Wrldindstries302 ranks and reviews the top 100 Prince songs

[wrldindstries302]

I wrote this last year for another forum last year, but now with Prince's new 3-disc album coming next week, it will become obsolete. So since I put a lot of work into it, I figured I'd repost it here, roughly 20 a day leading up to the physical release of the new album. It's possible some of you may have read this already, so if you have, don't spoil it!

Anyway, Prince is one of my all-time favorite artists, and is truly one of the most talented musicians ever. I have over 1000 Prince tracks on my computer, but this list only includes songs from all of his studio albums, and some officially released b-sides;not unofficial releases or live recordings. Still, that means there were over 300 songs eligible for the list, and I found it very tough to narrow down the best of them. Even the songs towards the end of the list are excellent in my opinion. I should note that the reviews start out very short, but get longer as it goes on.

Hopefully there are more Prince fanatics on this board that would want to read this; if not, I'd highly recommend those unfamiliar with Prince to check out these songs!

Songs 100-71:

100. Live 4 Love (Diamonds & Pearls)

This is one of the few gems on an otherwise terrible album. One thing I should note is that I actually really like the rapper from the New Power Generation, Tony M. This song is driven by a cool hip hop beat, with two great guitar solos and nice verses from both Prince and Tony M.

99. Elephants & Flowers (Graffiti Bridge)

There’s not much to say about this one. This is from another one of Prince’s weak albums. It’s somewhat repetitive, but overall a good song

98. Lolita (3121)

A nice synth pop song from a great album, Lolita is somewhat of a throwback to classic Prince. I really like the beat, and also the hilariously stupid self censorship. (“A long time ago, we’d be the sh- uh-oh”)

97. Prettyman (Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic)

Although it was only a hidden track on the album, it easily outshines most of it. With a funky beat and some pretty funny self-deprecating lyrics, it’s a fun song on an album that seemed too concerned with following the trends of the mainstream at the time.

96. Chaos & Disorder (Chaos & Disorder)

Although Chaos & Disorder is often written off as a contractual obligation album, I think it’s a good, if not entirely original, album. This is a great straight up rock song, and I think there are too few of those in Prince’s discography.

95. Race (Come)

Come is another album that’s usually viewed as a contract-fulfiller, and it does have a lot of filler, but there are some great songs on it, like this one. Nothing mind-blowing about it, just a good bass line with mostly rapped lyrics and a nice horn part.

94. 1999 (1999)

Okay, I know you were thinking this would be way higher, but when it comes down to it, this just doesn’t stand out next to the rest of 1999 (my favorite Prince album). Maybe it’s because I’ve heard it too much, but it just doesn’t grab me like the rest of the album.

93. 7 (The Love Symbol Album)

This is a great single from another one of my favorite Prince albums. A simple pop song, with a good beat and cool vocals.

92. Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic (Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic)

This is a good throwback to 80s Prince, mainly because it was released over 10 years after it was originally written. The vocals are somewhat grating (the original version is much better in this department), but the music is great. Classic weird Prince

91. Planet Earth (Planet Earth)

This song almost plays like a mini Purple Rain, with gentle piano opening that eventually builds up to a great guitar solo. The lyrics are pretty cheesy, but those were never his strong point.

90. Pheromone (Come, 1994)

I’m not such a fan of the intro to this song, where Prince whispers creepy come ons into (I assume it’s supposed to be sexy…) over sounds of the ocean. Not that the rest of the song doesn’t have a creepy vibe to it, as it’s about Prince spying on a kinky sexual encounter. This song has a good beat to it, but what I really like about this one is the vocals, particularly in the chorus.

89. I Feel For You (Prince, 1979)

I find the majority of Prince’s pre-80s work to be pretty boring, but this is one of the exceptions. This song has disco-y rhythm to it, and a great synth melody. I’ve always thought the frankness of the lyrics were funny (“I wouldn’t lie to you baby, I’m physically attracted to you”). The vocals are very typical of early Prince, and while the instrumentation is good, it just doesn’t reach the highs of songs shortly after this time.

