an absolute amazing performer. Hasn't lost a step.

And I agree with Russ - unfortunately I think it's a matter of him not being as relevant and people not hearing his stuff as much anymore, because he has had some solid tracks on the last number of albums.

Dudes got like over 20 albums. They can't all be amazing :lol:

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I think you sort of answered your own question. When you release two albums a year, you're not writing 10-12 amazing songs for each one. You're just sort of banging out tunes for the hell of it, not because you want to really prove anything or top yourself, it's just something that's fun to do. Maybe once in a while you strike gold and write something really great. But there's no songwriter on Earth that could consistently write that many great songs a year, I don't care who you are - so it's a matter of a fuckton of filler, a handful of great songs, and not a lot of public interest in sorting through it all.

Edited by chevelle
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I think you sort of answered your own question. When you release two albums a year, you're not writing 10-12 amazing songs for each one. You're just sort of banging out tunes for the hell of it, not because you want to really prove anything or top yourself, it's just something that's fun to do. Maybe once in a while you strike gold and write something really great. But there's no songwriter on Earth that could consistently write that many great songs a year, I don't care who you are - so it's a matter of a fuckton of filler, a handful of great songs, and not a lot of public interest in sorting through it all.

That conclusion collapses however when you analyse the careers of most of the great acts up to circa the late-1970s. Most of the greats such as The Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Beach Boys, Dylan, et al. released masterpieces at a very high rate, of approximately one-two long-players per year, and this is not including the many stand-alone singles/extended players released, during the 1960s in particular. The Beatles for instance released twelve studio albums 1962-1970 and a further two compact discs worth of singles and EP tracks. How many of them are masterpieces? Most of them. It is The Beatles! Similarly, the Stones released fourteen studio albums between 1963-1978 and only a few of those are duds. Zeppelin released their entire studio output of eight studio albums between 1969-1979 and most of those (so Zeppelin fans tell me haha) are considered masterpieces. Perhaps the most impressive achievements belong to Dylan and Hendrix however. Dylan's immortal trio of masterpieces - Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde - occurred within a two year period, 1965-66! Hendrix's three Experience masterpieces, Are You Experienced?, Axis and Electric Ladyland were 1967-68!

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Prince had a decent run from 81-95?

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World is the last single I remember.

Emacipation is decent 3-disc set. Like his White Album.

Then he just releases vault albums and then just loses it.

But for 20 years if you start from his debut to 96 Emancipation he had a solid run?

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I think you sort of answered your own question. When you release two albums a year, you're not writing 10-12 amazing songs for each one. You're just sort of banging out tunes for the hell of it, not because you want to really prove anything or top yourself, it's just something that's fun to do. Maybe once in a while you strike gold and write something really great. But there's no songwriter on Earth that could consistently write that many great songs a year, I don't care who you are - so it's a matter of a fuckton of filler, a handful of great songs, and not a lot of public interest in sorting through it all.

That conclusion collapses however when you analyse the careers of most of the great acts up to circa the late-1970s. Most of the greats such as The Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Beach Boys, Dylan, et al. released masterpieces at a very high rate, of approximately one-two long-players per year, and this is not including the many stand-alone singles/extended players released, during the 1960s in particular. The Beatles for instance released twelve studio albums 1962-1970 and a further two compact discs worth of singles and EP tracks. How many of them are masterpieces? Most of them. It is The Beatles! Similarly, the Stones released fourteen studio albums between 1963-1978 and only a few of those are duds. Zeppelin released their entire studio output of eight studio albums between 1969-1979 and most of those (so Zeppelin fans tell me haha) are considered masterpieces. Perhaps the most impressive achievements belong to Dylan and Hendrix however. Dylan's immortal trio of masterpieces - Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde - occurred within a two year period, 1965-66! Hendrix's three Experience masterpieces, Are You Experienced?, Axis and Electric Ladyland were 1967-68!

Most of them burned out with doing a studio/tour/studio/tour grind, but some of those albums were under a half hour long.

Some of them were just constantly writing, and others were collaborating, even if they were writing their own stuff, they still brought it in and opened themselves up to having changes made to those songs, some people are way too fragile to allow that to happen. There's way more rock songs that were done through collaborating than there are by individual songwriters.

Dylan, Prince and Lennon-McCartney and Springsteen all "overwrote" and had enough to dole out to other artists. Bruce originally hated "Blinded by the Light" but when the song went to #1, his songs were starting to be covered by other artists. Prince wanted that to happen for himself, but he wanted to be the decision maker on what songs people could record. Dylan and Bruce also changed lyrics in the studio when they recorded those albums.Dylan didn't even use all of the lyrics for "Like a Rolling Stone", it was a longer poem.

Prince's problem has been independently distributing those songs over the past 20 years, it's usually when he was on a major label where people were able to hear his new songs, it almost reminds me of the same problems Izzy had in putting his albums out, but he's never been one to heavily promote and tour since the mid 90s (around the same time Prince went "indie").

Prince put Emancipation out but it's not like a lot of people heard that album unless they ordered it. He has full ownership of the back catalog and publishing, and supposedly the back catalog's been remastered and ready to go, but it's sad that he hasn't put the entire back catalog out there. He's supporting Tidal for now, but if he's not seeing any money out of it, he'll pull that support in a heartbeat.

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My two favorite artists of all time - one releases too much music and one hasn't released nearly enough. Axl and Prince are complete opposites. One releases every song he writes. The other has released one album in the last 24 years.

Think about that.

In the same time period that Axl has released

Spaghetti Incident and CD, Prince has released 23 albums.

23 albums compared to 2.

