Just when critics, and even some devoted fans, thought that the artist still generally known as Prince didn't have another hit single in him, along came "The Most Beautiful...
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Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in 1993, but it wasn't until 1995 that he actually released a record credited to that symbol. During those two years, he...
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Crystal Ball 3/3/1998, Yahoo! Music, Steven Benaquist
Prince is back. His monumental four-disc album, Crystal Ball, is a more diverse and stunning album than he's released in years. For fans that have lost interest in the...
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As any die-hard fan knows, Crystal Ball was the triple-album set Prince had planned to release in 1987, when Warner forced him to trim it to the double album Sign O' the...
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At last, the image and the music meshed and a musical genius materialized. The double album produced several stellar singles, such as the title track, which became a dance...
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With Dirty Mind, Prince had established a wild fusion of funk, rock, new wave, and soul that signaled he was an original, maverick talent, but it failed to win him a large...
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Like Come before it, Chaos and Disorder is a contractual obligation album for Prince, a way to get himself out of his contract with Warner Brothers. Unlike Come, Chaos and...
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Billed as "nine songs inspired by the motion picture," the album did extremely well thanks in large part to the success of the Tim Burton-directed film. "Batdance" is an...
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Prince had stumbled commercially with Lovesexy, which may be one of the reasons he decided to record the soundtrack for Tim Burton's dark, gothic interpretation of the DC...
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"Batdance" was rendered a lot more interesting and entertaining via remixes masterminded by Mark Moore and William Orbit. "200 Balloons" is a straightforward B-side,...
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Controversy continues in the same vein of new wave-tinged funk on Dirty Mind, emphasizing Prince's fascination with synthesizers and synthesizing disparate pop music genres....
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Becoming the music in a sense, Prince took the idea of stripping down his music to his persona and began getting closer and closer to baring more than his soul on stage (as...
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Neither For You nor Prince was adequate preparation for the full-blown masterpiece of Prince's third album, Dirty Mind. Recorded in his home studio, with Prince playing...
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Although Prince overextended himself on his first release For You, the record was a glimpse into an intriguing mind preoccupied with sex 'n' funk 'n' roll. A controlling...
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On his debut album, For You, Prince shows exceptional skill for arranging and performing mainstream urban R&B and funk, but his songwriting remains conventional. Only on the...
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A great two-in-one cassette featuring two of Prince's finest, most eclectic and superbly performed albums. Dirty Mind and Controversy had fine message tracks, seamlessly...
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Prince entered the '90s with limping funk; sales of Graffiti Bridge, the album which accompanied the failed release of the same-name Prince film, were high in Europe, but...
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Prince was shooting for the top of the charts with Graffiti Bridge, and he missed. The movie was a disaster, causing the soundtrack to sell very poorly. Despite its poor...
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A dance structured album with more complex songs, Lovesexy received more attention for the cover, a naked-yet-discreet photo of Prince, than the music. But, like the...
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Expanding the urban R&B and funk approach of his debut, Prince is a considerably more accomplished record than his first effort, featuring the first signs of his...
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A double album with a new backing band that produced only a couple of minor hits, including the duet with Sheena Easton, "U Got The Look." Mixing media again, Prince...
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While it isn't a truly comprehensive set, Prince's singles collection does contain most of his biggest hits. The two volumes are available separately or packaged together...
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Originally scheduled for release in November of 1987 -- following the double-album Sign o' the Times by a matter of months -- Prince pulled The Black Album weeks before its...
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Like Hits 1, Hits 2 presents a cross section of some of Prince's biggest hits and most notorious songs, including "Dirty Mind," "I Wanna Be Your Lover," "Head," "Delirious,"...
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Prince's last album under his name; shortly after The Symbol Album, Prince changed his name to the unpronounceable doohickey gracing the cover of this 1992 release....
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His Royal Badness was back with sexually-explicit hits ("Gett Off," "Cream") and a cohesive, energetic album, Diamonds And Pearls. While his bragging of 23 different...
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Prince spent the latter half of the '80s courting the pop audience, and by the time of Graffiti Bridge, he had lost much of his R&B fan base. As a response, he formed the...
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The New Power Generation is the most talented and versatile band Prince has ever fronted, and they fulfill their potential on The Love Symbol Album. Although the NPG...
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Music from the flop movie Under The Cherry Moon, Parade results in one worthy track, "Kiss." Although the band didn't have much to do with the funky tunes, this would be the...
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Massive success was released with the soundtrack to Prince's film Purple Rain, in which he "acted" in a role that was essentially himself, and made him one of the biggest...
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Venturing into this '60s, paisley, free love, psychedelic journey, listeners are left wondering if His Purple Highness has been sniffing purple pens (actually, he was...
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Purple Rain made Prince sound like he could do anything, but it still didn't prepare even his most fervent fans for the insular psychedelia of Around the World in a Day....
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Upon leaving Warner Brothers in 1996, Prince agreed to let the label release a collection of unreleased recordings from his legendary prodigious vaults at some point in the...
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Clive Davis convinced Prince to record a star-studded comeback album for Arista in 1999 -- much like how he coaxed Prince's idol Carlos Santana to revive his career with...
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Emancipation was a critical moment for Prince, one that he designed as an artistic rebirth and, optimistically, as a commercial comeback. In a typically perverse fashion,...
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Even geniuses (maybe especially geniuses) are taken for granted, not seen as geniuses, or only appreciated in small doses. Which is a grandiose way of saying that, no matter...
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How long has Prince been artistically MIA? If you (generously) date his decline to the years following 1991’s Diamonds And Pearls, he’s been bafflingly mediocre as long as...
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Prince's star faded not long after he won emancipation from Warner Brothers in 1995, as he abandoned the mainstream so he could follow his whims however he liked. Which...
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