88. Family Name (The Rainbow Children, 2001)

When I started really getting into Prince, I put off getting The Rainbow Children for a long time because I’d heard it was really bad. True, the spoken word parts of the album take a little getting used to, but this is a concept album (albeit one about ridiculous religious beliefs). This song is somewhat hard to describe, but I think the best description would be “prog-funk”. It starts out with a computerized voice talking about minorities over some cool instrumentation, which leads into the main part of the song, which slowly builds into a hard rock closing/guitar solo, that, if it weren’t for Prince’s scream, could pass as part of a Mars Volta song. Overall, a great song.

87. Eye Hate U (The Gold Experience, 1995)

This is a courtroom drama slow-jam, with Prince putting his former lover on trial for breaking his heart. Though the idea of a love-hate relationship is overused in music, he manages to make this one not seem too silly with some clever lyrics. This song builds up from a quiet jam to a great, but way too short guitar solo, with great vocals throughout.

86. The Ride (Crystal Ball, 1998)

This is a blues-rock song, that I think makes it pretty clear that Prince is a Hendrix fan. There isn’t much in the way of lyrics to this one; it’s mainly an excuse for Prince to showcase his amazing guitar playing skills, which I definitely have no problem with.


85. Emancipation (Emancipation, 1996)

Emancipation (a three disc, three hour album) is considered by many to be loaded with filler, but I think the main problem with this album is that there it’s simply too consistently “good” and rarely “great”. Truly, there aren’t many songs on it I would consider bad. Emancipation is the closing track to the album, and is basically Prince declaring his freedom from his record label. It’s one of the funkiest tracks on the album, with good use of horns.

84. Thieves In The Temple (Graffiti Bridge, 1990)

This is one of Prince’s few top 10 hits since the 80s, which is a shame. One thing I like about this track is the variety of sounds incorporated into it. Despite the loud drum beat, and the angry layered vocals, it sounds vaguely Middle Eastern, and there are few songs in Prince’s catalogue that sound like this one. One thing I would’ve pointed out in this song is the solo, which I always thought was a distorted guitar solo, but I recently learned that it’s actually a sampled harmonica solo.

83. Girls & Boys (Parade, 1986)

Though I think Parade is easily Prince’s worst album of the 80s, there’s no denying that it has some fantastic songs. Girls and Boys is a pretty odd song, combining saxophone with a really weird sounding synth part, some French spoken word, and what is probably one of Prince’s first raps . It would be much higher on the list if it was half as long, as it really drags near the end.

82. Dirty Mind (Dirty Mind, 1980)

I felt pretty weird purchasing this album, and I’m sure that most people that have felt the same way. It was totally worth it, though, since Dirty Mind is the first truly great Prince album. Driven by a pulsing drum beat and a great keyboard riff, this track is an excellent opener to the album, and though it’s somewhat repetitive, it never gets boring.

81. Last December (The Rainbow Children, 2001)

This song goes through several sounds, starting out as a gentle pop ballad which leads into a gospel-like section. Then, it abruptly transforms into a hard rock song with a great guitar solo, which leads into a somewhat Middle-Eastern sounding instrumental section. Finally, it builds into a choir-like finish, and it’s a great end to the album. One problem I have with this song (though it didn’t affect the ranking) is how preachy it is (The chorus is “In the name of the Father / In the name of the Son / We need to come together / Come together as one”) but overall it’s a pretty epic sounding song.

80. I Wanna Be Your Lover (Prince, 1979)

Prince sure knows how to pick great opening tracks. This Is another great discoish song and it was his first big hit. The first half of the song is an excellent pop song, and while the second half is a little too long, it is a great funky instrumental.

79. Loose! (Come, 1994)

This song is somewhat technoish, but it really rocks. It’s the most upbeat song on Come, with some really cool synth along with two good guitar solos (introduced with “guitar solo”) The vocals are mostly shouted, but there isn’t too much on it, and they are probably the worst part of the song. This is one song that probably would be a lot better as just an instrumental.

78. Musicology (Musicology, 2004)

It’s a shame that Musicology was Prince’s “comeback” album, considering every album he released in the 00s was better. One of the few saving graces on an otherwise lackluster album, this is a great funk song that recalls Prince’s classic years while not sounding like a rehash.

