What's the appeal of Prince?
Since his death he seems to have achieved near mythic status, but I grew up in the 80s and was never hugely impressed, albeit only judging it from his singles. I decided to watch one of his early hits on Youtube, "When Doves Cry"
Honestly I find it quite bland and mediocre. :confused: |
Yeah I know, you'd wonder, wouldn't you? A guy who at sixteen could play every instrument, write, compose, produce, engineer, promote his own music. A guy who crossed genre AND race boundaries, a man who brought "black" music to a mainstream audience but refused to have it categorised as black, a man who made being small cool, who brought sex firmly into the forefront of music and left us with a catalogue of hits the like of which it is hard to imagine being surpassed.
Who could care about him, huh? :rolleyes: |
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Now if you'd added "Philip" to the thread title, well then...
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I kinda agree, Price was just so-so.
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too many good songs ..homework...name that song...brilliant stage presence..good all rounder... |
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Everyone knows Purple Rain, Little Red Corvette, 1999, When Doves Cry, Take Me With U, Raspberry Beret, Sign o' the Times.... to say nothing of the songs he's written for other people which became hits - Nothing Compares to U, Manic Monday etc. Fine if you don't like him but don't try to espouse your dislike of his music in ignorance. He's a well respected artist - a legend actually - and just because he didn't support The Fall doesn't mean nobody listens to him. Your prejudice is showing. I'll guarantee you one thing: the average Eddie Punchclock can list off more Prince songs than he can Fall ones. |
I knew "Purple Rain" and "1999". My generation never bothered with Prince.
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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. Quote:
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I enjoy Prince way more than I enjoy Prince music. That dude was a character.
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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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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 |
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More people can create the same thing with less, today. |
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^ good one :laughing:
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When Dukes die." (I couldn't resist. ;)) |
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 |
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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. |
My wife likes Prince. I like a few songs and have tried a couple of deep dives.. but while Prince may be the ultimate artist on paper, his recorded music often bores me for reasons that are not entirely clear to me.
That superbowl halftime show he did was ****ing amazing, though. The guy was a great artist. |
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https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5d/0b...51770fc1d5.gif |
Sometimes I have a random "Talk Like James Hetfield Day". Today is that day... yyah!
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2. Jack U Off 3. Controversy |
His production skills and DIY attitude when it came to his music.
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Some Artists are just at their best doing live gigs and fall short just with sound ...reason I use youtube so much....
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You wouldn't have used YouTube when Prince was alive...
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Prince writes good pop songs and plays guitar well.
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Never heard a song by him, so can't really talk about his artistic talent. He is on my queue though. However, just the fact that I never heard of his songs maybe says a lot? But again, don't want to drag his artistic abilities until I actually listened to him.
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I think a couple of shortish clips from concerts shows his talents overall...
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Artistic people lean towards extremes...... so the facts are going to reflect that, wealth as well gives you more choices... Don't necessary make you Happy. either. |
I thought Prince was incredible, during his peak from 1980-1988 he was awesome, saw him live during the Lovesexy tour in 88, Wembley.
His decline after the 1980s was pretty damn harsh and it was such a shame. Musically speaking Prince hadn't been relevant since the late 80s so I wouldn't be surprised if the younger crowd (millennial's and Gen Z) didn't discover him until he died... |
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