The boy and I have been listening to Prince on the morning school run. My collection stops at the Squiggle album (the one after Diamonds and Pearls).
Where do we go from here?
Received wisdom would suggest there’s a lot of tedious funk workouts during the TAFKAP years.
I’ve got everything. My faves from the 90s are Emancipation, Gold and the Crystal Ball comp. That’s about 7 discs worth of music! Then from the 21st century the 3121 album, One Night Alone and then the last 4, Art Official Age, the 3rdeyegirl album and the 2 hitnrun comps. For a pretty decent poppy Prince does funk the Newpower Soul album also gets a thumbs up.
These are the most consistent IMO, and the most Prince-like if you’re an 80s Prince fan. There are a lot of tracks spread out across the other albums, but on the whole the other albums themselves are just not as satisfying.
What Simon said. I’m just listening to Emancipation as I write(!). The Gold Experience in particular ranks with the best of his alleged imperial phase. I would also add a big shout for Planet Earth, for me a really strong pop album (indeed, it was ranked No1 pop album of 2007 by Rolling Stone, if that isn’t damning with faint praise). Crystal Ball is really deep-cut Prince and contains many great songs, and some really out there – I mean OUT THERE – stuff (‘Cloreen Bacon Skin’, I’m lookin’ at you!). Musicology is also worth investigation…hell, they all are! As always with Prince, there’s just so much that there is inevitably some (relative) chaff amongst the golden wheat. And a tip: if you investigate New Power Soul, don’t turn it off before the hidden track ‘Wasted Kisses’ – it’s the best song on the disc.
Forgot to say that Crystal Ball comes with an additional acoustic album, The Truth, which is fabulous.
How old is ‘the boy’?
In addition to all of the above, I love Chaos And Disorder. A great Rock album. Come is funky as funky can be, once you get past the watery noises.
I once started a thread on making Emancipation a double or single album. Everyone disagreed on the tracks that were keepers and the tracks that needed to be lost. I learnt that Emanciption has something for everyone.
He’s 10 pushing 11. At that age where any mention of you know, “doing it” makes him snigger. Just like his dad, then. Darling Nikki turned him bright pink.
We’re in the final term of being driven to school. As of September, he’ll go to big school on the bus. If nobody else dies in the next 3 months, we might have a run of classic albums ahead of us.
Well, Darling Nikki did him no harm, the whole of Come should fine. Perhaps, lose the last track where a young woman sounds as though she’s having an orgasm.
Also get hold of the 90s Hits Collection, the 3 disc set if you can track it down. The 3rd disc is b-sides from his 80s run mostly and it makes a fine album on its own. Centrepiece is Erotic City, possibly my favourite Prince song. A little rude as the title might suggest.
I have just listened to the first half of the new one, HITnRUN phase 2, and by golly it’s excellent.