77. The Morning Papers (The Love Symbol Album, 1992)

The Love Symbol Album has got to be Prince’s most underrated album. I see so many copies of it every time I go to the used CD store, and they’re usually $3 or less. This is an excellent pop rock song accented by a good horn part. The song has a great melody that builds up to a beautiful guitar solo that ends the song.

76. Get Yo Groove On (Emancipation, 1996)

The main reason this song is on this list is because I really like the sound of plucked orchestra instruments, though it also features great instrumentals, and is simply put, a great dance song. It manages to not feel too long, despite being almost 7 minutes.

75. Black Sweat (3121, 2006)

This is kind of a modern day Kiss. The minimalism of it is great, with most of the song consisting only of a drum beat and Prince singing, with a cool high pitched synth added in from time to time. Though, as I said, it’s very reminiscent of Kiss, it doesn’t sound like a retread at all, nor does it sound dated.

74. The One U Wanna C (Planet Earth, 2007)

This is a great straight up pop song that probably should’ve been released as a single. I really like the riff and bass line, but it does go on for a little too long (and from the sound of the end, it probably went on for longer). It does have some pretty stupid lyrics, but it’s very catchy and fun to sing along to.

73. Face Down (Emancipation, 1996)

This song is basically Prince doing gangsta rap diss track, with a great beat similar to the style of the early 90s, though it’s a bit more musical. It’s got some pretty funny parts (like the “orchestra”, and well, the idea of Prince doing a gangsta rap diss track), and one of Prince’s best raps (though that isn’t saying much).

72. Love 2 The 9’s (The Love Symbol Album, 1992)

Another great pop song from The Love Symbol Album, this song starts out as a nice, jazzy pop song, but it morphs into a hip hop song halfway through, with Prince forgoing the falsetto of the first half for primarily rapped verses, a good beat, and some cool scratches. Both halves are good, and it manages to

71. Billy Jack ***** (The Gold Experience, 1995)

Though I really like the riff in this song, this is another song that would have benefitted from being a little shorter. Musically, it’s excellent, with nice solos from the guitar and keyboard and funky horn outro, but there’s a lot of repetition in the lyrics (the word ***** is said at least 50 times throughout the course of the song.) Despite dragging a bit, it’s still an excellent song.

CONTINUED IN POST #9

[afterstasis]

i have only heard four or five prince albums, so i will be using this list to help me choose what to go after next.

[ardshipman]

Great start so far! Keep it coming!

[wrldindstries302]

i have only heard four or five prince albums, so i will be using this list to help me choose what to go after next.

I think the best 5 Prince albums are 1999, Sign O The Times, Dirty Mind, Gold Experience, and Love Symbol Album, so whichever of those you haven't heard, you should check out.

Also I updated the list with the next 10.

[HMXThrasher]

what? no love for the Purple Rain soundtrack?

[afterstasis]

I think the best 5 Prince albums are 1999, Sign O The Times, Dirty Mind, Gold Experience, and Love Symbol Album, so whichever of those you haven't heard, you should check out.

Also I updated the list with the next 10.

i've only heard parts of "gold experience" and "love symbol" so i'll look into those next.

[wrldindstries302]

what? no love for the Purple Rain soundtrack?

That's number six for me. It's got a lot of great songs, but I think as albums the other 5 work better.

In order, my top 10 is:

1. 1999
2. Sign O The Times
3. The Gold Experience
4. Dirty Mind
5. The Love Symbol Album
6. Purple Rain
7. The Black Album
8. Lovesexy
9. 3121
10. Controversy

[Soror_YZBL]

Nice list. I'd put 7 WAY up there, though. I feel it's easily one of the top 10 prince songs, and one of the few still on my frequently listened to tracks. I agree with 1999 though, it was great in 1983, but hasn't aged as well as the rest of the record.

If you think Girls and Boys is too long on Parade, you should hear some of the bootlegs. I heard a version that was around 15-20 minutes long, just a crazy funk jam. I can only imagine how amazing it would have been in concert.

