Prince's best and worst studio album(s) ever?

Best: "Purple Rain." Historic albums don't always become smash hits, but this was one case where that happened. It's an exceptional album from start to finish. Although "Sign of the Times" was also excellent, its brilliance was diluted by its length. It was a sprawling, two-album epic that almost works perfectly. But the comparatively streamlined and to-the-point majestic rock of "Purple Rain" outshines it.

Worst: Anything released after 1991, except for the official release of "The Black Album" and "The Gold Experience.." Everything after the Symbol Album was more hubris than genius.

idk what the worst is but the best is probably sign o' the times

R1 you have no taste, several of his best albums were released in the 90s

Best: Dirty Mind. After blowing his 3-album budget on his first two LPs, he submitted the home demo of Dirty Mind to Warner Bros, and with a few over dubs, it became the album that captured him going from soft AM rock to punk. It’s a perfect album. Purple Rain is great, and so is 1999, but Dirty Mind changed the trajectory of his career forever. There’s no Purple Rain without Dirty Mind. Highly Recommended.

Worst: Anything after Diamonds & Pearls. It’s sad, he just lost the fire. Even Diamonds & Pearls was substandard. He built Paisley Park, and the music got incredibly self-indulgent and repetitive.

Best - Purple Rain

Worst - Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic

R3, so Dirty Mind would have been different had he not blown the 3 album budget on the first 2 albums and had some left for it? I wonder how it would have sounded. Did he ever say?

And what do you think of Controversy? Just wondering.

PR.

I wish all of his unreleased material from the 1970's and 1980's would be released.

My favorite - Dirty Mind

Least favorite - hmm, after Diamonds and Pearls, I don’t know much so I’ll say Lovesexy … even if that one has its moments I like.

Even his Musicology album that was his “comeback” album wasn’t that great IMO.

I wonder if the original Crystal Ball album will ever be released...

Purple Rain was a masterpiece

Hard choice between Purple Rain and 1999. 1999 really crystalized the minneapolis sound he'd been creating up to then, mix of regular instruments and drums with synths and drum machines. it's a double album so a lot more to take in but no real clunkers in there though a few go on too long (Int'l Lover).

Purple Rain is near perfect, you can listen to it all the way through over and over. I'm not as big a rock fan though and this was leaning more into the hybrid of funk and rock. BUt for most people, PR is probably #1.

agree that anything post Diamons and Pearls sucks. I don't even really like D&P or Lovesexy.

Don Diamont

[quote] I anticipate a few turbulence along the way

R13 I think you are in the wrong thread (?) but who is that hot guy?

[quote] I wish all of his unreleased material from the 1970's and 1980's would be released.

The "1999" Deluxe Edition has several unreleased tracks from that period (1982-1984) that are excellent

R14... R16 is correct. the 1999 Deluxe expanded version is like getting 2 whole new 80s era Prince albums. It aslo has a live pre-album version of International Lover with Prince on Piano and Morris Day on drums. it's great.

Oslo.

[quote] but who is that hot guy?

Soap opera actor Don Diamont.

[quote] Diamons and Pearls

Before swine.

I wish I would have bought the 1999 super deluxe cd set when it first came out for only $70-something. I would love to be able to have all of those unreleased songs and the concert DVD. Now it is way too expensive.

Love him best in the 70's and the 80's...

What do the 70 and 80 possess?

Fuck him. He hated gays and spoke out against marriage equality.

Sign Of The Times was his best. He released a lot of sub standard dross, but I have a hope that there is more brilliance still to be released from his archive.

I wish he and Michael Jackson would have collaborated

R23, where'd you hear that?

Well known homophobe

Not a homophobe

Anyone know what Michael Jackson's thoughts on homosexuality were? Just wondering.

1999.

Dirty Mind

I consider Prince’s major works to be the albums between Dirty Mind to the Symbol album. 1980-1994ish

Best: Sign of the Times (but Purple Rain and 1999 could certainly be there)

Worst: Graffiti Bridge. Technically, the Batman record was worse. But he was trying with Graffiti Bridge.

