I know its a strange question, but I was trying to pinpoint exactly Prince's run of his best work and it's a bit difficult because (a) he had a lot of good albums and (b) he tended to follow-up his major works with minor more artsy albums. So where most artist would have a lot of overlap on there best 3 album, 4 album and 5 album runs, Prince doesn't necessarily.

For example, I think his best 5 album run is 1999, Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, Parade and Sign of the Times.

But for the life of me, I can't pinpoint his best 3 album run. To me, it could possibly not include any of those albums and be Lovesexy, Batman & Graffiti Bridge (which lines up to when I was deepest into Prince and would be at the record store at every knew release and not be disappointed).



Know what I mean?

*********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

From wikipedia -- do we really count those early '00s NPGMC projects as albums? Even at the time they felt more like collections of songs than album releases. Anyway:

For You (1978)
Prince (1979)
Dirty Mind (1980)
Controversy (1981)
1999 * (1982)
Purple Rain * (1984)
Around the World in a Day (1985)
Parade (1986)
Sign o' the Times * (1987)
Lovesexy (1988)
Batman (1989)
Graffiti Bridge (1990)
Diamonds and Pearls (1991)
Love Symbol Album (1992)
Come (1994)
The Black Album (1994)
The Gold Experience (1995)
Chaos and Disorder (1996)
Emancipation (1996)
Crystal Ball (1998)
The Truth (1998)
The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale (1999)
Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999)
The Rainbow Children (2001)
One Nite Alone... (2002)
Xpectation (2003)
N·E·W·S (2003)
The Chocolate Invasion (2004)
The Slaughterhouse (2004)
Musicology (2004)
3121 (2006)
Planet Earth (2007)
Lotusflow3r (2009)
MPLSound (2009)
20Ten (2010)
Plectrumelectrum (2014)
Art Official Age (2014)
HITnRUN Phase One (2015)
HITnRUN Phase Two (2015)

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

concerned.


I've always wanted someone to put together a list of Prince's best ,say, 10 songs from 2000 on.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I have a lot of favorite albums from the 90s and a few from the '00s but probably no runs.

You could make a good case for Love Symbol/Come/TGE. Not as good a combo as anything from the classic period but strong (imo).

I use to have a long 90s/00s Prince mix that I'd made to convince folks that there was stuff paying more attention to, lol -- I don't think I have that anymore. Should try again soon.

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

3: Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain. Gets 2 of his top 3, and I like Controversy better than Around The World in a Day.

4: 1999, Purple Rain, Around the World, and Parade. Wanted to get Parade in there over Controversy.

5: 1999, Purple Rain, Around.., Parade, Sign.... that gets his 3 best albums in there, IMO.

And I love that album.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

But I go Parade, Controversy, Around... if I’m putting them in order.

I thought about trying to get Dirty Mind in there too.

If I’m going really big picture:

Dirty Mind - Sign is the essential run.

Lovesexy - The Gold Experience is the secondary run.

Then, the first two albums are there own thing.

Everything post Gold Experience is kinda his “post-run” stuff. Some great songs here and there, but nothing really essential.

Just how I see it.

I gotta think too much.

I know I'm in the minority when I say that but I like everything up to "Parade" (only if you exclude "The Black Album"), anyway after "Parade" that's when his albums start to become iffy where some songs I just don't care for and "a few albums" seem mediocre.

Arguably his greatest album?!?!


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I agree

than anything pre-SOTT, imo. Would like to hear what's not flying there.

What are we taking off points for?

Lovesexy is probably the tipping point (and I love that album to death) for his filter no longer effectively refining his ideas to weed out/limit his less-wise decisions, imo. On Lovesexy, it all still works but you can see the music bursting at the seams and the musical dragons that come with thinking all your shit is untouchable are lurking at the border.


-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

Never liked starfish and coffee


Adore was a-ight but not enough for me to get by not liking those songs


Edit: Hot thyng (especially)

And housequake

Those did it as far as turning me OFF on SOTT

Sacrilege is being freely spoken!!!!!



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Of those you listed, I know U Got the Look is divisive. Hot Thing I can sort of understand too but it jams for me.

But Adore? That's top-top-top-tier Prince!

My weaker tracks on SOTT would probably be The Cross and It, maybe U got the look.


-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

And you still have two masterpiece albums left after that!