[wrldindstries302]

It's okay when Girls And Boys runs long in live settings, because they do more with it, adding solos and such. On the record though, it's just repetitive.

Songs 70-41


70. The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (Sign ‘O’ The Times, 1987)

Much like most of Sign ‘O’ The Times, this is a pretty weird song. This tale of spending an evening with a waitress has no real melody or hook, and Prince’s singing varies a lot throughout the song. Another thing I should note is that Sign ‘O’ The Times is desperately in need of remastering. It sounds pretty minimal, but there’s a lot going on in the background, and I still hear new things each time I listen to it.

69. Fury (3121, 2006)

This is high-energy Hendrix-esque song, that has what I think has some of the best quitar playing Prince ever put on an album (the live show is on a whole other level) One thing I like about Prince’s music in general is that as good of a guitar player as he is, it’s rarely given precedence over everything else. However, it’s great to hear a song that focuses on the guitar every once in a while.

68. Anna Stesia (Lovesexy, 1988)

I love the build-up of this song. Starting with only simple piano chords in the beginning, it adds a basic drum beat and vocals, then a simple synth line, then some cool guitar licks. The emotional intensity of this song near the end, with gospel style repetition of “love is God, God is love, girls and boys love God above,” and some crazy guitar, is simply amazing.

67. Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad? (Prince, 1979)

Since Prince’s songs are so often cut short to fit on an album (for example, the released “extended version” of I Would Die 4 U is over ten minutes, but there’s also an unreleased version that’s over a half hour), there are a lot of songs where I wonder where they go after they fade out. This is one of those songs. It has a great keyboard melody and simple but effective guitar chords that make it an excellent pop song, but the ending is a guitar solo that fades out while it’s still going on, leaving me wonder what could have been next.

66. Irresistible ***** (1999 B-Side, 1982)

This is an odd dance song that was the b-side to Let’s Pretend We’re Married. Much of the song is just Prince talking over a funky bass line and drum beat, with the some synth, but it has enough interesting quirks to make it a great listen all the way through.


65. Sex ("the 80's are over and the time has come 4 monogamy and trust") (Scandalous Sex Suite EP, 1989)

I really like the songs where Prince speeds up his vocals, be it as Camille or otherwise. This is a pretty strange song, with a great repeated synth riff and drum beat. I was really surprised by how upbeat this song is when I first heard it. It’s the b-side to the almost 20 minute version of the incredibly slow and boring “scandalous” from the Batman album, and it was quite a pleasant surprise.

64. Starfish & Coffee (Sign ‘O’ The Times, 1987)

This 60s style pop song is another of example of how less can be more. It doesn’t have much more than 3 repeated piano chords with a drum beat, with tambourine added in the end. It has a great vocal melody, and is just overall a fun song.

63. Gold (The Gold Experience, 1996)

Sometimes called the Purple Rain of the 90s, this song is definitely ambitious, but it really doesn’t share much in common with it except for being a great album closer. It certainly is a good song, but it just doesn’t reach the emotional heights of Purple Rain and it’s much more straightforward pop-rock. The lyrics are pretty cheesy, but the layered vocals are cool. Of course, it’s not fair to compare this song to Purple Rain, and it definitely is a good song worthy of being on the list.

62. Crystal Ball (Crystal Ball, 1998)

This is a pretty ambitious 11 minute song originally recorded in 1986 and intended to be on the 3-LP Crystal Ball album that eventually became Sign ‘O’ The Times. I understand why it got cut, as it really wouldn’t have fit well with the other tracks on SOTT, but it truly is a great song. It builds up from a simple drum beat with some creepy ambient noise. It goes through several different movements featuring some great solos, and gets an almost sinister sound near the end with a string section that creeps in. Now that I think about it, arrangement-wise, this song has a lot in common with one of my favorite Bowie songs, Station To Station.

61. 1 + 1 + 1 Is 3 (The Rainbow Children, 2001)

Easily the funkiest song on The Rainbow Children, this song is somewhat of a modern day Erotic City. It’s a very danceable track that has Prince mostly singing about dancing, though it is apparently supposed to be a religious criticism of the idea of the Holy Trinity. I’ve heard a theory that this is a song he wrote in the 80s about a threesome rewritten to be about religion, and it seems possible, especially considering the ridiculous self-censorship (“we don’t give a duck what you got on”).