They need to release all of his early concerts for us all to watch...

I guess there are not very many Prince fans here

Prain

I don’t know what his worst album is. You’d have to be a die hard to have listened to all his albums.

I’m so glad everyone agrees about “Dirty Mind”. I think that’s his best album. Obviously “Purple Rain” is perfect but there’s something special about “Dirty Mind”.

I also love “Controversy”.

I'm waiting for his unreleased "God Hates Fags" album to come out.

Prince dealt with his own internalized homophobia

Prain

Just a friendly reminder, not that anyone has ignored this yet thus far in the comments, OP mentioned studio albums. His best live performances are in a whole other dimension, lol.

I always liked "Dirty Mind" and "1999" more than "Purple Rain". I think I'll go with "1999", it seems like a more monumental piece of work.

Like most of the rest of the public, I finally lost interest around the mid-90's, after "The Gold Experience" (which I consider his last really good, near-great album), and the Love Symbol album, which has its moments.

I remember buying a used copy of "Emancipation" and I think I listened to it once or twice at the most. Really disappointing and boring. And I got one of those free copies of "Musicology" when I went to see him live on that tour...a lot of critics were touting it as the best thing he'd done since his heyday...but again, I was just bored by the entire thing.

So for the worst, I think I'll have to go with "Emancipation".

I like his God hates the gays rant from the New Yorker magazine.

R5, sorry, never responded to your question about Dirty Mind.

I think the fact that he spent all of his three-LP budget on the first two LPs benefitted his new look and sound. He always said he wanted to become singer, not a black singer so when he realized his first two LPs were only making ripples in the R&B charts, he did a 180 and the demos for his third album had a sparse early-East Coast New Wave sound.

According to him, he wrote the majority of 'Dirty Mind' a few months after his second album debuted while he was on the road opening for Rick James. He said he hated that tour and resented that he had to play to an R&B crowd because his new sound was more new wave (and white) now, but 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' and 'Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?' were gaining traction on the R&B charts so he had to ride that wave out.

My guess is that if he had money to take the 'Dirty Mind' demos and flesh them out, the songs would probably sound over-produced and homogeneous. (That's what happened to his music when he built Paisley Park: He suddenly had unlimited resources and studio time so everything he recorded after 'Sign O’ The Times' sounds overindulgent and homogeneous. His first two LPs are over-produced, too. I think he's one of those artists who work best with deadlines. If he was able to sit with a song with no time constraints, he'd overwork it to death.)

Worst: Batman soundtrack. Never liked that boring, dumb Batdance single or its follow-up, Partyman.

Love song sucked

R42 go jump in a 🚽

Best: Sign “o” the Times

Worst: Emancipation

My favorite, but too prolific which was the source of the dispute with his record company

Best: everything from 1982-1992. Worst: everything post 1995.

Best - Dirty Mind or 1999. Worst - Chaos and Disorder. Best non-Prince Prince Album is The Family.

I think they all suck. Never got the appeal.

The Batman soundtrack isn't all bad. "The Future" is a great song, and "Vicki Waiting" is bittersweet. I love that lyric "You see when crime is your only love, all that matters is the present, the here and now."

I don't think I could pick a best or even worst. I have (I think) all his releases, official and unofficial, and there is just so much. Everyone has hit on the best stuff--Purple Rain, Sign O The Times, Dirty Mind, etc. I think Parade is really underrated--some great songs on a soundtrack to a terrible movie. Around The World In A Day also has some weird but wonderful songs--"Condition of the Heart" is equal parts bizarre and beautiful.

And count me in as appreciating the stripped down demo feel of Dirty Mind. It works perfectly for the subject content of the songs, and it's so perfectly 1980.

If I had to pick a worst album, I'd say Come. I think it was the last release for his WB contract and you could just tell he was over it. With his other lesser albums, he still seems to care and be passionate about what he's doing, but Come feels like a throwaway.

R51 nobody asked your ugly ass

Actually, R53, the OP did. It’s my opinion. They’re all “worst”. So eat shit.

