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Last Active 12-16-22 8:35 pm
Joined 10-03-13
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| Jas' Prince Journey
Having grown up in a time well past the point where Prince was even remotely relevant anymore, the guy almost seems like a myth. You know that episode of South Park where Slash is actually just a made up character like Santa Claus? Well, Prince kinda felt like that for me when he was alive. Considering you can't listen to his music anywhere unless you buy it (or steal it), you could potentially convince someone who has never heard a Prince song in their life (though as I've found out, I know several, just never by name or artist) that he was just a running joke that kinda caught on a little too much. So now, armed with a free Tidal subscription which will be cancelled promptly, I, Jasdevi Zero Eight Seven, endeavour to get the full Prince experience. For those who are unable to listen to Prince for fear of wasting their time, you can experience his music vicariously through me, I will be updating this list as I go through the albums over the next 30 days. (As of beginning this list, I already own Purple Rain and Sign o the Times, so have heard them and I've heard Love Symbol before too). | | 1 |  | Prince
For You
So kicking off this journey of purpleness is Prince's commercial debut on Warner Bros. Prince produced this thing entirely by himself and played every single instrument as well (of which I think I read there were over 20, not that you could tell by listening to it). As I pretty much expected it to be having read about it, this album is incredibly non-descript. A lot of it is also quite slow and not as high energy as you would expect from this kind of thing, meaning the mood is kinda confusing. As a general overview of what this album is like, you could have told me that this was literally any rnb artist from this era and I would have said "oh, is it actually?". Do not recommend this one, don't remember what nearly all of it sounded like and do not see myself coming back to it. | | 2 |  | Prince
Prince
Before I get into this one I would just like to take the time to absolutely not recommend Tidal as a streaming service. So far every couple of songs, the stream will buffer and just never load the rest of the song. The bar also jumps to a random point in the song, so if you refresh it to try again (which is the only way to do it, btw) you have no idea where you were in the song.
This one's a lot smoother sounding than For You, and I've also actually heard "I Wanna Be Your Lover" somewhere before which is cool. But again, the same criticisms come to me here. This could have been any RnB artist from this period to my ears. Aside from the lyrics, which are some of the tamest I've heard from Prince ever (which really doesn't say much but yeah), there isn't really anything particularly "Prince" about this album much like For You. Overall though a much more enjoyable experience and I'd definitely recommend a few cuts off of this one. | | 3 |  | Prince
Dirty Mind
A staggering improvement in the song writing department over his first two efforts (which is lucky, considering at this point his record company was losing money on him). Dirty Mind is a lot funkier, has some deeper cuts ("When You Were Mine" is the obvious favourite for me) and is much more of a banger mood-wise, "Partyup" being the sort of thing Prince would come to nail in the future based off of my current experience with his music. This album is definitely a more developed effort, but still very much feels like a prototype of sorts still missing that real lasting power. The production on this album is also veeeeeery empty sounding, probably because Prince recorded everything himself in his home studio in a very brief window of time, so these songs kinda feel like demos at times. There is also a song about incest on here ("Sister") so minus 10 points. | | 4 |  | Prince
Controversy
Another staggering improvement. Prince's first real "purple" album, Controversy is the first album so far that really feels like the Prince the world all came to know. A lot of absolutely garbage lyrics, banger after banger with the odd slowdance in there. Really starting to show off his guitar chops and his nearly 5 octave vocal range on this one too. Prince the person is all over this record, the blunt spirituality, the far too self-indulgent sexuality, his political views, there's even a song about mutual masturbation. So, basically the worst thing of all time on paper, but it's... Prince? so like... it's not... like you can listen to it kind of ironically but at the same time as music it's objectively good too? You know, like a Prince album. | | 5 |  | Prince
1999