60. Guitar (Planet Earth, 2007)

The title of this song was somewhat of a misnomer when it was first released on Prince’s website—it featured very little guitar, save for a somewhat interesting solo in the middle. The song was a soft pop song, with an odd effect on the vocals. Luckily, for the album version, Prince fixed most of the problems with the song, turning it into an upbeat rocker with a good guitar solo, and removing the effect on the vocals.

59. Take Me With U (Purple Rain, 1984)

Ahh, the first Purple Rain song to make the list. This is a great pop song with a very laid-back feel to it. The melody is excellent, as is the string arrangement. Listening to this song reminds me of a summer afternoon.

58. Dolphin (The Gold Experience, 1995)

This is another great pop-rock song , that’s about Prince’s battle with his record label. It’s very upbeat, with some great guitar. It’s probably not on YouTube anymore, but there was a hilarious performance of this song on The Late Show in the 90s, where at the end of the song Prince put his hand to his head as though he was shooting himself, and he fell to the ground and left the stage by having one of the band members drag him off to the side.

57. East (N.E.W.S., 2003)

N.E.W.S is a very underrated instrumental jazz-funk album. This song is easily the best song on it, featuring great movements, from jazzy to hard rock to funk, that have excellent instrumental solos . My only problem with this song is that it reaches its peak too early in the song, and kind of just trails off at the end.

56. Positivity (Lovesexy, 1987)

This is a great closer to Lovesexy, with a pulsing drum machine beat that runs for most of the song. There’s great guitar playing throughout the song, though a lot of it is buried under the other sounds. The vocals are great, with some semi-rapping and and pretty dark sound for a song about positivity.

55. The Continental (The Love Symbol Album, 1992)

There are two parts to this song, with the first part being much better than the second part. The first half is upbeat and funky with a hard rock guitar riff, with some scratching and horns thrown in. Prince’s vocals are great throughout the song. The second half doesn’t have guitar, replacing it with a synth. Overall it’s a great song, though it ends pretty weakly, with Carmen Electra telling Prince how she’d like to be done.

54. Eye No (Lovesexy, 1987)

This song opens and closes with what sounds like people at a party, and indeed, it sounds like a great party song. It has a great funky synth riff, accented with horns, which makes you want to dance. I also really like Prince’s falsetto singing in this one.

53. D.M.S.R. (1999, 1982)

1999 is the only album from his early years where it doesn’t feel like he made any cuts to the songs so that they’d fit on a record (it was, after all, a double LP), and it benefits from that. If this song was on any other Prince album in the 80s, it probably would have been edited down to 4 minutes. I think that this song, at 8 minutes, is just the right length. It’s really funky with a lot going on, and it’s another song that you just want to dance to.

52. 319 (The Gold Experience, 1995)

I really like the contrast in this song. It has a really hard sounding guitar riff with loud drums, but really soft falsetto vocals, very similar to those in Kiss. It works really well together, and almost stops the listener from feeling creepy for listening to a song about Prince taking pictures of a woman touching herself.

51. Good Love (Crystal Ball, 1998)

This song is from the original 1986 Crystal Ball/Dream Factory sessions, and unfortunately it didn’t make the cut for Sign ‘O’ The Times. True, it’s not as good as similar high-pitched-vocals songs that are on it, but it certainly is better than the weaker tracks like “It” and “Hot Thing”. It’s got a great melody, and I love the effect on the vocals.

50. Delirious (1999, 1982)

I think that this song has the perfect music for a song called “delirious”. The main synth riff in this is just so weird sounding, so stupid (and I don’t mean that in a bad way), that it just has a delirious feeling. I really don’t think the music could fit any other subject. This song is very similar in structure to an earlier song, “Jack U Off” , though it’s an improvement in nearly every way. I love the sound of the synth, and the crazy way Prince sings. The drum beat is great too.