The Title Song grew on me a lot with time and U Got the Look I have loved since a kid.


>Of those you listed, I know U Got the Look is divisive. Hot
>Thing I can sort of understand too but it jams for me.
>
>But Adore? That's top-top-top-tier Prince!
>
>My weaker tracks on SOTT would probably be The Cross and It,
>maybe U got the look.
>
>
>-thebigfunk
>
>~ i could still snort you under the table ~


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

All those songs you named I love, do you even like Prince?

uh....

I liked the song Controversy a lot

then

I was there for all (ALL) of Purple Rain (album, Movie) when it was first out.


after that..

Raspberry beret and Pop life were good

Alphabet street was good

Girls and boys was good

Adore was good


uh....

uh....

uh....

7 was good

let it go was good

God created woman was good

The Continental was good

let it go was good


uh....

I liked that latest release they just did that I did a GD post on a few months ago.


I bought some MP3's of his later era stuff but I'm forgetting the ones that stood out


So...


I kinda REALLY narrow it down with Prince, you see


picky, picky, picky


edit: Sheila E - a love bizarre

Call my name

dinner with Delores

the end in some ways. Because there's some "iffy" songs on there I like that are absolutely precursors to some of the stuff I REALLY don't like in the NPG era.

Like I said I don't count "The Black Album" as his ninth album since he really didn't get officially released until seven years later in 1994.

Anyway I like "Sign Of The Times" almost every song on there is dope, the album got eight classic hits on it, it's only two songs that was average but I still listen to when listening to the album; it's "Lovesexy" where his run starts to become iffy.

Dirty Mind to Lovesexy, honestly, is an out-of-this-world run. I can put on any album from that streak and it feel that it (mostly) shows Prince at his best. At any point, I might call any one of those albums my favorite P album... 8 albums in as many years. Few folks run their critical period for that long with that much output.

That said:

Controversy is probably my least favorite of that stretch. From the perspective of great runs, that infuriates me -- because it basically means Dirty Mind can't be included, which is in my gun-to-the-head top 3.

Keeping the question of runs at bay for a moment, I don't think I could really make a gun-to-the-head top 3. But I can organize the period into three tiers:

Personal favorites (i.e. what I listen to and actively appreciate most): SOTT/Parade/Dirty Mind/Lovesexy

Classics that I love but honestly don't reach for that often: 1999 and Purple Rain. I'm more partial to the latter; 1999 has always seemed a bit bloated to me (but what do you take off!??!).

The easiest for me to "let go" of: Controversy and ATWIAD. ATWIAD *almost* makes it into my personal favorites list but I skip Temptation, America, and The Ladder too easily.

With all that in mind... total personal preference, but my streaks would probably be:

5 albums: Purple Rain to Lovesexy
4 albums: Purple Rain to SOTT
3 albums: Parade to Lovesexy

If we're talking more "objectively" classics, that might all change. At least the 5 album streak, that would probably be 1999 to SOTT.

I don't know man, thanks for letting my brain procrastinate on everything else for a while, lol...

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

I just be coming up with new ways to analyze and dissect this dude.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Dirty Mind (1980)
Controversy (1981)
1999 (1982)

The Gold Experience (1995)
Chaos and Disorder (1996)
Emancipation (1996)
Crystal Ball (1998)
The Truth (1998)
New Power Soul (1998)

That's 10 albums, considering two of them are 3 discs. Since Crystal Ball is mostly older material, we could even remove it and just use The Truth. Still 7 really good albums there. I know alotta folks slate 90's Prince, but dude was on fire heading into his 40's. I haven't seen Chaos and Disorder ever get a lot of love, but it had JOINTS, and I don't see how folks can praise ATWIAD and diss C&D lol. New Power Soul was a super fun album as well. This era of Prince was so good to me that I always felt like Prince just had the "previous hits" curse on him. If newer artists released this stuff, I think folks would've been playing it relentlessly and trying to turn others on to it.

I like that period a lot but most of those albums have some pretty low lows. TGE is the only one of those albums to dodge any major bullets (if you can get past P Control), maybe The Truth. But...

C&D: some really great stuff is often overlooked here but putting it side by side with ATWIAD makes absolutely no sense, because only one of those records had "I Rock Therefore I Am", lol -- game over. And "Right The Wrong." Those aren't the only dicey tracks, either, but "Rock" is especially embarassing.