Prince sucked. The loser died in an elevator in his own studio!

I gotta unfollow anyone who doesn't like at least one Prince song. Au revoir, R51. See you in hell.

R54 go fuck your Madonna

Best: Lovesexy - He was very inspired during this period, which was underscored by the incredible tour. I loved his look during this era, too. And don't get me started on the band. The album sounds thick, layered, and lush, yet funky and fervent. He'd had some kind of spiritual epiphany before he decided to shelve The Black Album and record Lovesexy, and whether you wanted to go down that road with him or not, it made for a highly intriguing artistic statement.

Worst: MPLSound - The gimmick of this album was him going back to his 80s roots, using the old drum machines and synths, but nothing about it sounded genuine. There were a couple of high points for me, like Ol Skool Company and to a lesser extent, Dance 4 Me. No More Candy 4 U sounds like it could have been on Controversy. But it mostly felt cheap, especially as it was packaged with another album called LOTUSFLOW3R, which is vastly superior in every way. Hell, even the protégé album by Bria Valente, Elixer, which was also packaged with the other two albums sounds better than MPLSound.

[quote]I wonder if the original Crystal Ball album will ever be released...

All of the songs from it have now been officially released, so it would seem unlikely. I think it could be a cool RSD release.

[quote] Worst: MPLSound - The gimmick of this album was him going back to his 80s roots, using the old drum machines and synths, but nothing about it sounded genuine. There were a couple of high points for me, like Ol Skool Company and to a lesser extent, Dance 4 Me. No More Candy 4 U sounds like it could have been on Controversy. But it mostly felt cheap, especially as it was packaged with another album called LOTUSFLOW3R, which is vastly superior in every way.

R58 I think I may be the only person but I enjoyed MPLSound more than LOTUS. 'Dance 4 Me' is one of my favourite stripped-back midtempo cuts Prince ever did. And ('There'll Never B) Another Like Me' is a hard funky slap in the face of that high-octane confident pop strut we all love from His Purpleness.

[quote] The Batman soundtrack isn't all bad. "The Future" is a great song, and "Vicki Waiting" is bittersweet. I love that lyric "You see when crime is your only love, all that matters is the present, the here and now."

As a little kid I was mesmerised by 'Partyman'. It was the first time I'd ever seen or heard Prince, or anyone that impossibly cool and bright and glam, someone who just didn't give one single fuck. It was amazing. I'm sure that Batman movie was a gateway for a lot of kids who otherwise wouldn't have seen him.

R32 lol i fucking love Graffiti Bridge. used to force my college housemates to watch it with me when i was drunk. defo a guilty pleasure.

The secret, most underrated, and best later period album that sadly almost no-one liked and heard: PLANET EARTH.

It's so good and so slept on, fight me. It's a ten song record and there's only two mediocre-bad cuts on it ('Resolution' and 'The One U Wanna C').

[quote]The secret, most underrated, and best later period album that sadly almost no-one liked and heard: PLANET EARTH.

Just started playing that one again lately, and you're right, extremely underrated. Much better than I remembered it.

^What's crazy (and bear in mind, I'm talking about the last few years before ubiquitous free streaming of music took over), PLANET EARTH was a literal free physical record, or at least it was in the U.K. I got the full CD in my hands as a free supplement tucked inside a tabloid newspaper (can't remember which one anymore, maybe The Daily Mail? That I'd never have bought otherwise...). And that record coming into my life prompted me into buying and streaming tons more music. So P knew what he was doing, ahead of the curve as usual ;)

Does anyone own the 'Welcome 2 America' Blu-ray package? It archives the titular shelved record over two LPs, as well as taped live shows for the tour.

Am considering getting it, based purely on my enjoyment of this clip, taken from Prince's appearance at an early-2011 benefit show played for the Forum (one of the '21 Nite Stand' shows in L.A., NY, NJ and the Carolinas), of a *third* encore playout. Yes, *third*. This incarnation of the NPG band at the time were on fire and looked fresh, personnel including: the late great John Blackwell on drums; Cassandra O'Neal & Morris Hayes on keys; Liv Warfield, Shelby J. & Elisa Dease on vocals, with the adorable McClean twins dancing backup, and; Ida Nielsen on bass.