49. Head (Dirty Mind, 1982)

This keyboard part, that comes in every time something dirty is said, makes the song. It does have an excellent bass line, and a pretty cool drum beat, but without that keyboard, and the great solo that closes the song it wouldn’t be the classic it is. This, along with the song that comes next on Dirty Mind, “Sister” were probably the dirtiest songs Prince released in the 80s, and I find it strange that Darling Nikki was the song that caused the huge controversy, considering it really is tame next to a lot of his other work. Which leads me to…

48. Darling Nikki (Purple Rain, 1984)

I’m ashamed to admit that this is the first non-huge hit single Prince song I ever listened to, since I only listened to it because of the Foo Fighters cover. I really like the loud-quiet-loud dynamics in the song. The way that the each verse explodes into synth and guitar is great. As I said, this song is notorious for leading to the use of parental advisory stickers, though it was probably the popularity of the song, and not the content, that led to it. I mean, by 1984 there were a lot of worse songs content-wise out there, and I think Darling Nikki deserves to be remembered for the great music, and not the controversy it caused.

47. Paisley Park (Around The World In A Day, 1985)

Around The World In A Day must have been a huge shocker when it came out. Following up Purple Rain with an album that starts with such a foreign sounding song was gutsy, for sure, but Paisley Park wasn’t that much of a departure from Purple Rain. It’s a sunny mid-tempo pop song that consists mainly of a drum beat, vocals, and excellent guitar throughout. This song suffers from poor mixing, though. Although I said earlier that I like that Prince doesn’t use guitar as a crutch for bad melodies, I think that there were a lot of times when excellent guitar playing got buried under everything else, and this is one of those times.

46. F.U.N.K. (F.U.N.K. Single, 2007)

This was written in a few days, basically as a fan diss track, and is one of Prince’s best songs in years. It sounds like it came straight out of the 80s, and though it’s pretty funky, it’s more of a rock song with a funk flavor. The vocals are some of the most sped up Prince has ever done, which I like, and it has several great guitar solos. I kind of see this song as Prince proving he can still do what he used to (after backlash from recent albums) but that he really doesn’t feel like it. It’s an excellent song and shows promise for his next album (although it’s likely that the next album won’t have anything like this song)

45. 3121 (3121, 2006)

This is another song that has an 80s vibe to it, but it also sounds modern. I really like the layered vocals in this song, with nearly every line being sung by several Princes of varying vocal distortion. The accompanying music is just so… weird, I guess, and I think it’s great that even after 30 years of making music, he can still make songs that don’t really sound like anything else in his catalogue.

44. Strays Of The World (Crystal Ball, 1998)

It’s a shame this one never made any actual album; it could easily have fit on one of Prince’s mid 90’s albums (well, not Come, but definitely The Gold Experience) Most of the song is in a slow tempo, with a full band sound that switches between a hard rock sound and a slow-jam sound. It has several great solos, and builds up to a rocking ending

43. Anotherloverholenyohead (Parade, 1986)

Another one of Parade’s (too few) highlights, this song really benefits from the piano accent. It’s got a funky bass line, with great backing vocals. As far as 80s Prince songs go, it’s pretty straightforward pop. This song is proof that Prince should use piano in his music more often.

42. My Name Is Prince (The Love Symbol Album, 1992)

This was my introduction to non-80s Prince. It’s kind of like a combination of the two sounds that were big at the time, grunge and gangsta rap. The influences of rap on this song are obvious—mainly the repeated bass sound, the self-congratulatory lyrics, and the semi-rapped verses (plus the Tony M rap). But it also has a very alt rock flavor to it. Most of the vocals are shouted, and it has some hard rock guitar. Overall, it’s a very cool song.

41. Let’s Pretend We’re Married (1999, 1982)

A very upbeat and rhythmic song, this song doesn’t overstay its welcome despite being seven and a half minutes. The repeated synth and drum beat is a great base for the song, and there are a lot of great ideas over the course of the song. Plus, try finding a more badass lyric than “I’m not saying this just to be nasty, but I sincerely want to **** the taste out of your mouth.” You can’t do it.

CONTINUED IN POST #15

[Sayburr]

Very nice! Can't wait to read the rest... got "The War" in there somewhere?