The Real Reason Prince Isn't Considered The Best Artist.

Heh heh. Yep, I had to make a CD for a friend and listened to it a few more times than I wanted, some filler. I tried to play Sign O' The Times a few days ago and I couldn't finish it--that title track is brilliant though, the rest I can do without.

 

It's probably true that you haven't noticed a Prince hit on the radio with an innovative 'chord structure' but his chord and progression vocabulary is as dense as anyone I can think of. Some of his deeper tracks border on prog-fusion.

On the other hand, Prince can wring more ideas out of of a two-chord progression than anyone I've ever heard. Check out 'Anna Stesia' from Lovesexy, which is a complete music lesson in dynamics and counterpoint.

Harmonic innovation? Are you deaf? His arrangements allow keys, strings and background vocals to reshape the underlying root chords from verse to verse. And yes, he has occasionally relied on collaborators such as Eric Leeds or Clare Fisher for innovative horn and string arrangements, but at the end of the day he was the producer and artist and had last say on the harmonic structures and shapes of those arrangements. (On a side note: Taking a page from Zappa's Xenochrony technique, Prince has 'reverse-engineered' songs from scrapped Clare Fisher string arrangements from unreleased takes or tracks)

His sense of harmony is about as innovative as you might find, although you might not have a taste for his dense and occasionally dissonant clusters.

If you really have a love of harmonic innovation, you should dig deeper and discover for yourself.

 

I thought "What Do U Want Me 2 Do?" off Musicology was brilliant - and one of the album's deliciously retro highlights. He whipped out his old drum machine!

 

When I was a teenager, teaching myself to play instruments and write music, I'd buy the Hits Of The Year Sheet Music compliations, where you might get the sheet music for 50 or 60 Top Forty songs in one book.

The majority of songs were straightforward enough for an amateur - you don't really need sheet music to knock off a reasonable facsimile of She Bop or Jump - but I was attracted to Prince because the chord voicings he chose were always unusual, and how he'd often cluster them together for dissonance instead of spacing them out. I learnt how to use altered bass, suspended chords, and the power of 9ths and 13ths from those songs. Off the top of my head: the bizarre stepping down descent of the Bridge of 'Paisley Park' blew my mind, and how it leads back into the safety of the verse by Augmenting the E chord; the NC ('No Chord') markings in the bridge of 'Rapsberry Beret'; and the absence of any bass on 'When Doves Cry'. He was fascinating to study. I'm still blown away by the rich harmonics on display during the majority of 'Parade' and 'Lovesexy', (and is probably why an album like 'Diamonds and Pearls' bores me to tears, when I can tell he's dumbing himself down for greater commercial appeal).

Listening to Prince during those formative years made me a damn strong songwriter, and I'm forever grateful.

 

I was just listening to his latest 'Art Official Age' this morning and could not help but notice the odd bass line ascension on the opening track. Where most people would write a whole step, Prince goes for a half and it makes it all that much more interesting to hear what he was able to build on top of it melodically and harmonically. And this is just a throwaway appetizer before getting into the 'meat' of the album.

The end result sounds 'dumbed down' compared to some of his earlier work...but it's very complex arranging.

 

I'm intrigued. I should check it out. I'm guilty of ignoring him for years. Whilst his run from 'Dirty Mind' to 'Lovesexy' made me a fan, 'Batman' through 'Diamonds and Pearls' started testing my patience. There was a wonderful last gasp with the 'Lovesymbol' album, but then he started fighting with Warner Brothers he started putting out albums like 'Come' and 'Chaos and Disorder' that weren't very good, (and CD's back then were $30 a pop in Australia) and he lost me. I didn't take a punt. This passive-aggressive path he chose of punishing both label and listener meant I no longer had any good faith as a customer in his brand. He became a bad purchasing risk and I spent my money elsewhere.

I did give him a chance in the late 90's, ('Rave Un2...'), and I just felt like I'd moved on, much the same way I felt like Morrissey had stayed a dysfunctional teenager during his post-'Maladjusted' years when he returned with 'You Are the Quarry' and I realised in the interim that I'd become an Adult and I could no longer relate to him. If Prince was my boyfriend, I would have had to say: "it's not you, it's me".

