Rank Prince Albums:

Batman, TGE abd Come above Parade is dunderheaded madness.

I wouldn't say that, more that it's the case that those three albums are far likelier to make it onto my stereo over Parade, which I still like.

omitting records I still haven't heard (rave un2) or can't remember (planet earth beyond "chelsea rogers" and "guitar"

parade
sign o the times
1999
dirty mind
purple rain
lovesexy
the gold experience
come
the truth
the love symbol album
around the world in a day
controversy
prince
emancipation
3121
black album
the rainbow children
batman
art official age
musicology
chaos and disorder
for you
diamonds and pearls
graffiti bridge
lotus flower/mplsound

I did this on here in 2010. My list would be quite different now.

1. Dirty Mind
2. Parade
3. Purple Rain
4. Sign "O" The Times
5. 1999
6. Controversy
7. Prince
8. The Gold Experience
9. Around The World In A Day
10. Lovesexy
11. Musicology
12. Come
13. The Love Symbol Album
14. The Black Album
15. For You
16. Diamonds & Pearls
17. HitNRun Phase Two
18. Lotusflo3er
19. Planet Earth
20. 3121
21. Graffiti Bridge
22. Art Official Age
23. The Rainbow Children
24. Batman
25. 20Ten
26. Emancipation
27. HitNRun Phase One
28. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic
29. Chaos & Disorder
30. N.E.W.S

Nineties edition

Christgau's overview is pretty good, though he seems to skip a few towards the end - can't blame him because it gets dire.

It's too tough to simply rank Prince's albums because too many of them in the second half of his career are basically a single or an EP of keepers buried in chaff

How I'd break them down using Christgau's grading system:

For You - ("For You," "Soft and Wet") *
Prince - A
Dirty Mind - A+
Controversy - A
1999 - A
Piano and a Microphone 1983 - choice cut: "Mary Don't You Weep"
Purple Rain - A+
Around the World in a Day - B+
Parade - A
Sign o' the Times - A+
The Black Album - A
Lovesexy - A-
Batman - B+
Graffiti Bridge - B
Diamonds and Pearls - B+
The Symbol Album - A-
Come - choice cut: "Loose!"
The Gold Experience - A
Chaos and Disorder - B+
Emancipation - A-
Crystal Ball (1997) - B+
The Truth - B+
Newpower Soul - choice cut: "Wasted Kisses"
Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic - choice cuts: "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold," "Baby Knows," "Prettyman"
The Rainbow Children - choice cuts: "The Work," "She Loves Me 4 Me"
One Nite Alone - choice cut: "A Case of U"
One Nite Alone...Live! - B+
Musicology - B+
3121 - B+
Planet Earth - choice cuts: "The One U Wanna C," "Guitar," "Chelsea Rodgers"
Lotusflow3r - choice cuts: "Colonized Mind," "Feel Better, Feel Good, Feel Wonderful," "$"
MPLSound - choice cuts: "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me," "Chocolate Box," "Dance 4 Me"
Elixer - Dud
20Ten - choice cuts: "Future Soul Song," "Laydown"
Plectrumelectrum - Dud
Art Official Age - B+
Hit n Run Phase One - choice cuts: "1000's of X's & O's," "June"
Hit n Run Phase Two - B+
Originals - A-

We are mostly on the same page. Parade is an A+, Come is a B+ and there needs to be more space between HnR pt 2 which is a strong finale and AOI which is kinda lame (think I’d give the latter a C)

I love "Parade" so I don't want to knock it to explain why it wasn't an A+. If the great B-side "♥ Or $" had replaced one of my less favorite tracks, I might've considered it. I never got into "Come," a lot of it just didn't work for me, but I know other Prince fans who love it. "Art Official Age" is underrated, I actually gave up on Prince by that point, but two glowing reviews - in the New Yorker and from Greg Kot in the Tribune - piqued my curiosity, especially when others were kind of down on it. I think the most common dismissal I heard was that it was Prince doing Janelle Monáe, and to an extent they're right - Prince saw how she used sci-fi concepts to explore the personal. But while he took that approach from her work, it was remarkable to hear how raw and exposed some of the lyrics were. There is plenty of levity, but on the more personal cuts like "Way Back Home" and the final affirmation, I think we got the clearest glimpse of how Prince really saw himself. Musically, this is where Prince really started to sound like an older man to me, but it works in his favor - the hint of fragility creeping into his singing gives the material more weight. So in a lot of ways, I think it's actually a key album if you want to understand Prince himself, and a B+ doesn't feel too generous in that respect.