Understandably Prince's first real breakthrough album. One thing I have been noticing so far though, is that Prince does a terrible job of ordering the songs on his albums. There is absolutely no practical reason for "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" to be the first two songs on the album. For a start, aesthetically "Little Red Corvette" (the best song on the album imo) sounds like it should be right near the end, and second, considering those two songs are the album's strongest, it seems very counterproductive to put them right at the start, because then they're out of the way. The only other song that really holds up to such a strong start is "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)", maybe "Lady Cab Driver" as well, and at 70 minutes long, 1999 really doesn't do a fantastic job of justifying it. Of course, it can't be denied that the songs I did mention are among the best he ever wrote, I just don't find the rest of the album towing the line anywhere near as well. | | 6 |  | Prince
Purple Rain
I have already heard this but I'd better add it for consistency's sake. Out of all of the Prince album's I've heard so far, Purple Rain is easily his most complete sounding. Aside from "Darling Nikki", which is not the kind of thing I appreciate having to hear, everything on this album deserves to be hear and justifies it's length. Purple Rain is concise in it's delivery and yet has the most meat of any album in his discography. Successfully fusing RnB, soul and funk with rock elements, there isn't a single song on this album that isn't memorable. I mean, "When Doves Cry" doesn't even have a fucking bass track and it's still infectiously catchy. The title track, which should sound incredibly cheesy considering its composition, is in fact very emotional. The real unsung hero of this album though, is "The Beautiful Ones" which is essentially with very little competition, Prince's best performance (imo) as a vocalist. As seemingly unconsciously self-aggrandising as Prince is about himself | | 7 | | Prince
Purple Rain
in the more biographical parts of the album (I am not arrogating this attitude of Prince to himself to Purple Rain keep in mind), the actual composition of the songs help take your mind off it and enjoy the music for what it is: a well written, memorable set of tunes. | | 8 |  | Prince
Around the World in a Day
Very, very underrated album. Such a breath of fresh air at this point, very good follow up to Purple Rain. ATWIAD uses a very different palate the albums up to this point, dabbling in hints of neo-psychedelia and in general feeling decidedly more pop than funk or soul. So many memorable moments on this album, "Raspberry Beret" has always been a personal favourite of mine, then there's the t/t, "Paisley Park", "America", and "Temptation" as well contains one of the most incredibly intense vocal performances of Prince's career (covering his entire range and his different registers). The instrumentals on this are a lot prettier than previous efforts too. Absolutely do not sleep on this one, that average is absolutely not ok. | | 9 |  | Prince
Parade
Parade is a very different soundtrack album to Purple Rain. This one actually feels more like a soundtrack than Purple Rain, which is more like a concept album in its presentation. It has shorter instrumental tracks in between the main songs. Much like it's predecessor (AtWiaD), Parade is a very nice change of pace from Prince's earlier material and aside from the instrumental soundtrack pieces, it's quite sonically similar in a few ways too. The standout track here for me is really a no brainer, the closing piano ballad "Sometimes it Snows in April", which was one of the first Prince songs I ever heard. "Kiss" is also on this album, but all I can think of when I hear it is Happy Feet. I also doubt that the film this is the soundtrack too is particularly good, but hey, really can't knock the musical accompaniment. | | 10 |  | Prince
Sign o' the Times
Sign o' the Times was the culmination of a couple of different projects that he was working on at the time which were all aborted: Camille, Crystal Ball and Dream Factory. So they all just kinda turned into this. It's the first album after the dissolution of The Revolution. This is a definite contender for my favourite Prince album, I'd say it is by a small margin at this point. What really gives it the edge over Purple Rain is really the execution of all the different ideas over it's 80 minute running course (it's a double album, and probably the least satisfying looking double album I own). This is probably due to the fact that it's culled from the several different projects and then was further whittled down by label executives to the final 16 tracks. There aren't really any rock songs on this one, it's mostly that very distinctive brand of pop, funk and RnB that was Prince's forte. The tracks are spread so that there isn't one disc that's decidedly stronger than the other, and they | | 11 | | Prince
Sign o' the Times