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I think you sort of answered your own question. When you release two albums a year, you're not writing 10-12 amazing songs for each one. You're just sort of banging out tunes for the hell of it, not because you want to really prove anything or top yourself, it's just something that's fun to do. Maybe once in a while you strike gold and write something really great. But there's no songwriter on Earth that could consistently write that many great songs a year, I don't care who you are - so it's a matter of a fuckton of filler, a handful of great songs, and not a lot of public interest in sorting through it all.

That conclusion collapses however when you analyse the careers of most of the great acts up to circa the late-1970s. Most of the greats such as The Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Beach Boys, Dylan, et al. released masterpieces at a very high rate, of approximately one-two long-players per year, and this is not including the many stand-alone singles/extended players released, during the 1960s in particular. The Beatles for instance released twelve studio albums 1962-1970 and a further two compact discs worth of singles and EP tracks. How many of them are masterpieces? Most of them. It is The Beatles! Similarly, the Stones released fourteen studio albums between 1963-1978 and only a few of those are duds. Zeppelin released their entire studio output of eight studio albums between 1969-1979 and most of those (so Zeppelin fans tell me haha) are considered masterpieces. Perhaps the most impressive achievements belong to Dylan and Hendrix however. Dylan's immortal trio of masterpieces - Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde - occurred within a two year period, 1965-66! Hendrix's three Experience masterpieces, Are You Experienced?, Axis and Electric Ladyland were 1967-68!

To me, those artists are the exceptions. We can't expect every musician to pump out classics at the rate The Beatles did, or totally reinvent guitar music the way Jimi did. That's why they're still revered to this day, because they did things most other musicians couldn't or haven't done since. But really, I should've mentioned that I was talking about an artist's career after their prime. The Beatles wrote all that amazing music in a short period of time, while they were young and hungry. Same with Dylan, same with the Stones, and Jimi died too young to know the full breadth of his potential - but they all made their mark in a relatively short period of time. The Beatles' solo work didn't excite the world the same way as it did when they were fresh and breaking boundaries, The Stones never released anything influential after '78, and Dylan's put out a hell of a lot of just okay music in his career. And that's really what I wanted to get at, but didn't: the fact that most musicians have a prime when they write their best work, and after that they never truly touch the levels they were at before. That's where Prince is at in his career now, and that's why he's not consistently writing an album's worth of classics twice a year.

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Every artist has their creative peak and their glory days. It's a complete fallacy that everything they do after that is garbage. Both Michael Jackson and Prince made some of their best music in the 90s. No, you won't find it on a Greatest Hits album, just like you wouldn't find Coma, Locomotive or Better on a GNR hits compilation. That means nothing.

OP is incorrect that Prince stopped having success after 1990. Songs like The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Diamonds & Pearls, Cream, Sexy MF, Gold, Gett Off etc were all big hits for Prince in the early-mid nineties. He seemed to lose his commercial viability after around 1995, but has still produced consistently great music. Prince is a strange one for me, in that he can put out one album where I couldn't care for a single track (3121) and then release another where I love every single song (Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic).

But to answer the OP's question, nothing happened to Prince. He was and still is a musical genius.

Edited by Towelie
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Wasnt The Black Album situation something to do with the label wanting more pop oriented material? And thats the crux of the Prince thing. When he stops doing pop rock songs like U Got the Look and starts doing RNB stuff like on Emancipation that's when he loses The Rolling Stones fans.

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Wasnt The Black Album situation something to do with the label wanting more pop oriented material? And thats the crux of the Prince thing. When he stops doing pop rock songs like U Got the Look and starts doing RNB stuff like on Emancipation that's when he loses The Rolling Stones fans.

The Black Album was shelved at Prince's request. The album was two weeks from release, manufactured and hundreds of thousands of copies sat boxed in warehouses after Prince had some kind of spiritual awakening and demanded that Warner destroy all copies of the album.

Edited by Towelie
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I am not a big Prince fan but I do like and odd song here and there. Fantastic talent and performer but just not my cup of tea. As a result I have not really followed his career much but hasn't he become sort of a recluse who does not tour much or promote his albums?

Pretty tough to have success without touring or self promoting these days what with the state of radio and such.

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I'm not super religious or at all really, but I though Rainbow Children was ace.

Favorite albums for me are Gold Experience and Love Symbol.

Love Symbol is a wonderful album. Very dated in places, as is most of his early-mid nineties work, but the NPG sound amazing on that record, it's probably my favourite incarnation of the NPG. Songs like The Morning Papers, Sweet Baby, Damn U, Blue Light, Sexy MF and even the wonderfully tacky 3 Chains O Gold are so rich musically, gorgeous Hammond organs and jazzy guitar licks throughout. And 7 is a great pop song and should've been a massive hit. Amazing stuff.

Edited by Towelie
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I just did a quick peruse of the thread and didn't see this mentioned, although forgive me if it was:

Did anyone hear his last album PlectrumElectrum? I thought it was outstanding. Admittedly I'm not a big Prince fan. Love Purple Rain, but who doesn't. Aside from that just a smattering of other hits. But he was on SNL last year and I thought his musical spot was great. Heard Plectrum online and it was great. The other one (Art Official Age) released simultaneously, was not IMO. But PlectrumElectrum was a solid, 40 minute, no frills rock record and I encourage any Prince fans or just rock music fans to check it out. Really great listen that is perfectly understated.

Although yeah, as good as it was, I haven't sought out his new one. Just never being a huge fan and him putting out so many albums I never keep up with the guy. But I really liked the last one that came across my radar. As for what happened to him, the answer is nothing. Yeah, he's not the Purple Rain superstar anymore in terms of current music, but the guy gets standing ovations and its a special event no matter where he goes. Whether rightly or wrongly, his legend is solidified and that was obvious last year when he just showed up at major events (Golden Globes, I think the Grammys or maybe just SNL) and he routinely got standing ovations for just showing up.

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