Emancipation: What kind of math are you doing where you turn one album into three, lol? But either way, only one of those discs (if treated as an album in itself) is solid from top to bottom (disc 2 all day!), discs 1 and 3 are really touch and go. As a whole, it's a super spotty, bloated record, you could ditch about half of the stuff on disc 1 and another half of the stuff on disc 3 and not miss anything. This was the segue into a big part of what doomed late 90s and onward Prince: his album production. The drum programming especially is just lifeless and it drains a lot of the best moments of any real vitality.

The Truth: Definitely overlooked. Animal Kingdom is a harsh listen - when "Purple and Gold" dropped I had Animal Kingdom flashbacks, lol. I don't think song for song it's top-tier Prince but it's really, really good Prince, and a tighter, more coherent album than most other releases from this period.

NPS: There's no way this can be counted in an album streak. Folks clowned Push It Up and Freaks on This Side like crazy when this was released and they've aged terribly. It has some good stuff but most of it is middling at best. When the most interesting song on the album is a hidden/bonus track... I really like "When You Love Somebody" though, the instrumentation on that is really interesting and has a great change-up near the end that reminds me of "In This Bed I Scream."

With Emancipation and NPS in there, you really can't call this period an *album* streak. I'd say it's a productive period for him with a lot of highs but it's maddeningly inconsistent and often poorly executed.

The closest post-TGE run to a streak, imo, would be Rainbow Children/One Night Alone/Musicology. I'd probably overlook the NPGMC releases in that run because they were released in such a limited fashion, and even though there's some more invigorated work there, especially the instrumental stuff, they never felt like *albums* to me. But that works in that period's favor, in a way: Rainbow Children, One Night, and Musicology is a pretty solid three-album run.

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

>I like that period a lot but most of those albums have some
>pretty low lows. TGE is the only one of those albums to dodge
>any major bullets (if you can get past P Control), maybe The
>Truth. But...


I love P Control.



>C&D: some really great stuff is often overlooked here but
>putting it side by side with ATWIAD makes absolutely no sense,
>because only one of those records had "I Rock Therefore I Am",
>lol -- game over. And "Right The Wrong." Those aren't the only
>dicey tracks, either, but "Rock" is especially embarassing.


I love "I Rock, Therefore I Am". One of his finest moments imo. It's one of the songs that I can tell really came from his core much in the same way that "Dig U Better Dead" did. He didn't just sing the words to these songs, he lived them. I think it comes through in everything about these joints. I really like the music on "Right The Wrong". Not one of my favorites due it being mainly talking, but I don't hate it.



>Emancipation: What kind of math are you doing where you turn
>one album into three, lol?


The kind that acknowledges there are 3 discs with enough music for 3 albums.


>But either way, only one of those
>discs (if treated as an album in itself) is solid from top to
>bottom (disc 2 all day!),

Disagreed. I like all 3 very much.


>The Truth: Definitely overlooked. Animal Kingdom is a harsh
>listen - when "Purple and Gold" dropped I had Animal Kingdom
>flashbacks, lol. I don't think song for song it's top-tier
>Prince but it's really, really good Prince, and a tighter,
>more coherent album than most other releases from this period.



Another song that represented him well since he was vegan at the time. So was I when it dropped. I always really liked the song. I can understand being unable to relate to it at all tho.



>NPS: There's no way this can be counted in an album streak.


It can if I'm counting, and I'm the one counting, so there's that.


>Folks clowned Push It Up and Freaks on This Side like crazy


That really doesn't matter to me. I think a lot of the clowning has to do with judging it as attempts to fit it contemporarily. I personally don't listen to Prince's music that way.


>the most
>interesting song on the album is a hidden/bonus track...


I disagree. "Wasted Kisses" is nice tho.



>With Emancipation and NPS in there, you really can't call this
>period an *album* streak.


I did, and I still do.


>I'd say it's a productive period for
>him with a lot of highs but it's maddeningly inconsistent and
>often poorly executed.



That's fine. You get to say whatever you like. I say it was a nice album streak.


>The closest post-TGE run to a streak, imo, would be Rainbow
>Children/One Night Alone/Musicology.


I considered that off the strength of the first 2. I just don't personally like the Musicology album enough. I tended to like latter career Prince less when he seemed to be going for something mainstream. I love Rainbow Children and One Nite Alone tho.