The Prince Thread.

4linehaiku

4linehaiku

Repetitive
On one of my first solo forays into Glasgow I went to an afterparty where the hostess had 20+ Prince CDs and no other music, as well as a Prince photo/painting/experimental mural in every room. She also had at least 5 Prince tattoos, including the symbol thing (resonable), and a large version of his face (not so resonable).
Nobody turned up, I got horribly drunk, decided to walk to the bus station and ended up trudging along the verge of the M8 for a few hours, slowly sobering up in the grey drizzling dawn.

This experience put me off Prince for a few years, although to be fair it's not really his fault.
 
M

mms

sometimes
mistadubalina said:
...like which 80's street funk artists in particular ?
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well anyone really, rick james who hes compared to, is the obvious comparison, even though prince played guitar, his biggest achievement was to melt that into something weirder, and the synths and drum patterns do that, you can as someone pointed out hear it all over modern r and b and you can't really argue with 90% of sign of the times.
 
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mistadubalina

Banned
You cant just say loads of street funk artists or anyone really then only come up with rick james. Well you can but then it seems like you dont know any others.

For me, what separated him from other funk artists was his voice and rock guitar theatrics. His drums and keys were pretty generic compared to what else was going on at the time. I'd like to think of him as among other things a black american putting his own spin on new romance.

As the undisputed truth i already stated sign of the times as his pinnacle so wouldnt argue otherwise.

i also have a soft spot for girls and boys off under the cherry moon
 
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mms

sometimes
massrock said:
Sometimes It Snows In April used to guarantee a tear.

Not his best moment though obv.
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i know what you mean though.

yes that run from 1999 to sign of the times, is absurd, to think an artist could go through such a run, the most baroque are around the world in a day and under the cherry moon, elements of psychedelia and some god knows what take on 70's soul respectivley i reckon.

He's got alot of shit about him, more to him than any artist alive today, or back then at least, the amazing voice that goes from falsetto to tenor quite easily, the guitar as pointed out, the drums, the mad arrangements and the fact he's a loon, compare that to say his 80's rivals madonna and michael, and he leaves em standing.
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
It's weird to compare the trio though. I mean, at the end of the day, they're all talented but we gotta remember, one is an actual musician. The other two are performers.
 
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mms

sometimes
CrowleyHead said:
It's weird to compare the trio though. I mean, at the end of the day, they're all talented but we gotta remember, one is an actual musician. The other two are performers.
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thats true, i guess i'm talking in the area of biggest selling artists / musical celebrities.
apologies for the lack of imagination. trying to think now who he's comparable to really.
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
In a twisted sense, there's really nobody who can compare to him. Lord knows the man's napoleon complex has already made a hole in the ozone layer... But at the same time, the man garners respect from people like Miles Davis. I mean, if that isn't a certificate for absolute godliness...

If you compare everybody in 80's pop... nobody can touch him. R&B? I mean, Sly Stone, as awesome as he is, wasn't a musician beyond keys and guitar and what note. James was an organist, but aside from that, a lot of his stuff is Dependant on how amazing the JBs were... The Wailers were an okay band, technically the Skatalites could've killed them, but whatever...

And if you want to say somebody who also is a functioning one-man band... Trent Reznor could be considered his bleach-white equal, except Prince had a longer period of just unquestionable greatness.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
babyface doesnt have the range of prince though, and i used to love babyface. rick james is the nearest comparison up to around 84 at least (they even had girl groups to compete), at which point rick started to take the drum machine/synths route like everyone else was doing. not sure who else to compare prince to in the 80s, apart from MJ (the obvious competition), or terence trent darby, lenny kravitz, maybe thomas dolby, stevie wonder, bowie maybe? i think prince was basically in the 80s what bowie was in the 70s.
 
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mms

sometimes
gumdrops said:
babyface doesnt have the range of prince though, and i used to love babyface. rick james is the nearest comparison up to around 84 at least (they even had girl groups to compete), at which point rick started to take the drum machine/synths route like everyone else was doing. not sure who else to compare prince to in the 80s, apart from MJ (the obvious competition), or terence trent darby, lenny kravitz, maybe thomas dolby, stevie wonder, bowie maybe? i think prince was basically in the 80s what bowie was in the 70s.
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yes bowie is the best comparison, which is weirdly something i've never thought of despite being a prince fan 4 eva.
 
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michael

Bring out the vacuum
A friend and I have talked about the Bowie thing, but only just wrt both of them being artists we like who release albms we ... don't. Haha. Not quite, but, you know, both ridiculously patchy, I reckon. Sounds like some here would disagree on that, but although I think of Prince as being great there are few albums of his I want to throw on and listen through.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
mms said:
yes bowie is the best comparison, which is weirdly something i've never thought of despite being a prince fan 4 eva.
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yeah i think as far as general general weirdness/avant-gardness/'deviancy' (and obv the whole gender bending stuff) meets pure pop, i think prince and bowie are the most similar. most people cite stevie (or sly for the multiracial sound/band) as far as the one man band thing, which holds for general self reliancy/methodology/use of the studio etc but neither stevie or sly were ever really as pop or 'weird' as prince/bowie.
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
I read somewhere that for a while Prince would hire out a few rooms in a studio complex with an engineer in each and jump between them all day.

- program a beat or two
- play a guitar or keyboard part
- play another
- say "that bit's the verse, that bit's the chorus, that bit's the bridge"
- go into another room and repeat the process while the engineer worked in the first room

Wish I could remember where I read it.

Prince is amazing.
 
3

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
hint said:
I read somewhere that for a while Prince would hire out a few rooms in a studio complex with an engineer in each and jump between them all day.

- program a beat or two
- play a guitar or keyboard part
- play another
- say "that bit's the verse, that bit's the chorus, that bit's the bridge"
- go into another room and repeat the process while the engineer worked in the first room
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That's probably a very good way of avoiding a key problem in composition, getting too familiar with your own tune to hear it like it's audience will hear it.
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
3 Body No Problem said:
That's probably a very good way of avoiding a key problem in composition, getting too familiar with your own tune to hear it like it's audience will hear it.
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Yeah - constantly surprising himself!

Here's a good related quote:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/2008/12/my-biggest-regr.html

Lisa said:
You know, he’d start with the drums but he’d already have the song in his head... And he’d like go and press “Record” on the machine and then run over to the drums and you’d kinda hear like him jumpin’ over things and trippin’ over wires, sit down on the drums, and then count himself off, tick, tick, tick.

And then he’d like play and he’d like have ... sometimes he’d have like a … lyrics written down on a piece of notebook paper and so he’d try to like sing it in his head and sometimes you’d hear him like kinda grunting and singing a little bit of the song on the drum track. And then he’d imagine in his head like … he told me this, like you have to kick the bass player’s ass. Like when you’re playing the drums, like kick the other guy’s ass, like put things in there that’s gonna make the other guy … which was all him, you know … do something unexpected or like, try to keep up, you know. So it was so cool ‘cause then he’d go … he’d do … the drum track would be down and then he’d go and get the bass and play the bass and then that weird drum lick would come up and then he’d go, “Oh,” you know, like the bass player, and then try to keep and then try to kick the guitar player’s ass, etcetera, etcetera.
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Prince kicking his own ass. What a guy.
 
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