new introductory bit here.
This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Rock the Casbah," which is not new.
note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.
Arguably the most prolific major label artist of the last twenty years, Prince has left behind a massive catalog and shows no signs of slowing. That most of it is so damn good is astonishing, and evidence of his considerable genius.
Prince had to wade through a lot of inferior albums, however, before finding a good band to stretch out with but who would also rein in some of his excesses. His first three albums, from 1978-80, contain little of interest beyond sexually explicit funk. 1981's Controversy showed some of the bombast being controlled by an increasingly tight band, which evolved into the Revolution.
The four albums released by Prince and the Revolution between 1983-1986 are all remarkable, and the best of his career. Purple Rain, one of '84's best albums, contains the hits "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" and is played and produced brilliantly. Prince ascended to the rock royalty in due course, racking up nine top 10 US hits in this period, scandalizing and thrilling the US media with his studies of everything from sex to religion in a variety of styles. 1985's "Raspberry Beret" will still be called a classic single fifty years from now, and 1986's "Kiss" was so overt that only a thumping cover by Tom Jones could possibly equal it. "Mountains," from their last set Parade, was a wonderful finale of four excellent years of pop funk.
Not resting on his laurels, Prince issued the double Sign O the Times (containing the breathtaking "U Got the Look") within nine months of breaking up the Revolution, and recording the so-called "black album" later in 1987. It is probably at this point that Prince got a little too weird for mainstream America. Prince withdrew the kinky and overt black album and explained he was under the influence of an evil other self named Spooky Electric when he recorded it, and issued the positive and romantic Lovesexy instead. Lovesexy is programmed as a single CD track, forcing listeners to hear his ramble about love, God and heaven in the order he decided. This is very bass-heavy and considerably more romantic in tone than what he is known for. "When 2 R in Love" and "I Wish U Heaven" are wonderful. Notable guests on the album include Sheila E. and Ingrid Chavez. The black album instantly became the most bootlegged album of all time, and was finally issued in a limited edition six years later.
The summer of 1989 saw Prince at #1 again with "Batdance," the heavily-sampled and mostly instrumental theme from his Batman soundtrack album, which generated two more top 40 hits. The following summer, he was in the top 10 again with the soundtrack to his Graffiti Bridge, a film not many people saw and fewer liked. The music was superior to the movie, although giving space on the album to inferior tracks by the Time and Tevin Campbell didn't go over well with all listeners.
The 90s were commercially successful for Prince, even while his credibility took a hammering for his more bizarre outfits, and painting the word SLAVE on his face since he was unhappy with his Warners contract, and changing his name to that symbol in 1992. 1991's Diamonds and Pearls was very well received and spawned two top 5s. An untitled album followed in 1992, and a three-disc compilation in 1993. Come, which attempted to bury his past persona, and the black album were released in 1994, The Gold Experience in 1995, and his final Warners-controlled product, Chaos and Disorder, in 1996. At year's end, freed from his contract, he issued the triple-CD Emancipation, followed soon by New Power Soul. A quadruple-set, Crystal Ball, followed in 1998, by which time he was still using the unpronouncable symbol but referring to himself as "the Artist." Ball featured three discs of previously unreleased material along with one disc of new work. Later that year, Warners issued The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, comprising even more unreleased material. Most of this product took him as far out into funk experimentation as he could go, but the lack of radio and MTV support, coupled with the very high prices for the multi-disc sets, meant staggered returns.
Signed to Arista, the Artist grounded himself for something far more commercial in 1999 with the fabulous RAVE un2 the Joy fantastic and then watched as Arista failed to convince radio and the public that this was a proper Prince album, not one of his seven hour weird things. The Artist had turned a lot of fans off for most of the 90s, but this is a respectable, believable comeback. His guests include Sheryl Crow, Chuck D., Ani DiFranco, Maceo Parker and Gwen Stefani. "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold" and his cover of "Every Day is a Winding Road" (which doesn't feature Crow, she's on a different song) should have been massive on commercial top 40, and "Hot Wit U" should have ruled what they call the "urban" stations. "eye love U, but eye don't trust U anymore" is one of the saddest breakup songs I've ever heard.
The Artist was abmormally quiet on the music front in 2000, and virtually silent save his displeasure with his new label. A lengthy tour, and an album called The Rainbow Children, emerged in 2001.