aren't thematically connected or anything, so you can put either one on if you only feel like 40 minutes of it rather than all 80. Probably the most "out there" thing about this album is the Camille tracks, where Prince had his voice sped up to sound feminine, but are otherwise normal Prince songs. And while that probably sounds like it'd make for a rather grating experience, the Camille songs are actually some of the best cuts on this. "If I Was Your Girlfriend" definitely makes the best use of this concept, where Prince is singing from the perspective of a male lover trying to appeal to an ex-lover as a woman, presenting the proposition to her that if he were one of her girlfriends, would she have confided in him more. Overall, Sign o' the Times is very ambitious and well executed, "Starfish and Coffee" is probably the most charming song in his discography. | | 12 |  | Prince
Lovesexy
So Tidal really made this a chore. The album is set up as one suite instead of the tracks being separated. As I mentioned earlier, Tidal has an incredibly tough time streaming songs as is, and will sometimes just give up and freeze so that you have to refresh it. Well... when the song is an entire 45 minute album, Jay Z just fucking shits the bed and you have no chance of ever making it all the way through. Now, why the executive decision was made to upload this digitally as it appears in CD form, I have absolutely no idea, but the fact that the whole thing is one song is about the only major difference between this and previous works. There are good songs on this, "Alphabet Street" obviously is on here, so you know, but other than that, really not much to say here. Not exactly essential listening, not necessarily a bad album though, it does have good individual songs, but as a whole it's far from his strongest. | | 13 |  | Prince
Batman
Ahahaha so, I haven't seen this particular Batman film and I was expecting this to not be that good (cause the average is pretty low) but this is actually one of my favourites so far. It's just super fun to listen to, not sure what it sounds like set to the film, but on it's own it's just a really silly, fun album with a bit of a Batman theme. Not sure how much of an indication of the future sound this is gonna be for Prince, the furtherest ahead I've heard is Love Symbol and this doesn't really remind me of that, it kinda sits in it's own little isolated space in his discography. I actually quite like the ballads on this one, I don't find them particularly underwhelming, which seems to be a general consensus on this album. I like the length of the tracks, none of them are particularly long which is good because that's a problem some of Prince's albums have suffered from so far. | | 14 |  | Prince
Graffiti Bridge
Yeah this doesn't surprise me very much at all. Sitting at a very respectable 4.3 on IMDB, Graffiti Bridge seems like the kind of movie that managed to force its way to the final cut for want of not losing all the assets that had been sunk into it. Reflectively, the film's soundtrack has very little to say for itself despite running for nearly 70 minutes. Aside from the last minute smash-hit "Thieves in the Temple", which is a beautifully produced song, nothing much else stands out here. Pretty much just more of the same for Prince at this stage though without really building on any past explorations, rather sticking to a tried and true formula of uncomfortably sexual, in only the way Prince could manage to be, funk tracks. This could have been a much more respectable album with half the tracklist culled, but as it stands, it's far too long and probably wouldn't exist in this form if it weren't for the most-likely awful film it serves as the soundtrack to. | | 15 |  | Prince
Diamonds & Pearls
First album with The New Power Generation and we get a real new sense of direction here. This one really involves the whole band and there are a lot of parts where Prince's presence is barely felt at all. The ballads on this are fantastic, the title track is essential, as is the opening song. Diamonds & Pearls is generally a lot more funky than past efforts, lots of prominent bass and slapping snares. Prince also focuses on singing lower far more here. Great change of pace after Graffiti Bridge, Diamonds & Pearls actually justifies it's lengthy running time, which more fleshed out songs and a stronger cut of final tracks. | | 16 |  | Prince
O(+>
The second and final album with the New Power Generation and very much a continuation of Diamonds & Pearls, albeit not quite as strong. It's a lengthy concept album, the story and central themes of which are like... vaguely explained but not really by the short "segue" tracks. I think what happened was it was supposed to be way more fleshed out but it needed to be edited down cause it's way too fucking long and wouldn't have fit on a CD, but as it is now it's missing some parts that were important in explaining the story, so just think of it as an album I suppose. It's actually really good, slightly weaker than Diamonds & Pearls though which I must say I prefer. | | 17 |  | Prince