Oh, I forgot: I gave him another chance in the 2000's, ('Musicology'). The hype for that one was enormous at the time, and it didn't deliver for me. Same old, same old.

 

I liked Musicology. Seemed like a return to form. A couple of great tracks and no massive clunkers. Not groundbreaking, but not annoying, which for the Purple One represents an improvement over post-1995 norms.

 

This is partly true, I guess.
Yes, The Revolution period was a very fruitful period with lot's of rock and arty music ('the avant purple so to speak'). The period didn't end with Parade, though. After the recording of Parade Prince and the Revolution recorded at least 100 songs. The best of those songs ended up on the unreleased The Dream Factory. Most of those songs were used on the unreleased Crystal Ball (3lp) and the edited version of that, Sign O" The Times. Only 5 new songs were recorded after The Revolution was disbanded: Housequake, If I Was Your Girlfriend, Adore, Play In The Sun Shine and U Got The Look. Those are arguable not the worst songs from SOTT! Some of these are considered one of the best songs he ever recorded (Housequake, Girlfriend, Adore). He also re-edited Strange Relationship and added a studio-expanded live performance with The Revolution (Beautiful Night).

So, SOTT is actually a real Prince and the Revolution album. Just as much as the previous 3 (or 4 if you count 1999 too) albums: a lot of Prince solo songs, some band songs and a positive influence from The Revolution.
After SOTT his music did change and without someone to challenge his descisions he changed into a one-man machine with only yes-people around him. This effected his music to a large extend, but not only in a negative way.

With The Revolution left behind, he did focus on funk songs. The made an album (unreleased) called Camille and a year later (unreleased for 7 years) The Black Album. I believe that he was convinced that the US public didn't like him anymore because he had forgotten his black audience with Around The World In A Day and Parade. This combined with the rise of rap music made him leave the 'avant purple' music he was making and brought back the focus on funk music. Like The Time had finally won... in a way.

 

I think Musicology is uneven, but I understand why the hype was there for it. I recommend 3121, I think it's his strongest record since The Gold Experience. And, sadly, his last strong record (IMO).

 

Are you sure that the versions on Sign O' The Times are the versions done with The Revolution? I have a bootleg of The Dream Factory and a lot of the versions on there are different than the SOTT officially released versions. Also, stuff like "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" just don't sound like The Revolution to me.

 

I think that you just described the general feeling most people have with Prince's music (and my last point for that same reason) . He was a killer in the rock genre and after that is was all downhill (again, what the general public thought, not my opinion). It's the genre that made him famous, put him on the map. Too bad that Prince was so fed up with the genre after one and a half years, that he never returned to it fully. In stead of continue the world tour to Europe and the rest of the world, he broadcasted one of his last US shows (Syracuse) and called it a day to release Around The World In A Day within the next couple of weeks leaving his fanbase confused of this latest few moves.
You might say that's a real career ending descision... or a purily musical (r)evolution, a change to be able to breath again and control your own live (like Bowie killing his character Ziggy, Prince killed The Purple Rain Prince). That's up to you.

 

Yep, most of them are the same. There are some changes (added alarm clock in Starfish And Coffee), but no real differences except these:
- a re-edited/re-recorded Strange Relationship, now more on funk to fit the unreleased Camille album (some instrumentation re-recorded)
- a remixed I Could Never Take The Place (the 2nd half)
- the short (7") version of SOTT on The Dream Factory

 

Thanks! I'm guessing the boot I have has alternate takes for a lot of the songs then.

 

Oooh, I really didn't care for 3121, apart from "Black Sweat", which I think is just amazing. I found Musicology a lot more even.

But then, I find a lot of funk fairly boring.

 

3121 is all funk, yeah, but it's such good funk! I think it's a really consistent set of songs and you can tell Prince is having fun playing them.