I admit that the timbres themselves put me off AOI... it just sounds so incredibly DAW-y, with some weird stereo widener plugin sapping the color out of everything

I should try it another time though, sometimes these gustatory issues just disappear

I played every album from Prince to Lovesexy today with the caveat that Around the World in a Day was a different sequence I pieced together (per Questlove's suggestion in his epic album-by-album review of Prince's catalog into the '90s). It's pretty awesome to hear them back-to-back in order - his talents and what he was capable of seem to expand and grow with each release. This was even true for The Black Album which I put on after Sign 'O' the Times - for some reason it played even better at the tail end of this run. (Even the jokey anti-rap sentiments were smoothed over by the hard, lean music accompanying them.) Every single album up to this point came off great, but unfortunately that seemed to end with Lovesexy. I liked it enough to rate it an A- upthread, but after hearing it in this context, I can definitely see why detractors are down on it and why Questlove and Alan Leeds said this marked the end of his peak years. Every other album seemed to add up to something greater than the sum of its parts, and there was a forward momentum that ran through each one. That wasn't the case here - there are some great moments, and the musicianship is never less than first-rate, but it's lacking a coherent vision that either brings everything together or takes it all to another level. The "weakest" stretches are still enjoyable, but they feel like they're missing something. Unlike Questlove, I think Prince rights the ship later on, but I get the impression Prince simply had few worthy ideas during these few years and more or less relied on his talents to make listenable but lightweight music.

FWIW, Around the World in a Day was this - each addition was a B-side to a single, and I used the full-length 12" mixes in each case. "Hello" is a cheat because it was recorded after the album came out, but otherwise this was a solid A to me:

Side A:
1. Around the World in a Day
2. Paisley Park
3. Girl
4. Raspberry Beret
5. She's Always in My Hair

Side B:
6. America
7. Hello
8. Pop Life
9. Condition of the Heart

Man I love the 12” of paisley park

I'm going to create this sequence with the 12" mixes for myself. I assume/hope you're using the 9:07 Extended Version of Pop Life, and not one of the US remixes.

I meant the 12" versions of the B-sides - that was enough to bring the album to a full LP length, so I didn't want to go beyond that, but if you want to turn the album into a double, using ALL 12" mixes would definitely do it.

It's true that "Girl" and "She's Always in My Hair" are better than most of what made the LP; I'd have to include "The Ladder" in there somewhere.

I never liked "The Ladder" but to be fair, it's a tough track to cut - it's the center of the entire gatefold cover! I guess you could drop "Hello" to make room for "The Ladder." I have to concede there's no way "Hello" would've made it, not unless they delayed the album by a few months.

"Temptation" is his first lousy song.

xp I'd make room for "Tamborine" but that is definitely a superior version of the album you've assembled

I'd be happy to eliminate Tamborine, Temptation, and The Ladder from the album. They're all fairly unnecessary and minimally enjoyable.

Tamborine >>>>>>>>>

Is the Questlove reviews online anywhere anymore

"Tambourine" is the best album track.

like if Joni Mitchell played drums

Questlove's review:

Ok. i know reviews are subjective but i think I’m right when i say the only place to go after you sell 16 million units is…..”that a way”, prince’s muses’ wendy and lisa (see “computer blue” on PR) hipped him to the Beatles. and he presented a “see i can do that too” kinda head scratcher. as a die hard i was along for the ride but many got off of the trip with this album. when it came out: @@@1/2 (many head scratched, thought he was going hippie—hello De La) how does it hold up 30 years later? @@@@1/2 some say he turnt his back on the funk. i say he turned his front on his mind. a potpourri of sound and experiments. this caused concern but really? had he closed the album on anything BUT “Temptation” idda been with giving him a @@@@@. 82-87 was his most prolific in terms of songwriting and volume and Quality. over 300 songs made during this period. and 60 percent of em were life changing. “Condition Of The Heart” is as devastating now as it was 30 years ago. also worth fishing for are the B-sides from this era…some of my favorites “she’s always in my hair,” “hello” & his trippy “Girl”.

