@Homerboy,
Prince pretty much did everything himself; that's why it sounds different than most musicians, during the creative process you get input from your fellow band members.
Sure Purple Rain was good, but even on that album there's much stuff that's so-so: computer blue, baby i'm a star, and this is maybe his best album. And it sounds horrible because it was recorded live instead of, you know, properly, with a audio engineer in a studio.
Next was around the world in a day; now, you honestly want to tell me, you listen to stuff like America, The Ladder, or Condition of the Heart?
after purple rain he didn't do anything decent. parade is mediocre. sign of the times has 1 good song and the rest is just stuff thrown together. same for lovesexy which is even worse (i PAID for this album, waste of money).
maybe i look at it in a different way because as a musician, i know i too can crank out a shitton of songs if i only have a studio to myself. It really does not take that much to make music - write a couple riffs (even easier when you accept to use cheesy synth sounds that cut through the mix), fill your lyrics with "oh yeah", give it a polish and your'e done.
From a creative perspective, i can only compare prince to one modern phenomenon - boybands. He sounds EXACTLY like Nsync, Take That, Westlife, and the Backstreet Boys.
In case you have not deigned yourself to listen to the aforementioned, they sound pretty good - as long as you accept that the feeling is totally artificial.
Let's not forget that he peaked with Batdance, a 7 minute compilation of badly mixed samples, irregular beats, and prince saying "do it". Naer does music like that if you are into it.
Prince fell into the same mental trap that george lucas did; when you don't have to listen to your co-creators who tell you something is shit, you go all loopy and start living in "prince land" and think what you are doing is the bomb.
Don't get me wrong, there will always be people who follow you, either because they think you are on to something, or because maybe you struck a chord with them. I had a friend who still owes me $50 that was a music performance major in jazz and he loved prince, despite half the school making weird faces when he said it.
Prince's good stuff is in the past. 1999 and purple rain were defo inspired, but he himself did plenty to ridicule his position as a songwriter to the point where he can't be taken seriously anymore, and i say this just based on the music and not his "symbol" period or "the artist".
Prince was just very, very willing to pump out mediocre music. I'm not so sure i would not have done the same thing, and he's not the first artist to do so. Even my buddy Frank Black after six albums began churning out garbage, and now he's totally lost his mind, his albums are so bad they are impossible to listen to - AND YET he has a stronger following now than he did before. It's just the way things go, and how people behave.
I would not dare to compare him and say, Bowie, although they have a similar body of work. Bowie was into creating music, Prince was into delivering a product.
FYI the album he released for free through the daily mail newspaper, was so bad you could only give it away for free. (except My Guitar, which was nice) In turn he made a shitton of money with a sold out tour, so kudos to him for being such a professional businessman.
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