Come
Definitely the most experimental release so far. Darker, and faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar too sexual. The title track is an 11 minute self-indulgent sexual fantasy, not particularly impressive musically though. Texture-wise, it certainly stands out in Prince's discography, and there's some really good stuff in places, like "Solo" which isn't even touched by any of the other songs on here, but it really lacks any ambition to be fully realised and fucking minus 10 points for the last song literally just being 2 minutes of Vanity masturbating. | | 18 |  | Prince
The Black Album
Umm... So at this point, it's becoming very, very clear that two things are happening. The first thing is that Prince has been attempting to make the same album for some time now (I think nearly all of the material from around this era is from the same recording sessions) and the second thing being his sanity is slowly but surely deteriorating. And so's mine. The Black Album (an album originally supposed to come out back around Sign o' the Times, but shelved at the last minute and replaced with Lovesexy) was Prince's attempt to regain what he lost of his black audience with his change of direction into a more rock-oriented fusion around Purple Rain era. But of course by the time this was released, he'd already gone in a more funk/hip-hop oriented direction anyway, so this really isn't that spectacular. | | 19 |  | Prince
The Gold Experience
And so then Prince just comes back out of fucking nowhere with his best album since Sign o' the Times. Less of a departure from past sounds like The Black Album, Come or any of the NPG albums and more of an embrace of everything in the best way possible. Manages to remain engaging all the way through, unlike a lot of his other stuff this length. So many fantastic songs on this one, "Endorphinmachine", "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", "Dolphin", "I Hate U". I really didn't expect at this point in his career there to be any albums anywhere near this caliber still, but look at that. Guess it's only downhill from here though... :/ | | 20 |  | Prince
Chaos and Disorder
So, Chaos and Disorder is so far Prince's... sorry, O(+>'s least remarkable album. Cause, I honestly can't tell you that this is a bad album, but I can't really sell it to you either. You aren't missing anything if you decide to never listen to this album. It's just there and it sounds like anything else he's released. There are catchy parts, but they're just catchy and that's all there is to them. | |
Jasdevi087
10.18.16 | this is how i cope with heartbreak why am i like this | wtferrothorn
10.18.16 | I endorse this list. You've got a hell of a lot of material to go through man. | Jasdevi087
10.18.16 | yep, 39 albums I believe. I've already heard the 3 i mentioned in the description, so if I get 8ish out the way today, I should be able to manage an album a day and this should be relatively painless | CalculatingInfinity
10.18.16 | God damn good luck with this adventure, also lol Tidal. | Jasdevi087
10.18.16 | I probably should have counted on some of these being 70+ minutes lol. and Emancipation is a triple album too this is gonna suck | Jasdevi087
10.18.16 | goddamn character limit | TheSpaceMan
10.18.16 | Nice dude get to the black album (: | Jasdevi087
10.19.16 | had work after school today so only had time for one but my pace has to be increased in these first few days cause I lose some days this weekend and I need to account for the two triple albums coming up. | Bromero
10.19.16 | Good start! Sign O The Times is one of my favorites so be sure to get to that. Parade also has some awesome cuts | Jasdevi087
10.19.16 | I already own Sign O the Times | Minnesota
10.19.16 | sweet list, really can't wait for updates here | Jasdevi087
10.20.16 | Parade up, should get through a couple more today too, will do Sign O the Times in a bit too since I'm already well acquainted with it (it is currently by a small margin my favourite) | porcupinetheater
10.20.16 | Good choice, Man, Sign O the Times is positively premiere | Jasdevi087
10.20.16 | yeah Sign o' the Times needed two slots | Jasdevi087
10.20.16 | I think that'll be me for today and I'm gonna be unable to really jam any over this weekend cause I'll be going away, but i'll try.
| Jasdevi087
10.25.16 | back home now so time to crack back into this, amping to do Diamonds and Pearls | sheelanagig
11.07.16 | Hey,
You can't stop. Keep it up man!
I want to know where to Start with Prince | Jasdevi087
11.07.16 | Oh I'm still doing this, I'm just up to a couple of triple albums and this part of his discog is lol bad so enthusiasm is low, just taking a bit of a breather.
Start with Purple Rain/1999 and then try Sign o' the Times |
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