“Right Back Here in My Arms” almost sounds like Dr. However, along with the usual jazz, psych, and rock diversions, it features a unusually strong lineup of catchy, lush R&B songs, especially on its first disc.Įmancipation, his first independently-released album, is more conventional than the better part of his catalogue in style, but propelled by the kind of razor-sharp songwriting and left-field arrangement details only he could have concocted. Emancipation is way too long - a 36-track triple album! - to be great. But in the ‘90s the godfather himself was finding ways to adopt the sleeker sounds of the decade (in their way, updates of his own ideas) into his musical vocabulary. Prince’s ‘80s music was one of the primary influences on the direction of 90s R&B and hip-hop - see, especially, the productions of former Time members Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for Janet Jackson. But it’s a watershed record for his career, and a logical first step for fans of “classic era” Prince into his sprawling body of work from the subsequent two decades. Diamonds and Pearls was the beginning of the end - or if you go off singles placement - the end for Prince’s era of commercial dominance. There’s plenty of uncharacterizable genre-hybrid stuff, too: “Willing And Able” is one of the weirdest/best Prince hip-hop forays, coming as it does over a Paul Simon-style, vaguely Latin chart, while jazzy “Strollin’” sounds a little like Prince doing Steely Dan at their smoothest. It wouldn’t be a Prince song without some totally unlikely touch like that. “Cream” is Prince’s last Top-10 single, and it is one of the anchors of this album, along with the title track and “Gettt Off”: iconic, hyper-sexual dirty “Darling Nikki” funk meets West Coast gangsta hip-hop - with heavy flute. The 1991 album was the first billed to his new band, “The New Power Generation,” who ended up being just as prolific as his iconic “The Revolution.” It’s also his first album to address hip-hop, and perhaps does the best job with it of any of them. One Nite Alone.Available via iTunes, TIDAL, Amazon, and Discogs Up All Nite With Prince (The One Nite Alone Collection) The Slaughterhouse: Trax From the NPG Music Club, Volume 2 Trax From the NPG Music Club, Volume One: The Chocolate Invasion One Nite Alone… Solo Piano and Voice by Prince

Prince complete discography