The stripped down, chilled, almost normcore look of these shows feel cathartic for Prince to have done--as if he was relaxing and finding his old self again in the early 2010s, after a weird tense Millennium decade where he was like a man out of time. Though I'm a Prince fan, tbh I have not delved so deep into the final decade of his work; back then because I had a lot of heaviness going on in my own life that took me away from the leisure and pleasure of being a fan, and since because (Mary! at will) until recently I felt his loss too keenly to catch up. I think it's been long enough since he died, though, and perhaps this post-COVID world is the perfect moment to reappraise the last two eras of Prince, 2010-2015 (technically, 2012-death is considered the last one, the 3rdEyeGirl years).

I called SOTT my favorite up thread but I should mention that Lovesexy, from start to finish, on quality headphones, with the volume up loud, is a fun way to spend some time. Even better if you’re driving down the highway alone at night.

I really like Come and Batman and Graffiti Bridge and there are even a few gems on Chaos and Disorder. I’ll re-visit Planet Earth.

read R53 in Morris Day's voice

[quote]Does anyone own the 'Welcome 2 America' Blu-ray package?

Yes. And definitely get it. I watch that clip you posted all of the fucking time and it never gets old. The rest of the concert is brilliant as well. And I think the Welcome 2 America album is highly enjoyable.

R1 agree with you on 'The Black Album', but how come you rate 'The Gold Experience' highly? I've never found anything much to appreciate about it, besides the song 'Endorphinmachine' which is likeable and sexy and groovy enough for my tastes. And I did not understand the 'NPG Operator #' nonsense at all.

My Fraulein non-fan sister loves 'The Most Beautiful Girl in the World', though, so I think that song had commercial popular appeal. It's a big choice for weddings even to this day, I remember reading that somewhere. Maybe Prince was going for a schmaltzy ballad hit with that.

have been stim-playing 'THE GOLD STANDARD' all day what is wrong with me lol

seriously though, ART OFFICIAL AGE is better than i remember it being too. i felt let down by it at the time, but now i get what Prince was trying to do, update his sound and incorporate more d&b beats and club-friendly sounds. it works, it was just a departure too far for some.

Also just discovered the Peach & Black Podcast, it's really comprehensive and full of in-depth dives, and the archive goes back for years so there's plenty of content. The hosts even managed to interview Prince himself a few times in the years before his death.

Anything he did post becoming a Jehovah's Witness was more or less shit. He was hooked on Oxy's and became too preachy. His NPGMusicClub was a total mess.

Prince was amazing. He was still an incredible performer with a vast catalog but I maintain his late work is not good. They fit all this good later songs on one release after his death. That's Anthology: 1995-2010. Please feel free and correct me. Tell me there's tracks worth hearing from 1995-2015 that aren't on that.

He tried to reboot and "come back" a few times with not great results. Still, a genius to the end.

Best: SIgn of the Times Worst: Lovesexy

Prince? PLEASE.

You know what we're talkin' about. Cut 'em, Jesse....

[quote]They fit all this good later songs on one release after his death. That's Anthology: 1995-2010. Please feel free and correct me. Tell me there's tracks worth hearing from 1995-2015 that aren't on that.

There are too many to list. In fact, that lazy posthumous anthology has many inclusions that I wouldn't agree with. But that's the beauty of being a Prince fan. He was so diverse that it's not easy to come to a consensus on what "the best" is. See the endless threads on Prince.org about which songs should be on a single disc version of Emancipation.

Another vote for Dirty Mind as his best album.

My favorite single of his is Erotic City. (Was that ever on a studio album, or was it just a B-side to a single?)

My least favorite of his singles is a tie between Bat Dance and My Name is Prince.

When Doves Cry has not aged well, but I Wanna Be Your Lover sounds better than ever.

Prince created a ton of great material. But he does have a few duds in his catalog.

Overall, he is one of the all-time greats.

And he had a sexy body.