The Prince Thread.

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
he relinquished a lot of control from I want to say... 93-99 to his bassist, Levi Seacer, and he became the musical director. And I'm never sure which records are all him again... I believe the 20Ten one is definitely just him, beyond that... IDK.

all that happened was from 1990 onwards, he wanted to be part of a band, and so stopped dictating everything, allowing others more input. sadly, this was at the time when the people he let have more of a say perhaps could have done with having less of a say. but its also cos he thought his instincts werent commercial enough anymore so he thought his band members had more of a clue, i.e. - the boring production of emancipation which was kind of his response to the domination of r kelly in R&B at the time.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Also, the problem is the NPG folks weren't as swift as the people like say, your Andre Cymone, your Dez, Your Wendy & Lisa, your Eric Leeds... He had all these people trying to inject him with newfound ideas and influence. But with NPG, these people didn't think of trying to give Prince new ideas.

It's a catch 22, because not everything of the Revolution was great ideas... Wendy bitching about the expanded horn section taking away attention from her and turning them into 'a funk band' in the Parade-era is one, members suddenly becoming born-again and getting intensely offended by songs like Sister and Head is another. But with NPG, you had people who both intentionally and unintentionally started influencing Prince to more misogynistic thinking, and a more craven sexual persona that didn't have the 'fun' of his earlier fascination.

Prince is like so many artists where they feed off of the people around them, and a lot of the NPG were into hedonism, didn't engage in modern music beyond really stiff R&B glossy stuff, hip-hop (which Prince couldn't entirely appreciate) or 'classic rock'. They actually had no REAL uses beyond backing musicians, yet he kept giving them power because he had the same expectations of all the artists he knew growing up. Prince went from being really overpopulated with ideas, to the well drying up and leaving him with people who all thought "OH, THAT'S PRINCE'S JOB TO UNDERSTAND NEW STUFF. I JUST WANT TO PLAY IN THE BAND" or whatever.

It's also ironic that Prince's last truly great single is a G-Funk record from 2006.
 

PeteUM

It's all grist
'I shifted my phone to my other ear so I could pay the guy and told Prince to hold on. Prince asked, "Which one do you like more? Wendy, or Lisa?"
I thanked the guy behind the counter and put my things in my bag and asked Prince what he was on about.'
 
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