 

I think also it was the lack of sales (and airplay) for Lovesexy that really upset Prince and prompted his rethink in 1989 or so (towards briefly doing more accessible work like Batman and Diamonds And Pearls). That seems like it was a pivotal point in his career. He took that album's commercial failure (at retail and radio levels, aside from "Alphabet St") personally, because it was such a personal album for him. I suspect that also had him thinking that the US public didn't like him, or didn't 'feel' what he was doing. Just my interpretation... I could be totally off.

 

Which songs are alternate takes on your version?
Can you descibe the differences?

 

True. The decline in sales of Lovesexy in the US played a large role in his descision making too. Strange enough his European audience liked Lovesexy very much, but that propably wasn't the audience he wanted to win back. I guess the combination of multiple factors changed his way of making music. This resulted in the 'sell out' with Batman, the failure of Graffiti Bridge (album and movie) and the start of the NPG with a large role for band members, who shouldn't have that much influence (Tony M. and to a lesser extend Rosie Gaines and Levi Seacer).

 

I've heard it multiple times, and think it's a vile song because it's an adolescent reaction to the complexities of an adult relationship. The narcissist's bubble has been popped via the perception of infidelity - assuming she's even a realiable narrator - so she lashes out in narcissistic fury, where the empty void of blackness inside is revealed: you have hurt me, so I have license to hurt you more. No grace under fire for Beyoncé. Lash out. 'Anything is permitted because I hurt'. Bratty tantrums over minor inconveniences have become normalised via Reality Television - everyone acts like a Diva now, which is exhausting for the rest of us who don't believe they're the star of their own movie and everyone else is a supporting player, the tell of a classic narcissist.

"I could have another you here in a minute" is a toxic, high school mentality to human interaction sung by a woman then in her Twenties. This is exactly what I mean by social awkwardness and dysfunction. Millennial pop songs are supposedly selling empowerment, but behind all the bluster is a screaming void of increasingly-childish emptiness easily summed up in this manner, (one I've seen repeated again and again by Millennials when it comes to dating): Whomever cares the least in the relationship, wins.

Contrast with Prince, whom - despite the arrogant, narcissistic image he projects, seems to be a living, breathing human being whom understands that relationships aren't simplistic, or black and white, and the key is communication, looking outside of yourself and faith:

Beyoncé chooses to encourage her listeners to dive into the sea, and drown in their own sour immaturity. I'm lucky I had Prince offering me greater emotional complexity, but, as I said, he's singing from an adult perspective - as are most 80's love songs - and the charts are now pitched at an adolescent maturity level. I can't imagine a song about divorce like Abba's 'When All Is Said And Done' could chart today:

Now listen how a Millennial like Taylor Swift throws an overdramatic tantrum over Katy Perry hiring away a backing dancer from her:

It's a slap fight on the school playground over trivial rubbish, inflated to drama queen excess via a ridiculous video. How on earth would such a narcissistic monster ever handle a real challenge in life, like the death of a loved one?

Actually, me processing all this has made me realise just how damn interesting Prince really is as a man, let alone as one of the great musicians. We need more artists like him, who realise they're not the centre of the world.

 

Funny enough I've been thinking for days on how to answer your question:

The Real Reason Prince Isn't Considered The Best Artist.

The fact you have asked the question almost answers the question it's self.

Their have been many thoughtful replies on why Prince is or should be considered The Best Artist, many of the artist that have been bantered around are considered a Best Artist. Artist like Miles, Dylan, Beatles etc. Does anyone have to spend any serious time on wether they Artists? I don't think so.

But with Prince of a lot of us well ......

 

Prince not innovative? Wow. The guy has dabbled in almost every genre of music, has released roughly 300 songs and you can find about 800 more online. Aaaaaaaand none of have innovative chord structure?

 

Right on. I think it is his best album.

 

I can't get into Lovesexy. Will have to give it some more spins.

 

According to the album credits, the Revolution are only on "....Beautiful Night". There are various guests (including Wendy & Lisa on "Slow Love"), but the majority of singing/playing on SOTT is solo.

 

I think I've said it before, but Prince should try working with a producer. Someone who would push him, filter through the filler.