Here's a link to the cached webpage: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Np0Tdw4paOAJ:https://www.okayplayer.com/originals/questlove-prince-warner-bros-album-guide.html/3+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

still only a little part of it

Link rot on a piece that's like 4 years old, smh

I'd consider these his worst songs imo.

Stopping at 2001 is merciful, because ugh....

Was listening to Lovesexy yesterday. It’s been broken up into its component songs on streaming services.

Was it ever broken up on the U.S. CD? I know overseas it was. For some reason it was only available via import when Prince died, and the European pressing I got had the tracks separated.

I think it was always one track on CD in the US. I had it on cassette anyway. It was split into two sides.

It's supposed to be one song, like "Thick As a Brick".

I'm not saying it's the best, but Parade is the one I'm most likely to listen to today

honestly there are a lot of "Rank Prince Albums" out there

I'm not saying it's the best, but Parade is the one I'm most likely to listen to today

It's one of my very favorite Prince albums. It gets plenty of love now, but I was taken aback by how underrated it was back in the day. It underperformed for an '80s Prince album in the Pazz & Jop poll (at #25, only Around the World in a Day and the Batman soundtrack did worse, everything else from Prince to Graffiti Bridge placed in the top ten), Trouser Press hated most of it and The Rolling Stone Album Guide hated it in the 1992 edition before reversing itself (with a different critic) in the 2004 edition. Maybe that was due to the poorly received film - it didn't have much of the soundtrack in it, but the association alone may have predisposed music critics against the album.

I'm not saying it's the best, but Parade is the one I'm most likely to listen to today

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

This and Controversy.

parade is probably in my top three prince albums. does everyone just forget that it's the one with "kiss" on it???

Sometimes It Snows in April is my jam

I haven't listened to it since it was new; I remember "Kiss" being so much better than everything else that the whole rest of the album felt like filler. (The fact that half the songs are under three minutes long didn't help with that impression.)

quality over quantity. you should revisit; it's a very dense album with tons of things going on. even though it's way better overall, sign o the times seems needlessly lengthy in comparison.

neanderthal otm, per usual. probably p's best ballad.

Parade is one of my favorites as well. The only track i’ve never warmed to is Anotherloverholeinyourhead. Mountains and Boys & Girls are fabulous.

Yeah, I discovered "Sometimes It Snows in April" via Rock Lists. It was high up on the list of Prince's best songs, and I didn't it at all (or the album beyond "Kiss"). Great, great song, it's damn sad it took Prince's death to elevate in beyond "deep cut" status. Even before D'Angelo performed it as his tribute, I played the shit out of that song.

I actually love "Anotherloverholenyohead," excellent cut. I should add Parade had great 12" singles. The 12" mixes, especially for "Mountains," were all great, and best of all was the full-length "♥ Or $" (which again I discovered via Rock Lists - it stood out because I think it was the one B-side they listed that wasn't on the The Hits/B-Sides which were my first Prince CD's). I wish "♥ Or $" had made the album, but it's still a great album.

agh, mistakes all over the place

cut/paste error
*I didn't know it at all

typo
*elevate it beyond

also upthread:
everything else from Dirty Mind to Graffiti Bridge placed in the top ten

Yeah Parade is amazing, probably the most ornate/baroque of his classic run with Clare Fischer’s arrangements. I think the psychedelic stuff is better executed than on Around the World too, especially on “Mountains” and “Life Can Be So Nice.” The only bum track for me is “Girls and Boys” which seems to be much loved but has always annoyed the crap out of me and goes on way too long

"Anotherloverholenyohead" is a marvelous album track and a failure as a single.

Let's give Wendy and Lisa considerable credit for "...April."

and another error - Lovesexy made #17 and The Black Album made #20 on the same P&J poll in 1988

Let's give Wendy and Lisa considerable credit for "...April."

Yes, absolutely. Does Wendy play the acoustic guitar on that track? I love how you can hear all the squeaks on the strings, and also the beat that precedes that first strum through the final chorus - it's right after the saddest part, and it's like the guitar kicks up the tempo because it's time to move on, not just with the song but with life.

How much of Sign 'O' the Times had input from Wendy & Lisa? I know Prince is credited with recording it all, but weren't a lot of those songs worked on before he disbanded the Revolution?

Believe so, but don’t remember for sure.

They wrote much of the music and arrangement for "April" and the airier psychedelic numbers

"Girls and Boys" is such an amazing song

has there ever been a poll of prince's 80s b-sides?