POLL-demonium: The Prince Protégés

Never heard the Madhouse album. Should I? anyone?

First Madhouse album is pretty dated sounding. Kind of cool because Prince plays keys throughout but definitely a product of its time.

The Family but no St. Paul?

Not that anyone would vote for St. Paul or even The Family.

Voted Sheila E. I like the Time but as stupid as they can get, I always go back to the Vanity 6, Appolonia 6, and The Family albums. "Happy Birthday Mr. Christian" and the orig "Nothing Compares 2 U" are great.

I love how DAF the Susan songs are!

"they" = the latter albums, not The Time. Antecedents antecedents.

WHeRE'S ANDRÉ CYMONE

http://ickmusic.com/pics/ac.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Extra bonus points for Jill Jones: covering a Sister Lovers track. Kinda unexpected, I think.

i need to hear a full wendy and lisa album one day. lolly lolly and waterfalls were pretty great though. out of these, there were some real duds i got duped into buying. but the quality of the protege work basically parallels his own stuff. so the 80s>>>90s proteges.

who was it that turned KISS down?

mazarati did it first. prince did his version after.

I think the story is that "Kiss" was originally a rough, acoustic demo Prince had written. He didn't think he was gonna record it himself, so he gave it to Mazarati. Then Mazarati and David Z worked it into a minimalist funk piece. When Prince heard this version of "Kiss", he realized it was so good he wanted to release it himself, so he took the song back from Mazarati, remixed the backing track they'd done and recorded his vocals and guitar on top of it. Mazarati got an arranging credit on Prince's version, but I've read some interview where David Z complains about not getting a production credit on the song, even though he feels he was responsible for turning the demo into the sort of stripped-down funk piece it became. Which I think is a fair enough point: the minimalist sound is what makes "Kiss" so great, as a composition it's not that remarkable.

I noticed the extensive credits for everything on "Parade" where Prince is credited for every singular thing he did, and somewhere in the middle the "Kiss" credits are swamped (but realistic)...

Hmm, seems I misremembered the credit on Parade, it actually says "'Kiss' arranged by David Z, background voices by Mazarati". But I don't think it's "swamped" in the middle, it's the third credit after "Prince and the Revolution" and "Clare Fischer".

I think Prince's relationship with credits has always been kinda weird. On one hand, on many of his proteges' albums they're given credit for songs Prince actually wrote himself, and on The Revolution and The New Power Generation albums the band is always given credit for the full album, even though some of the songs on them were written and performed by Prince alone. But on the other hand, there are also several stories of Prince claiming sole credit for tunes other contributed to. The "Kiss" story is the best known of these, but I think Andre Cymone too has claimed that he never got full credit for his contributions to the music they did while he was part of Prince's band.

I had (have) the Cassette version.

"the minimalist sound is what makes "Kiss" so great, as a composition it's not that remarkable."

also why it never sounds that great live.

best version i think ive heard is the lovesexy one. but even then something gets lost cos the song is all about the production.

This poll needs more Andre Cymone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KER_tfyVehY

Jesse Johnson anyone?

Jesse Johnson got Sly Stone to sing on a track during a time when nobody could get Sly to sing on anything

that has to count for something

"Crazay"! Not a bad song.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

is there a thread on the time? what is their best album?

Paging EZ Snappin to thread who is by far the go to Time expert afaik

Ice Cream Castles is the best one

Crazy talk. The first two are the best.

They both have that lean basement funk production that was part of all Prince's late '70s/early '80s productions. By comparison ICC is a bit more produced and a lot of the charm is gone.

Yeah i prefer the broadened sonic palette

I have been told that the answer is "what time is it?"

no, that is the question.

Madhouse ROBBED in this poll. Both albums are great.

Would have voted for The Time without hesitation!

oh wee oh wee oh

Mazerati was robbed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA4tiO6YpbA